It’s a grand historical testament rooted in his own experience of the Russian Civil War with deep concern for the philosophical and political lessons to be drawn from the period. After all, he’d spent over 50 years writing a novel he knew could have him arrested, expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers, exiled from the Soviet Union, or worse. This is why the book was entitled Solaris and not Love in Outer Space.” īoris Pasternak would not live to see the film based on his Nobel-winning Doctor Zhivago, but he would be more than entitled to a similar reaction.

“…As Solaris‘ author I shall allow myself to repeat that I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. In 2002, legendary Polish science-fiction author Stanislaw Lem wrote the following after Steven Soderbergh’s recent adaptation of his novel Solaris was received as a love story: Yuri Andreyevich Zhivago | Julie Christie as Lara Antipova | Geraldine Chaplin as Tonya Gromeko | Rod Steiger as Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky | Alec Guinness as Yevgraf Andreyevich Zhivago | Tom Courtenay as Pavel Antipov / Strelnikov | Klaus Kinski as Hey That’s Klaus Kinski

As often as I’m able, I’ll be comparing movies with the original book/comic/radio play/TV show/board game/theme park ride.ĭirected by David Lean, screenplay by Robert Bolt A good film adaptation should hold together independent of its source material, even if that means making massive changes.

Doctor zhivago novel