Doctor Zhivago Q&A with Sir Tom Courtenay | BFI

[@laurencelance586]

Zhivago was easily one the THE great films of all time.

[@marjoriegarner5369]

Lauren, it was the most wonderful movie I had ever seen, and I still feel the same. Love it. It came out when I was around 22 and had just given birth to my first son, who will be 60 yrs old next year, 2025. It's so wonderful to hear this movie discussed by the actors and others. I love them all. I just love it and always will. I'm 82 this year. Born just two weeks after Joe Biden in 1942. I'm glad of that. Being born the same time as Biden. My dad was on his way to Europe to fight in WWII. I'm not glad of that. Life is so completely different now in 2024. I'm an old lady, 82, and amazed that I'm still alive.

[@slyasleep]

Courtenay did an awe-inspiring job with the role of Antipov/Strelnikov

[@janetlieb2507]

Wonderful!!!!💙💙

[@JudgeJulieLit]

Yes: with his aptly steely ice blue eyes and deadpan basilisk stare, he did sang froid, coldbloodedness uncommonly well.

[@georginahawcroft8044]

Yes he did my cousin brilliant actor...

[@mindakahn9964]

Rita Tushingham, the greatest under utilized character actor. She’s great in everything.

[@jubalcalif9100]

I agree 100 per cent !!

[@windsong8098]

A Taste of Honey...awesome

[@lizzieallen2284]

Yes yes yes! After The Trap (1966) she should have played Jane Eyre to Oliver Reed's Rochester. Such an underrated & undervalued actress.

[@susanr3933]

So good to see one of my favorite actors Tom Courtenay again!! I declare he has aged very well and I can even admit that in the movie Doctor Zhivago I found him to be far more sexier than Omar Sharif!! That's just my opinion we all have one!! Different Strokes for different folks!!

[@BiancaSanches_]

I NEED a Q&A with Julie Christie!!!! Omfg!! Please bring Julie back to the spotlight! I think Julie deserves more recognition than anyone who's out there at the moment, to be honest. There are so many actors from the 1960s that didn't do half as she did and, right now are on the front cover of every magazine in America, which is something that I just can't understand. A truly talented actress and such a great human being that I admire more than I can say.

[@esam324]

Bianca &5

[@iankakerezsi1000]

Gumbei dex. Dem

[@normamimosa5991]

Talk about desperately digging up actors to be on a panel about Dr. Zhivago. How many minutes long was Rita Tushingham's part? Not even five, and at the very end of the movie.

[@gideonharris1493]

@@normamimosa5991 I know. I wondered that myself. She acts as though she was a key character. I actually thought she wasn't beautiful enough to be the child of Lara and Zhivago.

[@janetlieb2507]

💙💙💙💙

[@k.t.5405]

this ENTIRE masterpiece can be summed up in that one line of dialogue Zhivago's professor says about beautiful creatures : "You'll find, Zhivago, that beautiful creatures can do very ugly things to people"

[@janetlieb2507]

Zhivago saw the wonderful beauty amidst insanity. A true Poet!💙

[@k.t.5405]

@@janetlieb2507 Nevertheless.... "beautiful creatures can do very ugly things to people", whether its beautiful people or seemingly "beautiful" ideologies.

[@janetlieb2507]

@@k.t.5405 yes!💔

[@chuckmclaughlin9490]

Dr. Zhivago: the greatest movie ever shown and one of the few films that was far, far better than the book from which it was taken.

[@ADAMSIXTIES]

You obviously haven't read the book which is far superior to the shallow soap opera film.

[@marjoriegarner5369]

Chuck, I agree totally.

[@marjoriegarner5369]

​@ADAMSIXTIES the film was magnificent.

[@cobbler40]

A work of art with Lean as the artist

[@vincenzoturriciano4112]

Ho già visto Dottor Zivago 220 volte, Tom e Rita very very wonderful actor!

[@brendadrew834]

One of my very favorite sweeping romantic epic films of all times! I was in my teens when it came out and saw it six times in a row! I was mesmerized by this great film and the cinematography was gorgeous! The music sublime and the acting and direction superb! They shouldn't ever bother making a remake, imho! Thank you BFI! ♥♥

[@perrywidhalm114]

Tom Courtenay is one of my favorite actors.

[@388Caroline]

Love Tom Courtney and his acting.

[@janetlieb2507]

Wonderful actor!!💙💙

[@georginahawcroft8044]

Yes he's a brilliant actor in any films he did.. my cousin although I haven't seen him since I was in my teens..I remember thing how well spoken he was..he was also brilliant in A Rather English Marriage with the same actor he played the dresser with in the film ... with Albert Finney...

[@joned1000]

In an interview Omar did say he wanted Courtenay's part, but Lean asked him to play Zhivago.

[@marinellabakken5863]

This is true! Sharif confessed he read Pasternak's book, liked it and wanted to play a role in the movie (when he heard Lean was going to make a film after the it). He tought that the role of Pasha would have been suitable for him but David Lean had both the eye and intuition for Sharif's romantic figure and casted him in Zhivago selv.

[@buddyvilla7393]

Still trying to find a copy of Joseph Losey s film King and Country with Sir Tom and Dirk Bogarde. Dirk s third outing with Joe Losey. I have don’t laugh mates in Scunthorpe North Lincoln shire. Tom Courtenay is from Kingston Upon Hull just on the other side of the humber River. What a marvelous actor. Tom really had to play two roles. Pasha and then Strelnikov on Dr Zhivago. Every time I see Rita Tushingham I think of A Taste of Honey!!!!!!!

[@chopin65]

Tom was EPIC in "The Dresser".

[@georginahawcroft8044]

With Albert Finney...

[@christinewilliams1505]

What a lovely modest actor John Courtney is. His extremely interesting and yet self-derogatory comment over Omar Shariiff ' ... he taught me to play Scrabble, and one day I beat him! ' ...I guffawed! What suberb subtle humour! I would love to have asked after how many days it took to beat a person whose mother tongue was not English! I, a Brit, used to play with a Dutchman, and hardly ever did I win!

[@brianforbes8325]

His name is Sir Tom Courtenay

[@poilochien]

@@brianforbes8325 soeur tom courtney ? is he gay ? ?

[@brianforbes8325]

@@poilochien, no, he's married to Isabel Crossley, a stage manager at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

[@buckroo8424]

Omar Shariff spoke English and a few other languages.

[@timmellin2815]

One thing that Sir Courtenay seems to gloss over in this interview is what I've always considered one of his best scenes in the film......where he sez "the personal life is dead." Tom seems to almost have forgotten how angry his character was about believing that. As the scene closes, and he looks out the window at Zhivago's departing, Strelnikoff reacts in ultra anger and resentment mode about how his own personal life has ended due to his total devotion to the revolution. Don't know how Mr. Courteney could have overlooked that when he discusses the scene in this interview.

[@jimburke2804]

Yes Rita is a brilliant actress.

[@jubalcalif9100]

Amen to that ! And Tom is a brilliant actor !

[@michaelmuldowney8]

Tom and Rita were in a great little irish movie called THE BOY FROM MERCURY in 1996. Worth searching for....

[@388Caroline]

Never knew that. Will look it up 🙏

[@normamimosa5991]

David Lean, one of the greatest film directors ever. When The Sound of Music won best picture over Dr. Zhivago, the Academy Awards lost all credibility.

[@yossarianmnichols9641]

Agreed 100%, though they never had much to begin with. Just a Hollywood PR academy

[@DivineSimply]

Christopher Plummer, who played Baron Von Trapp, referred to it as The Sound of Mucous. The story was bullshit anyway. Maria was not the adorable, cuddly-cute, agreeably mischievous young nun Julie Andrews portrayed. In real life, she was extremely controlling and abusive to her husband, and was a frightening, demanding demagogue with the children, holding power over their heads to keep singing and performing. One of the kids said they felt more like a hostage. Hollywood strikes again.

[@donjindra]

Well, not quite. I love both movies. It's hard to say which is better.

[@normamimosa5991]

@@donjindra Very easy. One fluffed with easy locations. The other far more historically significant, with massive and difficult locations necessitating incredible innovation, management and direction. Sound of Music won as a bone for Julie Andrews after not being cast in My Fair Lady.

[@donjindra]

@@normamimosa5991 Nonsense. As I said, both movies are great. But they are different movies. If you prefer one to the other that's your personal taste, but nothing more than that. As far as locations go, who cares? Movies are primarily about story, not location. I don't know why you'd bring up My Fair Lady. It has nothing to do with the merits of the other two movies.

[@fliegeroh]

"Then it's a gift." Last line in the movie.

[@arricammarques1955]

Gifted, director cast & crew. Legendary era in British Cinema.

[@chuckmclaughlin9490]

This line tied the finishing knot to a superb film, tying itself back to the beginning of the film when Zhivago's mother was described as a gifted balalaika player.

[@timmellin2815]

Whoa.....!! thanks for bringing that to my attention...about film starting "a gifted" player, and then "it's a gift" ending the film. I hadn't ever caught that, until you mentioned it now. Didn't Lean do the same thing in "Lawrence of Arabia" when the film begins w/ a motorcycle accident, and ends w/ a man riding a motorcycle and shouting "who are you ?!" (which by the way...that voice is Lean's dubbed over, I understand.)

[@paullewis2413]

David Lean was a perfectionist and his legacy of great films is possibly second to none. Great shame eastern Europe was off limits for non-communist movie directors in those days as the Moscow sets just don't convince and somehow diminish the greatness of this film.

[@normamimosa5991]

I assume you mean the sets for Moscow scenes, as none of the movie was filmed in Moscow. One of the impressive feats of this movie was the ability to transform locations to fit the movie. Read about it.

[@Operafreak9]

Seriously? I found the sets totally convincing.

[@josenivardoseijorodriguez8312]

David Lean fue el mejor director de cine del mundo,todas sus películas son obras maestras.

[@magnacz]

Isn't it surprising how ungrateful actors are in general and how they think they know better. Better than the director for sure. This film has become a classic and has a magical quality, the ice the snow the revolution on the streets of Moscow. The scenes in the forest or the country. The total lack of privacy under the new regime where even longing for a private life is a crime.

[@timmellin2815]

I don't think Rita and Tom and the others were ungrateful........they both said in this interview many times how pleased they were to be involved w/ the film. Their tongue in cheek criticism is kind of normal and anecdotal insight on minor production / behind the scenes issues. Also, listen to the commentary track on the DVD w/ Steiger and Sharif discussing the filming.....they both give trememdous insights into the production. So....ungrateful....no I disagree.

[@marjoriegarner5369]

Magna, great comment.

[@amazon5031]

David Lean's movie is in a way similar to Beijing Opera in that every gesture, movement and speech by the actors are highly controlled and stylised, and of course beautiful. What is wrong with that? Every one of David Lean's movie is a masterpiece because of that, a fine piece of masterly crafted art.

[@Operafreak9]

Every gesture, every facial expression totally convincing

[@LG-dl4jx]

The politics of Doctor Zhivago are that the real revolution is to defy convention to live a life of love regardless of where it takes you. That's a very individualist message at odds with the goals of the Soviet revolution.

[@JudgeJulieLit]

The conflict director David Lean had uniquely with Rod Steiger as an actor continually questioning Lean's directives may owe to Steiger's being a NYC Actors Studio, Stanislavskyite Method actor. The Method has each actor continually striving in each scene for characterization authenticity via emotional naturalism, summoned by the actor's finding via his own "sense memory" of experiences in his past like his character's experiences, to channel his own such experienced emotions into his performance of the character's feelings. In Dr Zhivago, this led to Steiger's character's having great credibility as an elitist yet earthy force majeure in his dominations of Lara, her mother, attemptedly Zhivago (until Zhivago hurled him down a flight of stairs) and at last Lara's daughter. In this film Steiger's Method acting well showed such Kamarovsky sui generis traits, less "civilized" conformist than most the rest of the cast.

[@timmellin2815]

Maybe Lean's background as a director didn't put himself in an actor's shoes, so Lean might not have understood Rod's approach as being necessary for giving a good performance, a brilliant performance....gosh, his different scenes were great. Maybe Lean kind of figured actors were just supposed to be put out there like puppets to do their thing for the director, w/out considering enough how the actor's thought process was so necessary to do their thing for the director.

[@TheForkhandles]

David Lean wanted Alec Guiness to play the part of the priest in Ryan's Daughter but Guiness didn't want to work with him again so the part went to Trevor Howard who was also a great actor.

[@ADAMSIXTIES]

2015: sick that the title of this has Tom Courtenay and leaves out Rita Tushingham.

[@dennisesplin3285]

Interesting to compare Hitchcock with David Lean. AH used storyboards. DL attention to detail was legendary... and expensive.

[@romanclay1913]

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER.

[@patriciaheil6811]

The actors don't remember but the Franco regime did have some problems. in the scene at the restaurant where Komarovsky takes Lara for her first real evening out, a crowd of poor people gathers outside and sings the Internationale. There were secret police around to make sure they didn't really sing the lyrics; probably the singing all had to be dubbed and they just moved their mouths.

[@normamimosa5991]

Interesting. Had it not been for Franco, Spain would have fallen behind the Iron Curtain. Spain owes him for that.

[@timmellin2815]

That's not what Steiger and Sharif said in their audio commentary on the DVD version of the film......they said the loud singing of The Internationale was heard by Spanish residents who didn't know it was from the film.....many of those residents thought a political change had come because of the singing.

[@davidevans3227]

never seen it.. maybe i should?

[@marjoriegarner5369]

David. Yes. You should see it.

[@davidevans3227]

@@marjoriegarner5369 thankyou 🙂 i think we have it somewhere... most recent thing i seen Tom Courtney in was that 'Unforgotten', did you see that? i liked it.

[@paulaharrisbaca4851]

Actually the film was smuggled in during the 1980’s during the same time when VHS bootlegs were getting in as well. Apparently the Russians found the acting far too reserved and British and the scene when Tonya comes back and is greeted by the Gromykos seemed ludicrous to Russians who are very passionate and emotional and do a lot of hugging.

[@leighcochran7303]

I always remember my Russian language teacher saying exactly THAT! Great lesson about the difference between Russians and the English!!

[@timmellin2815]

Maybe Lean wanted the scene to be played reserved that way for a purpose......perhaps he wanted to save the kissing and hugging for greater effect in the scene between Yuri and his half brother Yevgrav (Guinness) where after Yevgrav kicks out the home's other residents because he has the Party's authority.....once alone w/ his long lost brother....then the kissing and hugging have greater heft in the overall plot scenes.

[@reddog3640]

Horse's hooves cracking the ice on the lake

[@mariobrandsma9830]

SIR IS SUCH A LOVELY HU MAN KIND CLASS AND HER HER EASTEND WARM ( LOVE ARE YOU ALLRIGHT MANNER ) BOTH LARA WORTHY .

[@arricammarques1955]

'Liverpool is the centre of the universe' Ian McColloch

[@poilochien]

strelnikov ...

[@nietzschesno-things523]

Watching Doctor Zhivago for the first time tonight. And watching this blonde girl go from super young to this is like a bad mushroom trip.

[@timmellin2815]

Yes...but that's the hard cold facts of aging....ditto to for Geraldine Chaplin's older appearance.

[@darlyswarns3400]

P

[@johnmcclellan9020]

It's a beautiful stupid movie that says nothing at all.

[@johnbonaccorsi4863]

That's not true at all. It says the spirit of the artist can survive even totalitarianism. SPOILER ALERT: The most-important shot of the movie is an extremely-unusual one---unique actually, as far as I'm aware, in movie history. I'm speaking of the shot of the dead mother---Zhivago's mother---IN THE INTERRED COFFIN, in the cemetery scene, at the opening of the story (or of the story-within-the-story). That's what the whole movie's about. The mother---Zhivago's mother---whom we see, already dead AND BURIED, in only that one shot, is the main character. Her artistic spirit is passed through Zhivago himself---in whom it appears as a literary gift---and on to his and Lara's daughter, in whom it resurfaces as the mother's musical ability. The mother's balalaika, which had been given to young Yuri right after the mother's funeral and placed by adult Yuri in the sleigh that carries pregnant Lara away from him for the final time, is the balalaika that the daughter slings over her shoulder in the movie's final moment, when her boyfriend tells Zhivago's brother, "She's an artist." "Then it's a gift," the brother says; and Strelnikov's assertion, earlier in the movie, that "the personal life," "the private life," has been killed in Russia---by history---is instantly rebuked. The End. Great script by Robert Bolt. CORRECTION: There might be earlier shots of the face of the mother---in the coffin before it is covered and lowered, that is. I'd have to see the movie's opening again, to find out. I'm pretty sure the closed coffin has been lowered before the in-coffin shot, which, regardless of all this, is the movie's main shot, as I've said.

[@chuckmclaughlin9490]

John, surely you jest...or you weren't paying attention. It was a film, after all, that had to be felt as well as seen!

[@Operafreak9]

@@johnbonaccorsi4863 I have just written my thoughts on Zhivago and I felt precisely what you have described about the mother. Otherwise, what is the point of showing her in the coffin? I thought the child was searching for his mother's spirit as he looked up at the blowing leaves after the burial. The leaves blowing would repeat when Zhivago and Lara are walking in the fall after he finds her after his ordeal with the red militia.

[@johnbonaccorsi4863]

@@Operafreak9 Ah---that's a good catch, re the blowing leaves in those two moments. I'd thought of his looking around at the leaves, after the burial, as a (nascent) poet's distractedness---which, in a way, it is, but more-pointedly so, as you point out: "Where is she? What has happened here? Why do I---we---endure this?"

[@Operafreak9]

@@johnbonaccorsi4863 Thanks. Lean was so damned subtle.