.

Legend has it that Boris Pasternak's name used to appear on death lists prepared by the NKVD and later the KGB and presented to Stalin for signature. On every occasion, clearly, Stalin crossed the name off because Boris Pasternak was a personal friend.

The film is often shown on TV at Christmas for the prosaic reason that it is a love story with a lot of snow!

However it also shows Zhivago's disillusionment with the Russian Revolution as the idealism of Sterlnikov(Tom Courtenay) (a veiled portrait of the unmentionable Leon Trotsky) gives way to the cynicism of Komarovsky (Rod Steiger) who seduced Lara (Julie Christie) after a long exploitative relationship with her mother.

The brilliant performance of Omar Sharif as Zhivago and the powerful musical score (Maurice Jarre) contributed to the lasting appeal of the film.

Zhivago 's behaviour, according to the mores of the time, was quite disgraceful: abandoning his wife in order to steal the wife of another man but you can get away with that sort of thing if you look like Omar Sharif!

Trotsky - Marxists do not have heroes. Trotsky is remembered more for his ideas than for his heroism. The reason for this is simple. Apologists for Stalin (or for capitalism) can easily attack personalities and waste their time in doing so. This is the Vinnie Jones school of politics - "if you can't get the ball get the bloke". In fact of course such references are irrelevant. If you could "prove" flaws in Einstein's personality would that "disprove" the theory of relativity?

The film actually contains one of the posters, which were commonplace in Russia at the time of the revolution, showing Lenin and Trotsky. That is one reason why this film was not shot in Stalinist Russia but in fascist Spain. As a result they had enormous difficulty getting the extras to sing revolutionary songs as the Spanish equivalent of the KGB were on the set watching and listening.

Here are some alternative reviews of Dr Zhivago

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1995/04/973646.html

http://www.mgm.com/mgmhv/zhivago.html

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/pasternak291-des-.html