I must confess that I am rather loath to replace my entire DVD collection with Blu-ray, unless it can be clearly demonstrated that the improvement in the transfer makes it worth the cost. I figured that David Lean’s “Doctor Zhivago” would be one of those titles worth the price of admission, which was indeed the case.
Most people consider this film as a perhaps over-long romantic journey amongst the backdrop of political upheaval, and one can easily forget the point of Boris Pasternak’s source novel, which concerned the “triumph” of the individual, not a concept that the Russians are particularly noted for. If one chooses to examine the film from this perspective, it can be deduced that despite the dangers of nonconformity, all of the main characters in the story do to some extent retain their individuality, including the “ villains.” While Yuri Zhivago never openly questions the New World Order in Russia that has changed his status from upper-class patrician to mere proletariat—at worst, he merely makes sardonic observations concerning party propaganda (“No, it’s not typhus. It’s something else we don’t have in Moscow—starvation”)—he clings to the naïve belief that “feelings, insights and affections” are compatible in a political system that demands unquestioned compliance. It is the recipe for inevitable tragedy.
Perhaps the most over-looked aspect of the story is the fact that the characters in “Doctor Zhivago” have as many vices as virtues, and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the two. This is made clear by the dynamic between Zhivago and Komarovsky. Although on the surface their personal character seem to be in opposition, neither Zhivago and Komarovsky govern their lives by high-minded principles or a political ideology, but by purely secular humanist considerations. Zhivago is “discrete” with the “villain” Komarovsky because he knows, deep down, that discretion is a not only a “virtue,” but serves as a cover for his own moral laxity; after all, despite having a devoted wife, Zhivago becomes “discretely” involved in an adulterous relationship with Lara Antipova—who is herself engaging in adultery, although for more understandable reasons. She is a tragic figure, which, we may presume, is what draws Zhivago and his poetic art to her.
Zhivago and Lara are clearly guilty of hypocrisy when they have the audacity to pass judgment on Komarovsky, who unlike them has no illusions or romantic notions about the world he lives in. They wish to live in fantasy world untouched by the vicissitudes of life. But Komarovsky won’t be a party to is fantasy; he, more than Zhivago and Lara, knows how to survive and keep his individuality. Despite his moral bankruptcy and cynical opportunism, Komarovsky yet retains enough humanity in himself to overlook the contempt that Zhivago and Lara feel for him to imperil his own position by protecting them when their lives are in imminent peril. Zhivago’s “delicacy” is in the end not “exorbitant” enough to sacrifice the life of Lara and her child, but he himself cannot in the end bring himself to accept the fact that he and Komarovsky have anything in common. This lack of self-examination explains why with a brother who has the power to get him out of the country to be reunited with his wife and children, Zhivago can only think of his continuing what in reality is the greatest stain on his life, for which he not only sacrifices his chance to practice his precious individuality in freedom, but his life as well.
This is just my understanding of the core dilemma of the story. Life is not black and white, but many shades of gray.
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