Doctor Zhivago - Jake Lyon

Title/Year: Doctor Zhivago, 1965
Director/DOB: David Lean, U.K., 1908
Budget: $11,000,000
Gross: $111,721,910
Synopsis: Yuri Zhivago is eight years old when his mother dies. He is adopted and raised by an upper-middle class family. Later in life he becomes a doctor and an accomplished poet with a compassion for his fellow man. In the midst of political struggle, he uses his skills to try and help people, but is turned away by the government. Yuri is engaged to his childhood sweet heart Tonya, when he meets Lara. Yuri and Lara work in a hospital together during the war. They are obviously attracted to each other but suppress their desire. After the war, Yuri returns to his family in Moscow. The Bolshevik revolution has begun and the people are poor. When Yuri decided to steal fire wood, he encounters a police officer who turns out to be his long lost half-brother Yevgraf. Yevgraf helps Yuri and his family escape Moscow to their estate at Varykino. As Yuri builds a life in Varykino he again encounters Lara. This time they cannot control themselves and have an affair. One day after a year of living in Varykino, Yuri is kidnapped and drafted into a Red Guard Unit as their medical officer. Eventually he escapes making his way back to Varykino to find that his family has left for Moscow. Starving and injured, he makes his way to Lara's house and stays with her. The government is closing in on the town and they must flee. They make arrangements to travel to Manchuria but Yuri does not make the train thus separating the two once again. Lara is pregnant. Yuri is found again by his long lost half-brother Yevgraf eight years later. He then dies of a heart attack. Lara and Yevgraf reconnect at Yuri's memorial, they then go on to look for Lara's lost daughter Tonya. Lara then disappears.
Key Words: Love, revolution, Bolshevik, Russia, World War One, scandal, separation
Character Arc: Yuri Zhivago just can't catch a break. We see his entire life and feel the struggle that he goes through. Although an educated man, it seems that no one is powerful enough to escape a social/political climate with disaster written all over it. Yuri maintains a positive attitude though. His main goal is to protect his family. When he decides to have an affair with Lara, his true love, he feels guilty. His character makes us feel what it must have been like to live in the times of the Bolshevik revolution, add all the romantic drama on top of that, and you've got Doctor Zhivago.
Social/Political Commentary: Doctor Zhivago takes to a time and place where common things like food, running water, and heat are scarce. We see a society in crisis where people who once were considered upper-middle class struggle to feed themselves let alone their families. Survival in these conditions depends on clear thinking, experience, anticipating, and adapting. To look after a family in a region where the political landscape changes every five minutes is quite a challenge. This is still the case in many parts of the world today. The film takes a common human condition; love, and applies it to a time of social and political uncertainty, creating a very dynamic piece of drama.