Talk:Doctor Zhivago (film)/Archive 1

First comments
Haven't seen the movie in a long time, but I recall it is very significantly unfaithful to the novel. Hopefully someone can fill this in, or when I'm back from wikivacation I'll work on it.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chinasaur  (talk • contribs)  06:53, 11 October 2004 (UTC)

This entry should really be split into at least two pages: one for the novel, and the other for the movie version ... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Palimpsester   (talk • contribs)  05:24, 24 June 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation?
Why does a search for "Doctor Zhivago" take you straight to the movie, rather than to a disambiguation page with links to the novel and the movie? In my opinion, were it to go directly to either article it should be the novel, as this predates the film. -- Saluton 15th April 2006
 * Imho this page should go to the novel... it was there first and is better known. --62.251.90.73 16:11, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The Lord of the Rings takes you straight to the novel, since the series was first a literary work, not the films &mdash; as is the case with Doctor Zhivago.  Since there seems to be a general agreement, I'm going to go ahead and fix this up. — Mir   l   e   n   19:28, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed #2. The default should be the novel. Robert K S 01:50, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Technical Informations
I am missing technical informations about the film. As far as I know, it is a widescreen film. Does anybody know anything about the format and method? --Stilfehler 15:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Spelling of Živago
The actual transcription from Russian should be Doctor Živago. Zh is a transcription used when Ž is not available, which was the case when Wikipedia used only Latin-1 article titles. Now UTF-8 can be used. Anyone with arguments against moving to Doctor Živago? Of course the Zh-spelling should be mentioned as it is quite common in English.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Orzetto  (talk • contribs)  11:52, 6 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The book was translated into English as Doctor Zhivago and that was the movie title. Thus, the article should continue to use the spelling "Zhivago"; to do otherwise, would be pedantic and unhelpful to the audience of this article. (However, if it's that important to enough people, the article could list Živago as a phonetic spelling.) It's the same thing with spellings of Russian composers, cities, etc. that have historically become known by a certain English transcription. My two kopecks. By the way, there is more than one transcription system around for Cyrillic or even Russian, for that matter. For example, Russian passports use Francophone transcription of Russian names. --Aquarius rising 03:25, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, the Russian transliteration of Doctor Zhivago is completely incorrect. Most of those letters aren't even in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. They are most likely Serbian or some other form of Cyrillic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.251.199.178  (talk • contribs) 07:18, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I noticed this also. The page source shows the correct characters. I'm still trying to figure out what is going wrong with the rendering. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to chime in. I'm nowhere near being a wikiexpert. -- Gwross (talk) 17:30, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Update: The text in question renders correctly on another of my computers. -- Gwross (talk) 17:57, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Strelnikov and Trotsky
Strelnikov clearly resembles Trotsky, not Dzerzhinsky, in the book. Military command; armored train; ruthlessness; suspected by the Bolsheviks for not being one of them (Trotsky was a "converted" Menshevik). None of these (except the ruthlessness) fits Dzerzhinsky. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.245.182.173 (talk) 15:14, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Balalaika case
"Yevgraf notes that the girl has a balalaika on her back (although the instrument is in a case)." In the film, when Tonya leaves Yevgrav, we hear the balalaika's strings as she slings it across her shoulder. It's not in a case at all! 68Kustom (talk) 22:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Temporal Discrepancy
It is strongly implied - by, for instance, Yevgraf's reference ("that was quite common in those days") to Lara's probable deportation to a labour camp - that the framing narrative takes place in rather more relaxed, post-Stalinist times. Yet for this to be true, "The Girl" would have to be well into her thirties at the very least. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.226.95 (talk) 13:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - now see that similar point has already been made. One still wonders why nobody working on the film seems to have noticed! Perhaps the need for a happy ending (of sorts) took precedence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.226.95 (talk) 15:08, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Based 'Loosely' On the novel..
The opening phrase of this article says that the movie is based loosely on the novel. 'O Brother Where Art Thou' is based loosely on the Odyssey. Thought there might be deviation, this movie is based on the novel just as the Lord of the Rings is based on the novel. There doesn't seem to be too much loose about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.234.181.136 (talk) 11:36, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

American?
I've seen the movie at least a dozen and a half times, including at the time of its original release, and as an American I don't know that I'd charcaterise it as an "American" film. However, please keep in mind that the film was released during the height of the Cold War, reportedly very much to the dismay of the Soviets, and since the Cold War was perceived to be primarily an American-Soviet confrontation it could be viewed as an American propaganda tool. I don't subscribe to that thinking, but there were people who thought that way at the time of its release. As for Americans "annexing" this movie, I'm not sure how you can turn an incorrect categorisation, probably by one person, into a blanket statement covering all Americans and bringing up Latin America to boot. My only response to that would be a vague reference to the history of the British empire and that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.Wally From Columbia (NJ) (talk) 13:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

This movie's screenplay was written by Robert Bolt, a British writer. The movie was directed by David Lean, also of the UK. It was produced by Carlo Ponti and stars Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, and Alec Guiness amongst others. The cinematography was by Freddie Young and Nicolas Roeg, both Brits and members of the BSC. Precisely what is 'American' about this movie? Did you just sort of annex it like you do with all those Latin American countries? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.227.114.140 (talk • contribs) — Preceding undated comment added 09:36, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The studio, the money? --JD554 (talk) 07:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The director, the scenarist, the cinematographers, and most of the actors are British (there is only one American actor), the producer is Italian, the composer is French, the movie was shot in Spain and takes place in Russia. There is nothing American in this movie. I'm deleting the word "American" until someone gives any reason for it to stay. Vanjagenije (talk) 23:12, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with User Vanjagenije.--Moitraanak (talk) 20:49, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The film's nationality is listed as American on IMDb. In the industry, a film's nationality is determined "officially" by the production companies.  Dr. Zhivago was produced by MGM, an American company. BarqSimpson (talk) 19:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Location
The second paragraph under "Production", dealing with shooting locations is incoherent as currently written, and gives essentially no reliable citations. This: "Some of the winter sequences were filmed in Spain, Finland, mostly landscape scenes, and Yuri's escape from the Partisans.", for example, is not a proper English sentence, and I can't figure out what it's trying to say. Some train scenes were filmed in Canada, but all trains were Spanish (we're even given their model numbers, again without citations!); I suppose Spanish trians might have been used in Canada, but this seems contradictory. Someone who has reliable sources on where the filming was done needs to redo this entirely. I'm tempted to remove the whole paragraph, except the fact that some filming was done in Spain, and some in Finland, is apparently true, according to a long trailer/short produced at the time of the film's release that I've seen. I've not been able to find a copy of this trailer/short to cite as a verifiable source to use as a basis for revising the paragraph. MayerG (talk) 03:31, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I was present at a small conference in 1992 when Freddie Young was talking about filming this and Lawrence of Arabia and he told us that most of this was filmed in the heat of summer in Spain, using many tons of marble dust spread over the fields in place of snow (it also having the advantage over real snow of never melting / changing between takes!) Although the production team had expected to have to remove all the dust the farmers concerned asked for it to remain as it massively improved the drainage quality of their lands. --AlisonW (talk) 19:12, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Requested move: → Doctor Zhivago

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Favonian (talk) 20:42, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

– “A topic is primary for a term, with respect to usage, if it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term," per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I calculate that the film is getting 72 percent of relevant traffic. The film got 155,699 views in the last 90 days, the musical 1,831, the TV miniseries 9,609, and the novel 49,745. So the math is 155699 / (1831 + 155699 + 9609 + 49745). After the move in May, traffic to the DAB soared from 1,089 views a month to 24,408. The DAB got 52,830 views in the last 90 days, i.e. more than the novel. As it is unlikely that all these readers are seeking a DAB, this suggests that the current setup is confusing them. The Doctor Zhivago page is still one of the top-ranked results on Google. So perhaps readers are clicking on this result, not realizing that is now a DAB rather than an article. Kauffner (talk) 16:43, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Doctor Zhivago (film) → Doctor Zhivago
 * Doctor Zhivago → Doctor Zhivago (disambiguation)

Survey

 * Oppose. Though the movie might be marginally more notable than the book, the movie is derivative and the book has more historical gravity. (Also cf. The Lord of the Rings vs. The Lord of the Rings (film series).)  As far as the Google search issue, let Google worry about Google and we'll deal with Wikipedia.  —  AjaxSmack   22:36, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose While the film is more well-known, the book is also highly notable and culturally significant. I don't think that the page views alone are sufficient to regard the film as the primary topic. 94.192.38.84 (talk) 22:39, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose we had a similar discussion last year at Talk:Doctor Zhivago (novel) -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 04:40, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
 * At that time, readership was evenly split between the film and the novel. But now the film is dominant. Kauffner (talk) 07:11, 4 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The novel (which won the Nobel Prize for Literature, for crying out loud!) is as prominent as the film. I do not believe that over the course of a year a film made 48 years ago has gained prominence over a novel published 56 years ago. Lies, damn lies and statistics... -- Necrothesp (talk) 01:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Until May, the novel was at the base name. So many readers went to that article without realizing that we have separate article on the film. Kauffner (talk) 08:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * So what? Statistics really are not the be all and end all, you know. Common sense is far more important. And common sense, or mine at least, tells me that the significance of an important novel in Russian and world literature that won the Nobel Prize is almost certainly not trumped by its film version, however popular and starry that film version may be. Of course films are going to be more popular subjects than books; more people watch TV than read! Particularly rather difficult books like Doctor Zhivago. That doesn't make them more notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:47, 6 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I supported the novel for primary too when that was up. As I see it, either article is more informative than a disambiguation page. Not only that, but this DAB page is clearly confusing readers. Kauffner (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't say the novel was more notable. I said neither was more notable than the other. You would have to be pretty stupid to be confused by a disambiguation page. I really don't think we need to cater to the lowest common denominator all the time. If we're doing that then maybe we should make sure none of our articles contain words with more than six letters! This is an encyclopaedia, not a basic teaching aid. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:09, 7 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose The film is not overwhelmingly the primary topic, especially since the book is older. It makes no sense to give a derivative work the primary topic.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Film version of a novel, A Walk to Remember, is primary topic. So is the Disney version, The Fox and the Hound. Any difference between Dr. Zhivago and these two? --George Ho (talk) 05:21, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

 * It's nice to see editors concerned about high culture and the novel, but this proposal should not effect the novel. It will stay at Doctor Zhivago (novel), regardless of the outcome of this RM. If the article on the film becomes primary, a hat note will be added for the novel. So the novel remains one step away from the base lemma in either setup. The film is highly acclaimed, and is certainly an educational topic as well. Very few films are still widely viewed 50 years after their release. If this proposal is rejected, that won't make the novel primary. So the fact that the novel has more long-term significance is beside the point. Kauffner (talk) 22:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The notion that this proposal will not effect users ability to find the novel article is false. If the main page becomes on the film it will become very hard to find the article on the novel.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:58, 9 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Usage stats
Now that we've all had a chance to breathe after the pair of RMs involving works titled "Doctor Zhivago", I decided to see if we could tell how well the current setup is working. I looked at two ways to answer that question.

First, a simple comparison of pageviews for the articles before and after the first RM (I compared March 2012 and September 2013):
 * novel: 28,637 (28,045 + 592) vs. 6,558
 * film: 24,771 vs. 20,979
 * tv miniseries: 3,356 vs. 1,670
 * musical: 475 vs. 385
 * total article views: 57,239 vs. 29,592
 * dab page: 1,089 vs. 5,794
 * total: 54,994 vs. 35,386

What do we see? First, 71% of readers who go to a Doctor Zhivago article now go to the film page, as novel traffic dropped by 77%, while film traffic dropped just 15%. The likeliest explanation for the huge drop in novel traffic is that the pre-RM numbers were inflated by people arriving at the novel article (which was then located at the base name) looking for the film, who then followed the hatnote or elsewise found their way to the film article. Second, the current setup is much more efficient than when the novel was at the base name. Total clicks are down 36% - that's a great savings to the reader.

Second, I tracked the usage stats exclusively from the disambiguation page (now found at Doctor Zhivago) using special redirects. Here's what the past 90 days looks like:
 * "Doctor Zhivago" (the dab page): 21,622 views
 * "Doctor Zhivago (novel)": 8,921
 * "Doctor Zhivago (film)": 7,340
 * "Doctor Zhivago (TV miniseries)": 1,076
 * "Doctor Zhivago (musical)": 391

So - we see that of the people who went to the dab page, 41% went to the novel article, 34% went to the film article, and 7% went to the two minor articles. That means 3,894, or 18%, went nowhere, at least not directly.

A couple interesting questions come up from that. First, 40% of novel traffic now comes via the dab page, while only 8% of film traffic comes from the dab. Why are film article searchers so much more efficient in finding the right page? Second, what about that 18% of people who get to the dab page and don't move on? Is that number worrisome? Could we increase efficiency even further and reduce attrition by putting the film at the base name? We know that 71% of readers are already looking for the film. Just a thought.... Dohn joe (talk) 19:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * First, I congratulate you on a well-executed experiment. Second, I think that it is important to note that the TV miniseries and the musical are basically nonentities in this equation. I think, as a general principle, that adaptations of a work are not ambiguous to the original work, nor is their notability independent of the work. The significance of the novel, Doctor Zhivago, is not eclipsed by the popularity of the film, but enhanced by it. I would therefore have the novel at the base page name, which, based on the traffic pattern pointed out, seems to be what readers expect. However, I would suggest that the reason readers are more efficient in finding the film is that doing a Google search for "Doctor Zhivago" brings up a link to the "(film)" page before the disambiguation page, even; similarly, typing "Doctor Z" into Wikipedia's own search bar brings up the film as the first result. Outside of using such a search, people probably reach the respective pages by clicking through an incoming links from an article like Julie Christie. bd2412  T 19:55, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the plaudits on the experiment. I'm confused, though, how you reach the conclusion that the traffic pattern indicates that readers expect to see the novel at the base page. Moving the base name away from the novel seems to have sent more readers directly to the article they wanted - which was largely not the novel article. Overall, we're saving people 20,000 clicks per month by moving the base name to the dab page. My question was whether we might do even better by moving the base name to the film article. It would seem that the 7,000 people over the last 90 days who went from the dab page to the film article would be benefitted. But whether that would be a net benefit is arguable. Dohn joe (talk) 18:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * If 7,000 went from the base page to the film, and nearly 9,000 went from the base page to the novel, it would seem to me that the novel was the topic more often sought under the base name. In any event, adaptations of a work are inherently subtopics of the work itself. bd2412  T 19:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Star billing
In the info box, the listing of the six principal actors replicates the alphabetical listing on the film poster -  a rather unusual arrangement. For Wiki, I think notability should be the criterion. Valetude (talk) 06:17, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Cast
Omar Sharif's son Tarek El-Sharif is obviously Yuri at the age of 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Sharif#Family_and_personal_relationships Stephanie — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.128.36.227 (talk) 19:00, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The Girl
Rita Tushingham's character was described here as "Tonya Komarova", but in the cast list at IMDb she is simply called "the Girl", while in the book she is called "Tanya", her mother being "Raissa Komarova, the wife of a cabinet minister, Comrade Komarov...who wasn't her real father". It's confusing anyway to refer to two different people as "Tonya", so I've changed it. I trust that's OK with everyone. Moonraker12 (talk) 18:27, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

No such list
FWIW.....The link of AFI 100 films refererenced in note 3 is a dead link. Also, the current list does not have Dr. Zhivago on it....the active wiki article says zhivago was dropped in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI's_100_Years...100_Movies

110.164.240.185 (talk) 11:17, 9 April 2015 (UTC)n0w8st8s

Filming accident-- train scene?
Several years ago, probably via Internet articles, I learned of an accident during the filming of DZ. As I understand it (operating solely from my remembrance of the article(s)), director David Lean had a woman run alongside a running train-- it's the scene where she handed her baby to Dr. Z who was in an open freight car. (Again, this is just from memory; it may not be accurate.) The actress slipped & lost at least one of her legs. They used the shot in the film anyway. I just read the article trying to find a mention of this accident but didn't find one. If it is considered worthwhile (I do), could someone research this incident & write a few lines about it? I'd also like to know how much compensation the woman received. It probably should be included as a separate paragraph within the 'Filming' section. Thanks. SaturnCat (talk) 06:01, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Recent edits
There have been several edits to structure and content which are not in the best interests of the article. I have already reverted them once with explanations provided by edit summaries, but the changes have bene restored by. I will list them here with more detailed explanations as to why I reverted them: Betty Logan (talk) 15:39, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Differences from the novel: WP:FILMDIFF clearly states "Writing about changes between a film and its source material without real-world context is discouraged. Creating a section that merely lists the differences is especially discouraged." Some differences may be included if they are explanatory in nature i.e. why certain changes were made and how they impacted the production. Such details also need to be cited to WP:Reliable sources, and none were.
 * Splitting content into sections which only contain one or two sentences: Per MOS:PARAGRAPHS single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized. Also,the guideline stipulates "Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading". With this view in mind it is better to combine the release details, box office and home video information since each section only comprises one or two sentences.
 * Erroneous box-office information: It is misleading and factually incorrect to state that the film earned "$138,493 in Britain" and "$111,859,493" worldwide, attributed to this source. The source clearly states the UK sum comes from the 2015 reissue. The film was a huge hit in the UK upon release and in other parts of the world. Basically, the only financial data that is available in its entirety is the North American box office.
 * Removing the columns from the cast section is pointless and unhelpful. If readers access the article on a standard monitor then they are left with a long vertical list and lots of whitespace to the right. It is common on articles to use dynamically allocated columns to present lists so that the articles look more aesthetically pleasing and the reader has to do less scrolling. If the columns are dynamically allocated as they are here then the number of columns automatically adapts to the size of the display.
 * Rotten Tomato aggregator stats are not particuarly helpful in this case. Aggregators accumulate reviews over a period of time, and in the case of Doctor Zhivago the film's reputation has improved over the years, so it is not appropriate to take such statistics as indicative of the film's reception. MOS:FILM states that "caution should be exercised when using aggregator scores that combine original reviews with reviews from later dates". To this end it would be better to frame the film's reception in terms of the reviews at the time and its modern-day standing.

Art Direction/Set Decoration
An editor keeps splitting the "Best Art Direction" oscar into two separate categories i.e. Best Art Direction and Best Set Direction. They are NOT separate categories. The Art Direction category includes set decoration. As you can see at the Academy's own website, the Art Direction covered the two art directors (John Box, Terry Marsh) and the set decorator Dario Simoni i.e. it is ONE award with two components. That is why Wikipedia only has one article covering the catgeory. Now please stop introducing inaccuracies into the article. Betty Logan (talk) 15:52, 6 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I concur with Betty. The Oscars website makes it clear how it should be categorized. Erik (talk &#124; contrib) (ping me) 16:09, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And as an aside, if you counted them separately Titanic would have won 12 oscars rather than the 11 that was widely reported at the time: http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1998 Betty Logan (talk) 16:11, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It is clearly one category. Wikipedia operates per what the WP:RS's state not what some WP:OR alternate theory of what they might be. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 18:23, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Background
Subparas 1 & 2 are reproduced below for reference: In order to remove the superscripted query, it becomes necessary to link subparas 1 and 2. I would add this link: cementing his position as a pre-eminent author besides being a well-recognised poet sequestered behind the Iron Curtain. Thus the last line of subpara 1 would become: It spent 26 weeks atop The New York Times best-seller list, cementing his position as a pre-eminent author besides being a well-recognised poet behind the Iron Curtain. As dictated by Nobel's will, the award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by a committee that consists of five members elected by the Swedish Academy. The five member jury would most definitely have deliberated on the repressive conditions prevailing in USSR, requiring his book to be smuggled out, to great acclaim. But direct reference to the book in the citation for the award could well have led to punitive measures in the USSR. Even so, Pasternak refused the Prize for his own safety. Hence the deliberate deception which academia and the literati would easily see through. These terms serve as an apt answer. The two subparas would then read:
 * Boris Pasternak's novel was published in the West amidst celebration and controversy. Parts of Pasternak's book had been known in Samizdat since some time after World War II. However, the novel was not completed until 1956. The book had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union by an Italian called D'Angelo to be delivered to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a left-wing Italian publisher who published it shortly thereafter, in 1957. Helped by a Soviet campaign against the novel, it became a sensation throughout the non-communist world. It spent 26 weeks atop The New York Times best-seller list.
 * Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. While the citation noted his poetry, it was understood [by whom?] that the prize was mainly for Doctor Zhivago, which the Soviet government saw as an anti-Soviet work, thus interpreting the award of the Nobel Prize as a gesture hostile to the Soviet Union. A target of the Soviet government's fervent campaign to label him a traitor, Pasternak felt compelled to refuse the Prize. The situation became an international cause célèbre and made Pasternak a Cold War symbol of resistance to Soviet communism.


 * Boris Pasternak's novel was published in the West amidst celebration and controversy. Parts of Pasternak's book had been known in Samizdat since some time after World War II. However, the novel was not completed until 1956. The book had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union by an Italian called D'Angelo to be delivered to Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, a left-wing Italian publisher who published it shortly thereafter, in 1957. Helped by a Soviet campaign against the novel, it became a sensation throughout the non-communist world. It spent 26 weeks atop The New York Times best-seller list, cementing his position as a pre-eminent author besides being a well-recognised poet behind the Iron Curtain.


 * Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. While the citation noted his poetry, it was understood by academia and the literati that the prize was mainly for Doctor Zhivago, which the Soviet government saw as an anti-Soviet work, thus interpreting the award of the Nobel Prize as a gesture hostile to the Soviet Union. A target of the Soviet government's fervent campaign to label him a traitor, Pasternak felt compelled to refuse the Prize. The situation became an international cause célèbre and made Pasternak a Cold War symbol of resistance to Soviet communism.

Internal links have deliberately been omitted. Comments? --Moitraanak (talk) 15:40, 15 May 2019 (UTC) If there are no comments on the changes proposed, I shall make the said changes on 22 May 2019.--Moitraanak (talk) 15:12, 16 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The text reads ok, but it needs to be properly sourced. The current section is completely unsourced and should technically be removed from the article because it is a non-trivial claim. Also, you can't use other Wikipedia articles as sources per WP:REFLOOP, even if those articles are properly sourced. I also question whether this is really relevant to an article about the film. Betty Logan (talk) 15:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I couldn't agree with you more. The entire section seems irrelevant in the context of the subject and could be dispensed with. Only a few words need to be added in the next section, something like: Development and casting as the para heading The film treatment by David Lean was proposed for various reasons. Boris Pasternak's novel had been an international success since publication in 1957 and he had been awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature. Producer Carlo Ponti... On the other hand, if it must be printed, there are any number of references. As Wikipedia may not be used, an alternative could be --Moitraanak (talk) 16:44, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Dates of Framing Device
The article states that the framing device "takes place in the the mid-to-late 1950s." This seems a bit too late in time. Tonya ("the child") appears to be a young woman in her late teens or early twenties. Since she must have been born perhaps in 1920-21, and was lost as a child in Siberia in the late 1920s, the framing device must take place at least a decade before the "mid-to-late 1950s." Houndsong (talk) 21:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree to this. Where is it said that the film actually ends in 1956? The cars used in the ending of the film are from the late 1940s which seems a more plausible time. --24.132.210.98 (talk) 23:32, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Alex Guinness' character speaks of the dark times so the narration event is probably taking place after Stalin's death in 1952. I also don't think you can draw any conslusions from the car's model year as most cars are old in a communist state. It's probably impossible to reconcile the historical inaccuracies as the writers may not have been familiar with the historic timeline. This happens quite often in the movies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomorrow1500 (talk • contribs) 16:50, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

Rape or seduction
I think the movie suggests that it's both seduction and rape (not unlike date rape). Clearly Lara could have killed Komarovsky by shooting at closer range, but perhaps wounding him was sufficient to even the score.Wally From Columbia (NJ) (talk) 13:30, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Does Komarovsky rape or seduce Lara. The paragraph disgussing the plot point uses both terms. 79.177.124.48 (talk) 22:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Hard to say as there's no character named 'Laura'. So it's hard to know if it was "siduction". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.227.114.140 (talk • contribs) — Preceding undated comment added 09:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

"He pressures her into sex" should be changed to: he rapes her. Pressuring someone into sex = rape. --JuszuMar0201 (talk) 18:15, 7 February 2023 (UTC)


 * There is difficulty about this, in the absence of any reliable citations showing the intention of the screenwriter and director for the scene, because we never see clearly what happens. Nor is the clear implication of previous scenes that Komarovsky and Lara are already in a sexual relationship, which is one of the implied reasons for her mother's suicide attempt, relevant. But to my mind it has not been clear whether what happens constitutes 'rape' in a legal sense. So I have tried to think about this. You say that 'pressuring someone into sex = rape'. The issue of consent is key to whether sex constitutes rape, but even if it is said that Komarovsky pressures her into consent rather than sex taking place with no consent on her part, then her consent was not 'a freely given agreement' (to quote from the section on consent in the Wiki article on rape), and therefore the net result could legitimately be described as rape.
 * I would prefer that the text to be expanded to read something like 'When she refuses, he pressures her into consenting to sex. Enraged after being raped, Lara later takes Pashas's gun and....'. What do you think? Sbishop (talk) 09:41, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that introduces a contradiction. Being a consenting partner in unwanted sex doesn't make it rape. The language currently used by the article is an accurate and adequate description of what is conveyed to the audience: it articulates that she doesn't want to engage in the sexual encounter (which is clear in the film), and the ambiguous nature of the level of consent is left vague. What we are seeing here is not a good faith intervention to make the article more accurate, but rather the promotion of a site-wide agenda. Betty Logan (talk) 14:09, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Komarovsky and Komarovskaya
Is there meant to be any genealogical relationship between Victor Komarovsky and Tonya Komarovskaya? I know it's a fairly common name, but having two characters with the same name in a novel with a limited cast of characters is guaranteed to have readers wondering. Like me. --  Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:22, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Tonya portrayed by Rita Tushingham was Lara’s daughter, so yes, she would have borne Komarovsky’s name. The Tonya who was married to Yuri was surnamed Gromeko. Swanny18 (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

(Late comment) Just to clarify: The laundry girl believed to be Yuri and Lara's child was called Tanya in the book, not Tonya. In the film (according to IMDb) she was referred to only as "The Girl". I've edited the text to reflect that. Swanny18 (talk) 23:24, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Nicolas Roeg in “Filming” section.
To:

Dear colleague,

Thank you for your participation in improving that sentence. It is only when you added a second occurrence of ‘Roeg’ that I realised the problem was really one of punctuation, so I relocated the first comma around the parenthetical phrase for apposition, per COMMA, which now clearly shows that “Nicolas Roeg” is the subject of all verbs throughout that short sentence and therefore doesn’t require repetition. It seems to me that it reads more clearly now, but if you feel differently, then please let me know. Thank you for your consideration, and Merry Christmas to you and yours. With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(become old-fashioned!) 12:52, 25 December 2020 (UTC)


 * It reads fine now. I did think the second mention of "Roeg" was repetitive. I was going to use a pronoun instead, but went back on it. Cheers and Merry Christmas to you. PrinceArchelaus (talk) 17:06, 25 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Dear ,

With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(become old-fashioned!) 17:54, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your reply. I agree fully that adding the pronoun ‘he’ would also work well in “he left...”; so, please go ahead and add it if you wish. Thank you also for your kind wishes.

"Doctor Zhivago (film) (redirect)" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Doctor Zhivago (film) (redirect). Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Regards, SONIC  678  03:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Country of origin
IMDb Lists the film as a co-production between the UK, the US and Italy, rather than just the UK and Italy. Hayal12 (talk) 12:34, 21 October 2018 (UTC)Hayal12


 * Per WP:RS/IMDB the site cannot be used as a ref. You will have to find a different source. MarnetteD&#124;Talk 13:59, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Marnette is correct about this. IMDB is user-edited like Wikipedia so is not an acceptable source. My advice would be to check the AFI catalog or the BFI database and see what they have down. Betty Logan (talk) 14:22, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
 * And yet, it is cited heavily throughout Wiki. Please don't give me that "other stuff" reply.  Deal with the reality. Deal. DEAL! 50.111.36.47 (talk) 01:52, 6 March 2022 (UTC)