The legacy of Pasternak

If a poll were conducted to establish the greatest film director of the Twentieth Century, one name in particular would be the outstanding contender. Born in Croydon before the Great War, this colossus of the British film industry went up to Oxford and did very little of note except found the now legendary Inklings. The Inklings was a literary group which brought to prominence the contrasting genius of C.S Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien was founded by David Lean.

To try and provide a measure of his subsequent achievements in film, a brief catalogue of his output reads like a biography of British Film. In Which We Serve (Noel Coward, 1942), This Happy Breed (Celia Johnson,  Robert Newton, 1944), Blythe Spirit (Rex Harrison, Margaret Rutherford, 1945), Brief Encounter (Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, 1945), Great Expectations (John Mills, 1946), Oliver Twist (Alec Guiness, 1948), Hobson's Choice (Charles Laughton, 1954), Summertime (Katharine Hepburn, 1955), The Bridge on the River Kwai (Alec Guiness, 1957), Lawrence of Arabia (Peter O'Toole, 1962), Doctor Zhivago (Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, 1965), The Greatest Story Ever Told (Max von Sydow, Charlton Heston, 1965), Ryan's Daughter (John Mills, Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, 1970), A Passage to India (Peggy Ashcroft, Art Malik 1984). Not a bad cv I think you'll agree.

For three of those films, the musical score was written by a man to often forgotten. The father of the French pioneer of electronic music Jean Michel Jarre, Maurice Jarre wrote the scores for three of Lean's finest. Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and Ryan's Daughter all benefited from his uncanny knack in being able to capture the essence of the film. Never was this more true than for Doctor Zhivago. The score without lyrics was the mesmerising Lara's theme still so treasured by romantics the world over.

Written by Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago was deservedly awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1958. It remains one of the finest books I have ever read - or could hope to read. The book is set around a complicated love triangle during the time of the Russian Revolution. Continuing the great Russian literary tradition of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin et al, Pasternak wrote a brutally honest account of the Russia which resulted. Like Solzhenitsyn after him, he had to face the wrath of the authorities who didn't take too kindly to their dirty linen being washed in public.

The resultant film was a masterpiece and remained refreshingly faithful to the novel. On eof the last of the "epics" bankrolled by MGM, the casting was perfect with Julie Chistie sparkling as Lara and Omar Sharif unforgettable as Yuri Zhivago. Sometimes,  everything comes together. Perhaps it needed the efforts of David Lean and Maurice Jarre to achieve this but it still looks as good now as it did for those first audiences in 1965. Some films are best left alone with re-makes somewhat futile. This is a case in point.