Dr. Zhivago : R I P

The death of Omar Sharif reminded me of two of my favorite lines from movies. In Dr. Zhivago, there is a scene involving ordinary Russians being herded into cattle-cars to be taken, by the Bolsheviks, to an unknown destination. Amourski, a vocal anarchist who was in chains, declares: “I am the only free man on this train! And the rest of you are cattle!”

The other scene occurs at the end of the movie. General Zhivago – Dr. Zhivago’s brother – has a conversation with Tanya, who the general believes is his niece. Tanya has no specific recollections that can help in her identity. The general shows her one of Dr. Zhivago’s books of poetry, containing a large picture of his brother. He then tells her: “This man was your father. Why won’t you believe it? Don’t you want to believe it?”, to which Tanya replies “Not if it isn’t true.”

I looked through Pasternak’s novel to see if I could find the origins of these two scenes, and was unable to locate them. I thus concluded that they were the product of the mind of one of Hollywood’s best screen-writers, Robert Bolt, who wrote the movie script.

Just thinking of this final scene literally brings tears to my eyes.