So another reason I haven't been writing much is that my evenings--the 90mins "free" (chores, email etc notwithstanding) time I have between Ruby going to bed and me going to bed--have been taken up for the past few days with the movie Doctor Zhivago (I've linked to an explanation of the novel that inspired this movie). It's a long movie and so it took us about three nights to watch it!

David had seen it many years ago and I've never seen it. I've heard about it a lot though, of course. We were wondering how a western director (David Lean is British) would portray the Russian Revolution. Now we know: badly. Not a surprise I suppose. Of course, it's a wonderfully beautiful grand epic love story. The shots and scenery are astounding. And of course why expect a director in the country that discovered and exported capitalism to understand, let alone portray the Russian Revolution honestly. But, as socialists, we're always hoping and then often bemoaning the biased and one-sided portrayals of certain historical events and current political questions. Just think how frustrated non-right wingers are not hearing their point of view expressed more and you can imagine how we feel as socialists!

So what didn't we like about this movie? Zhivago is portrayed as being aloof to the revolution. He clearly regrets the loss of human life, on either side. But he goes through the movie allowing himself to get pushed and pulled and torn apart even and that seems to be just fine with him. David even said he seems aloof to life itself. True; how the heck does he and his little family survive on that abandoned farm when they flee Moscow? They grow potatoes and he writes poetry. That about sums it up.

The civil war, between the red and the white army, dominates the movie. The revolution is reduced to famine, senseless loss of life, excessive bureaucratization and revolutionaries arguing over party dictates. Another British director, Ken Loach, does a much better job at showing how inspiring, hopeful and engaging other short-lived revolutionary experiences can be for the people. Take his famous scene in Land and Freedom, which is about the Spanish Civil War, where peasants in a rural village debate the pros and cons of collectivizing land.

That isn't to say that war isn't a yucky thing that should be shown in negative light. But the question of fighting a civil war in order to defend a revolution is a complicated one. Ken Loach seems to be one of those rare directors who will actually try to allow this complexity to enter his movies.

And what about his poetry?! This is David's observation. We never get to hear one single line of it!

Anyways, those are just a few thoughts. I'm running out of time tonight. Go figure why I was inspired to jot down these musings. Ruby will wonder what the heck I was going on about when she gets to read over all these entries, which I am saving for her.