Doctor Zhivago

Warner Home Video ($29.98)

This deluxe DVD presentation of David Lean’s epic comes with all the “Special Edition” trimmings (running audio commentary, 10 vintage documentaries plus one new one, and interviews with Julie Christie and Omar Shariff), but, refreshingly, it’s priced in the same range as a regular old DVD. Of the special features, the “vintage documentaries” — all promotional, it turns out — are nice, but the second disc’s highlight is the new documentary, which goes into greater detail about how Lean’s team reconstructed downtown Moscow in rural Spain and built the film’s famous “Ice Palace” out of frozen beeswax in the middle of a sunny Iberian plain. The audio commentary — featuring Lean’s widow, the ubiquitous Shariff, and Rod Steiger in full salty raconteur mode — is good as well, but these extras all pale next to the real reason to buy this DVD: Lean’s film. Remastered and restored, Doctor Zhivago is just as sweeping, sudsy, and gorgeous as you remember it.

This article appears in December 7 • 2001.

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