RUSSIA: First ever Russian adaptaion of "Doctor Zhivago" to premiere on the NTV Television network

Record ID: 402197

  • Title: RUSSIA: First ever Russian adaptaion of "Doctor Zhivago" to premiere on the NTV Television network
  • Date: 11th May 2006
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) ALEXANDER PROSHKIN, DIRECTOR OF RUSSIAN ADAPTATION OF "DOCTOR ZHIVAGO", SAYING: "For the first time I got to know the novel 'Doctor Zhivago' when I read it -- 900 pages typed on cigarette paper -- in one day. I was given it just for one night, but couldn't finish it; so was reading it through the next day as well. I was told: 'We give it to you on the condition that you cannot leave the house, you have to finish reading it and then return the book immediately. You cannot leave it at home.' It was the beginning of the 1960s. And I think that was the moment when my love story with this novel began. I think that 'Doctor Zhivago' is a key book for the understanding of what is 20th century Russia and who we are."
  • Embargoed: 26th May 2006 13:00
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  • Reuters ID: LVA54NZRJRE1F389F7VR2I1IPZO5
  • Story Text: The first ever Russian adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel 'Doctor Zhivago' is set to premiere on the NTV Television network later this week.
    Repressed by the Soviet Union, feted by the Nobel judges, glammed up by Hollywood -- 'Doctor Zhivago' is one of Russia's stand-out 20th century novels.
    On Wednesday (May 10) evening, Russian audiences will size up the latest incarnation of Pasternak's book - a television series starring some of the country's best known actors.
    The story follows Yuri Zhivago, the poetically-minded doctor, as he struggles through the 1917 Russian revolution and on into the strange new world that followed -- tortured by his conflicting feelings for two very different women.
    Pasternak's book is a potent tale that got the full Hollywood treatment in David Lean's 1965 film, with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie in the lead roles. But many Russians have dismissed Lean's film as an exotic melodrama, a romanticised outsiders view of their country during one its most turbulent periods.
    It remains to be seen if Russian viewers will warm to Director Alexander Proshkin's first home-grown version of a book that was once considered too dangerous to print.
    "For the first time I got to know the novel 'Doctor Zhivago' when I read it -- 900 pages typed on cigarette paper -- in one day. I was given it just for one night, but couldn't finish it; so was reading it through the next day as well. I was told: 'We give it to you on the condition that you cannot leave the house, you have to finish reading it and then return the book immediately. You cannot leave it at home.' It was the beginning of the 1960s. And I think that was the moment when my love story with this novel began. I think that 'Doctor Zhivago' is a key book for the understanding of what is 20th century Russia and who we are," said Proshkin.
    'Doctor Zhivago' was published outside the Soviet Union in 1957 to much acclaim and a year later was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Bur Boris Pasternak, living in Russia at the time, turned it down, fearing repercussions by the Soviet authorities.
    Proshkin's adaptation features Oleg Menshikov as Yuri Zhivago, and one of Russia's leading actresses, Chulpan Khamatova, as Lara.
    But Khamatova came close to turning down the part of Lara.
    "I thought about turning downing the offer [to play the role of Lara] because I was scared. All such roles, such characters, which have become symbolic for many people - they put huge responsibility on the actor. And I think, it makes the creative process more difficult for the actor, because it limits your creative freedom," she said.
    In the last six months, Russia's newly-confident television industry has offered up Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita" and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "The First Circle" to sizeable audiences and largely positive reviews.
    Despite radically different genres, both stories ask how people should confront abusive power.
    Pasternak's heroes and heroines face similar problems, but the author's son, Yevgeny, does not think the upcoming television series manages to capture his father's voice.
    "It was very hard for me to watch this film, because it was mentioned in the credits that it was based on the novel 'Doctor Zhivago', but after 'translation' from the language of literature into the language of film, the voice of my father was lost. The voice we hear in the film is different," said Yevgeny Pasternak.
    Yevgeny, a literary critic, said that his father's main theme in "Doctor Zhivago" - the love for life - has been lost in the new adaptation.
    "The main ideas of the author [Boris Pasternak] were that under the most terrible circumstances the human being survives thanks to his belief, to his love for life, to worshipping life, to the beauty of the earth. But in the film this idea was washed away by the effects of horror and demoralisation," he added.
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