Doctor Zhivago (TV serial)
Encyclopedia
Doctor Zhivago is a 2002 British television serial
directed by Giacomo Campiotti and starring Keira Knightley
and Sam Neill
. The teleplay by Andrew Davies
is based on the 1957 novel of the same title
by Boris Pasternak
.
The serial is the second English-language screen adaptation of the book, following the 1965 feature film. It was produced by Granada Television
, with co-funding from the American
PBS
station WGBH Boston
and the German
company Evision. It was first broadcast on ITV
in the United Kingdom, beginning on 24 November 2002. In the United States, it aired as part of Masterpiece Theatre
on 2 and 9 November 2003.
in the early 1900s and is set primarily against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution of 1917
and the subsequent Russian Civil War
of 1918–1921. At its core is Larissa Guishar Antipova, a young woman from Moscow
who has a profound effect on three men who become enamored with her.
Victor Komarovsky, an unctuous, wealthy businessman with political connections, is involved in a casual affair with Lara's bourgeois dressmaker mother Amalia, who encourages her teenaged daughter to accept his invitation to dinner in an attempt to retain his financial support of her household. Initially Lara is repelled by the thought, but she finally accepts and eventually uses her sexual power to seduce and ultimately control him.
Idealistic student Pasha Antipov marries Lara, and the two have a child. It is assumed he is killed in World War I
, but he embraces Bolshevism
and later emerges as Strelnikov, an infamous Red Army
general who seemingly has no concern for his family.
The title character is poet and doctor Yuri Zhivago, who first sees Lara from the window of a café. The two meet when he and his mentor are called to minister to Amalia after she attempts suicide in response to her daughter's relationship with Victor Komarovsky, and encounter each other again when Lara tries to shoot Komarovsky at a Christmas party. Zhivago eventually marries his cousin, Tonya Gromeko, with whom he was raised after his father, who was involved in shady business dealings with Komarovsky, killed himself. He and Lara are reunited in a makeshift field hospital, where she is serving as a nurse while searching for her missing husband. The two fall in love but do not consummate their relationship until after the war, when Zhivago and his family move to his uncle's family estate near Yuryatin, a remote village in the Ural Mountains
where Lara is living with her daughter.
Zhivago is captured by red partisan fighters who need him to be their medic. Lara is called to serve as the midwife when Tonya is ready to deliver her second child, and Tonya realizes who she is. When it becomes clear they are fighting a lost cause, Zhivago abandons the red partisans and treks across the mountains to Lara's house, where she nurses him back to health. Meanwhile, Tonya, her children, and her father have returned to Moscow. Pursued by Komarovsky, now a leader in the Communist party
, Zhivago, Lara and her daughter flee to Varykino. Months later Komarovsky, still obsessed with Lara, arrives and offers them safe passage out of Russia. They initially refuse, but Komarovsky persuades Zhivago it is in Lara's best interests to leave because of her connection to Strelnikov, who has fallen from grace and lost his position in the Red Army. Zhivago convinces Lara, who is expecting their child, to leave with Komarovsky, telling her he will follow her shortly.
Strelnikov, now a hunted man, arrives at Varykino in search of his family soon after they leave with Komarovsky. Zhivago assures him Lara and his daughter are safe, and Strelnikov kills himself.
Zhivago returns to Moscow and learns his wife, son, and father-in-law were removed from their home and their location is unknown. Several years later, while sitting in a café, he sees a young boy who reminds him of himself as a child passing on the street with his mother, who he realizes is Lara. Before he can reach the pair, he suffers a fatal heart attack. Lara brings young Yuri to view his father's body, and as the two near their home, she realizes that Stalin's NKVD
is waiting to place her under arrest. Pretending they're playing a game, she urges her son to run away as quickly as he can before she surrenders to the authorities.
is the king of epic screenplay writers in my book. But as I got further into the book I kept thinking that I didn't agree with Robert Bolt about how to tell the story... and I began to feel much more excited." He added, "It was also a relief to find so much in the book that hadn't found its way into the first movie and could make great drama... I thought the film does the spectacle really well. Rather surprisingly, it also explains the politics very well, but I thought it could do a better job on the relationships. It's probably a bit controversial, but I thought we could say more about Lara and Yuri and how they get together; about Lara's extraordinary situation at the beginning of the story and Yuri having a dreadful start to his life with his parents dying. None of these things really came out in the movie, but they are there in the book. I think that if they look at both versions now, people will probably think that this version in a lot of ways works better for our time. It's more contemporary. I think they'll find the performances are more subtle yet speak to us in our time. Maybe my script will seem out of date in 20 years time because a lot of them do, but watching the original film, I think the central performances look stilted and dated now."
Initially Davies and director Giacomo Campiotti clashed about how to present the material. Davies recalled, "The first couple of weeks after Giacomo joined this project were horrendous for me because Zhivago has always been one of his very favorite books. He has always dreamed about filming it and has his own interpretation in his head. I can actually remember thinking after one long, long day, where we just didn't agree about a single thing, that it wasn't going to work—it's either got to be him or me. Somehow, we arrived at a compromise and I have almost forgotten what we were arguing about now, as now we are both very pleased with the script. I always knew that he would make it look beautiful because he has got a poet's vision and now, having seen the rushes and some cut footage, I feel like he is my favourite director of all time. Everything is delightful now... Giacomo Campiotti's direction makes it extraordinary."
Because so much of the story is set in the winter, it was crucial to film the series where it was likely snow would be available. Due to budget constraints, Russia, Norway, and Finland were deemed too expensive. Alberta
, Canada
was considered until the producers learned the previous year's snowfall had been minimal. Other Canadian provinces were rejected because the production crew was told it would be too cold to operate the needed equipment. Slovakia
, where a 95% chance of snow was predicted, was selected for the March filming, and there was a blizzard two days before shooting began. But it quickly melted, and eventually the scenic designers had to utilize 1000 bags of artificial snow. Producer Hugh Warren recalled, "We had all the expense of going to Slovakia as well as the trouble of crossing the border, and then there was no snow. It was more than a little ironic."
Costume design
er Annie Symons and her staff of thirty had to create more than 3000 costumes and 35,000 individual items of clothing for the cast. The characters of Zhivago and Lara each had at least 90 costume combinations, and six other principal characters had an average of fifteen changes each. By the time principal photography ended, a total of 984 yards of fabric, 300,000 yards of thread, 1 million buttons, and 7,000 safety pins were used.
's grander, glossier version was a closer match to the romantic spirit of the novel's hero . . . The Davies version is engrossing but more for the harrowing scenes set in the civil war after the revolution than for the novel's legendary love triangle. Black-and-white archival photographs - Moscow slums, newspaper shots of soldiers marching off to World War I - are interspersed throughout the film and slowly bleed into a scene of the television show. The visual trick gives the series a quasi-documentary feel and is quite effective. Yet Mr. Davies takes the same liberties with Pasternak's text as the original film did, focusing on the love story and discarding a lot of the politics, secondary plots and literary sidetracks . . . This Doctor Zhivago can be watched as a useful history lesson and as a cautionary show business tale: it is a lot easier to adapt a Jane Austen
novel than it is to remake a film by David Lean."
Brian Lowry of Variety
observed, "Some will rightfully pine for Maurice Jarre
's Oscar
-winning score, Julie Christie
and Omar Sharif
, yet this somewhat less epic take on Boris Pasternak's book is a creditable version, featuring outstanding performances and considerable romance. And hey, kids, it sure beats reading the Cliffs Notes."
Tom Jicha of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel called it "a stunning success" and continued, "Davies' screenplay is involving, the cinematography is captivating, the costuming and set designs evoke a sense of time and place, and the top-of-the-marquee performances are world-class." He concluded, "Doctor Zhivago is a hefty production, which demands a four-hour, commercial-free commitment from its audience. But the reward is a richly layered character study and love story, worthy of the franchise under which it airs."
Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
graded the series B+ and commented it "manages to maintain true to the main story line, streamlining incidental characters to keep the film from becoming too unwieldy, which takes some effort considering the book's rich language and numerous characters . . . Even so, this version, though a little better paced than the original, is still fairly sluggish. Given the book, perhaps that's unavoidable."
but lost to Shackleton. Giacomo Campiotti was nominated Best New Director and Annie Symons was nominated for Best Costume Design.
In the US, the serial was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Miniseries
but lost to Angels in America.
format with an English audio track and subtitles. Bonus features include extensive interviews with the cast and crew, a photo gallery, a biography of Boris Pasternak, and cast filmographies.
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
directed by Giacomo Campiotti and starring Keira Knightley
Keira Knightley
Keira Christina Knightley born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham...
and Sam Neill
Sam Neill
Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
. The teleplay by Andrew Davies
Andrew Davies (writer)
Andrew Wynford Davies is a British author and screenwriter. He was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 2002.-Education and early career:...
is based on the 1957 novel of the same title
Doctor Zhivago
-Original creation:*Doctor Zhivago, by Boris Pasternak, published in 1957**Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago, a fictional character and the main protagonist of the book Doctor Zhivago-Adaptations:There are several adaptations based on the Doctor Zhivago book:...
by Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
.
The serial is the second English-language screen adaptation of the book, following the 1965 feature film. It was produced by Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
, with co-funding from the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
station WGBH Boston
WGBH-TV
WGBH-TV, channel 2, is a non-commercial educational public television station located in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. WGBH-TV is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service , and produces more than two-thirds of PBS's national prime time television programming...
and the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
company Evision. It was first broadcast on ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
in the United Kingdom, beginning on 24 November 2002. In the United States, it aired as part of Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service on January 10, 1971, making it America's longest-running weekly prime time drama series. The series has presented numerous acclaimed British productions...
on 2 and 9 November 2003.
Plot
The story begins in Tsarist RussiaRussian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
in the early 1900s and is set primarily against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
and the subsequent Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
of 1918–1921. At its core is Larissa Guishar Antipova, a young woman from Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
who has a profound effect on three men who become enamored with her.
Victor Komarovsky, an unctuous, wealthy businessman with political connections, is involved in a casual affair with Lara's bourgeois dressmaker mother Amalia, who encourages her teenaged daughter to accept his invitation to dinner in an attempt to retain his financial support of her household. Initially Lara is repelled by the thought, but she finally accepts and eventually uses her sexual power to seduce and ultimately control him.
Idealistic student Pasha Antipov marries Lara, and the two have a child. It is assumed he is killed in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, but he embraces Bolshevism
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
and later emerges as Strelnikov, an infamous Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
general who seemingly has no concern for his family.
The title character is poet and doctor Yuri Zhivago, who first sees Lara from the window of a café. The two meet when he and his mentor are called to minister to Amalia after she attempts suicide in response to her daughter's relationship with Victor Komarovsky, and encounter each other again when Lara tries to shoot Komarovsky at a Christmas party. Zhivago eventually marries his cousin, Tonya Gromeko, with whom he was raised after his father, who was involved in shady business dealings with Komarovsky, killed himself. He and Lara are reunited in a makeshift field hospital, where she is serving as a nurse while searching for her missing husband. The two fall in love but do not consummate their relationship until after the war, when Zhivago and his family move to his uncle's family estate near Yuryatin, a remote village in the Ural Mountains
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...
where Lara is living with her daughter.
Zhivago is captured by red partisan fighters who need him to be their medic. Lara is called to serve as the midwife when Tonya is ready to deliver her second child, and Tonya realizes who she is. When it becomes clear they are fighting a lost cause, Zhivago abandons the red partisans and treks across the mountains to Lara's house, where she nurses him back to health. Meanwhile, Tonya, her children, and her father have returned to Moscow. Pursued by Komarovsky, now a leader in the Communist party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
, Zhivago, Lara and her daughter flee to Varykino. Months later Komarovsky, still obsessed with Lara, arrives and offers them safe passage out of Russia. They initially refuse, but Komarovsky persuades Zhivago it is in Lara's best interests to leave because of her connection to Strelnikov, who has fallen from grace and lost his position in the Red Army. Zhivago convinces Lara, who is expecting their child, to leave with Komarovsky, telling her he will follow her shortly.
Strelnikov, now a hunted man, arrives at Varykino in search of his family soon after they leave with Komarovsky. Zhivago assures him Lara and his daughter are safe, and Strelnikov kills himself.
Zhivago returns to Moscow and learns his wife, son, and father-in-law were removed from their home and their location is unknown. Several years later, while sitting in a café, he sees a young boy who reminds him of himself as a child passing on the street with his mother, who he realizes is Lara. Before he can reach the pair, he suffers a fatal heart attack. Lara brings young Yuri to view his father's body, and as the two near their home, she realizes that Stalin's NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
is waiting to place her under arrest. Pretending they're playing a game, she urges her son to run away as quickly as he can before she surrenders to the authorities.
Cast
- Hans MathesonHans MathesonHans Matheson is a British actor.-Life and career:Matheson was born in Stornoway, Scotland, the son of Sheena, a therapist, and Iain , a folk musician and painter. He made his feature film debut as Johnny Silver in Jez Butterworth's critically acclaimed directorial debut, Mojo...
..... Yuri Zhivago - Keira KnightleyKeira KnightleyKeira Christina Knightley born 26 March 1985) is an English actress and model. She began acting as a child and came to international notice in 2002 after co-starring in the film Bend It Like Beckham...
..... Lara Guishar Antipova - Sam NeillSam NeillNigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
..... Victor Komarovsky - Kris MarshallKris MarshallKristopher "Kris" Marshall is an English actor, best known for his role as Nick Harper in My Family, and as Adam in the adverts for BT Group since 2005.-Career:...
..... Pasha Antipov/Strelnikov - Alexandra Maria LaraAlexandra Maria LaraAlexandra Maria Lara is a Romanian-born German actress. She performs predominantly in leading roles in a variety of historical and crime films...
..... Tonya Gromeko Zhivago - Bill Paterson ..... Alexander Gromeko
- Celia ImrieCelia ImrieCelia Diana Savile Imrie is an English actress. In a career starting in the early 1970s, Imrie has played Marianne Bellshade in Bergerac, Philippa Moorcroft in Dinnerladies, Miss Babs in Acorn Antiques, Diana Neal in After You've Gone and Gloria Millington in Kingdom...
..... Anna Gromeko - Anne-Marie DuffAnne-Marie DuffAnne-Marie Duff is an English actress best known for playing Fiona Gallagher in Shameless, and Elizabeth I in The Virgin Queen.-Early life:...
..... Olya Demina - Maryam d'AboMaryam d'AboMaryam d'Abo is an English film and television actress, best known as Bond girl Kara Milovy in the 1987 James Bond film The Living Daylights.-Early life:...
..... Amalia Guishar - Hugh BonnevilleHugh BonnevilleHugh Richard Bonneville Williams, known professionally as Hugh Bonneville , is an English stage, film, television and radio actor.-Education:...
..... Yevgraf Zhivago - Gregg SulkinGregg SulkinGregg Sulkin is an English actor. He made his film debut in the 2006 British release Sixty Six, and subsequently became known for appearing in the Disney comedy series As the Bell Rings and Wizards of Waverly Place. In 2010, he starred in the television movie Avalon High.-Life and career:Sulkin...
..... Sasha
Production
In discussing adapting the Boris Pasternak novel for television, screenwriter Andrew Davies revealed the task was "daunting because the book is reckoned to be a masterpiece and the film is a great movie and one that I admire very much. Robert BoltRobert Bolt
Robert Oxton Bolt, CBE was an English playwright and a two-time Oscar winning screenwriter.-Career:He was born in Sale, Cheshire. At Manchester Grammar School his affinity for Sir Thomas More first developed. He attended the University of Manchester, and, after war service, the University of...
is the king of epic screenplay writers in my book. But as I got further into the book I kept thinking that I didn't agree with Robert Bolt about how to tell the story... and I began to feel much more excited." He added, "It was also a relief to find so much in the book that hadn't found its way into the first movie and could make great drama... I thought the film does the spectacle really well. Rather surprisingly, it also explains the politics very well, but I thought it could do a better job on the relationships. It's probably a bit controversial, but I thought we could say more about Lara and Yuri and how they get together; about Lara's extraordinary situation at the beginning of the story and Yuri having a dreadful start to his life with his parents dying. None of these things really came out in the movie, but they are there in the book. I think that if they look at both versions now, people will probably think that this version in a lot of ways works better for our time. It's more contemporary. I think they'll find the performances are more subtle yet speak to us in our time. Maybe my script will seem out of date in 20 years time because a lot of them do, but watching the original film, I think the central performances look stilted and dated now."
Initially Davies and director Giacomo Campiotti clashed about how to present the material. Davies recalled, "The first couple of weeks after Giacomo joined this project were horrendous for me because Zhivago has always been one of his very favorite books. He has always dreamed about filming it and has his own interpretation in his head. I can actually remember thinking after one long, long day, where we just didn't agree about a single thing, that it wasn't going to work—it's either got to be him or me. Somehow, we arrived at a compromise and I have almost forgotten what we were arguing about now, as now we are both very pleased with the script. I always knew that he would make it look beautiful because he has got a poet's vision and now, having seen the rushes and some cut footage, I feel like he is my favourite director of all time. Everything is delightful now... Giacomo Campiotti's direction makes it extraordinary."
Because so much of the story is set in the winter, it was crucial to film the series where it was likely snow would be available. Due to budget constraints, Russia, Norway, and Finland were deemed too expensive. Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
was considered until the producers learned the previous year's snowfall had been minimal. Other Canadian provinces were rejected because the production crew was told it would be too cold to operate the needed equipment. Slovakia
Slovakia
The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, where a 95% chance of snow was predicted, was selected for the March filming, and there was a blizzard two days before shooting began. But it quickly melted, and eventually the scenic designers had to utilize 1000 bags of artificial snow. Producer Hugh Warren recalled, "We had all the expense of going to Slovakia as well as the trouble of crossing the border, and then there was no snow. It was more than a little ironic."
Costume design
Costume design
Costume design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such...
er Annie Symons and her staff of thirty had to create more than 3000 costumes and 35,000 individual items of clothing for the cast. The characters of Zhivago and Lara each had at least 90 costume combinations, and six other principal characters had an average of fifteen changes each. By the time principal photography ended, a total of 984 yards of fabric, 300,000 yards of thread, 1 million buttons, and 7,000 safety pins were used.
Critical reception
Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times said, "By trying so hard for authenticity, this Doctor Zhivago drains the story of much of its lyricism . . . Mr. LeanDavid Lean
Sir David Lean CBE was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best remembered for big-screen epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai , Lawrence of Arabia ,...
's grander, glossier version was a closer match to the romantic spirit of the novel's hero . . . The Davies version is engrossing but more for the harrowing scenes set in the civil war after the revolution than for the novel's legendary love triangle. Black-and-white archival photographs - Moscow slums, newspaper shots of soldiers marching off to World War I - are interspersed throughout the film and slowly bleed into a scene of the television show. The visual trick gives the series a quasi-documentary feel and is quite effective. Yet Mr. Davies takes the same liberties with Pasternak's text as the original film did, focusing on the love story and discarding a lot of the politics, secondary plots and literary sidetracks . . . This Doctor Zhivago can be watched as a useful history lesson and as a cautionary show business tale: it is a lot easier to adapt a Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
novel than it is to remake a film by David Lean."
Brian Lowry of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
observed, "Some will rightfully pine for Maurice Jarre
Maurice Jarre
Maurice-Alexis Jarre was a French composer and conductor.Although he composed several concert works, he is best known for his film scores, and is particularly known for his collaborations with film director David Lean. Jarre composed the scores to all of Lean's films since Lawrence of Arabia...
's Oscar
Academy Award for Best Original Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
-winning score, Julie Christie
Julie Christie
Julie Frances Christie is a British actress. Born in British India to English parents, at the age of six Christie moved to England, where she attended boarding school....
and Omar Sharif
Omar Sharif
Omar Sharif is an Egyptian actor who has starred in Hollywood films including Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Funny Girl. He has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won two Golden Globe Awards.-Early life:...
, yet this somewhat less epic take on Boris Pasternak's book is a creditable version, featuring outstanding performances and considerable romance. And hey, kids, it sure beats reading the Cliffs Notes."
Tom Jicha of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel called it "a stunning success" and continued, "Davies' screenplay is involving, the cinematography is captivating, the costuming and set designs evoke a sense of time and place, and the top-of-the-marquee performances are world-class." He concluded, "Doctor Zhivago is a hefty production, which demands a four-hour, commercial-free commitment from its audience. But the reward is a richly layered character study and love story, worthy of the franchise under which it airs."
Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
graded the series B+ and commented it "manages to maintain true to the main story line, streamlining incidental characters to keep the film from becoming too unwieldy, which takes some effort considering the book's rich language and numerous characters . . . Even so, this version, though a little better paced than the original, is still fairly sluggish. Given the book, perhaps that's unavoidable."
Awards and nominations
In the UK, the serial was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Drama SerialBritish Academy Television Awards 2003
The 2003 British Academy Television Awards were held on Sunday 13 April at the Dorchester Hotel in London. The ceremony was hosted by television presenter Davina McCall.-Winners:*Best Actor**Winner: Albert Finney — The Gathering Storm...
but lost to Shackleton. Giacomo Campiotti was nominated Best New Director and Annie Symons was nominated for Best Costume Design.
In the US, the serial was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Miniseries
Satellite Award for Best Miniseries
The Satellite Award for Best Miniseries is one of the annual Satellite Awards given by the International Press Academy.- 1990s :- 2000s : 2000: American Tragedy*The Corner*The Beach Boys: An American Family*Jason and the Argonauts...
but lost to Angels in America.
DVD release
Acorn Media released a Region 1 DVD on November 4, 2003. It is in anamorphic widescreenAnamorphic widescreen
Anamorphic widescreen, when applied to DVD manufacture, is a video process that horizontally squeezes a widescreen image so that it can be stored in a standard 4:3 aspect ratio DVD image frame. Compatible playback equipment can then re-expand the horizontal dimension to show the original widescreen...
format with an English audio track and subtitles. Bonus features include extensive interviews with the cast and crew, a photo gallery, a biography of Boris Pasternak, and cast filmographies.