Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Alec Guinness: Yevgraf
Photos
Quotes
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[last lines]
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Tonya! Can you play the balalaika?
David : Can she play? She's an artist!
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Who taught you?
David : Nobody taught her!
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Ah... then it's a gift.
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Engineer : If they were to give me two more excavators, I'd be a year ahead of the plan by now.
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : You're an impatient generation.
Engineer : Weren't you?
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Yes, we were, very. Oh, don't be so impatient, Comrade Engineer. We've come very far, very fast.
Engineer : Yes, I know that, Comrade General.
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Yes, but do you know what it cost? There were children in those days who lived off human flesh. Did you know that?
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Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : I told myself it was beneath my dignity to arrest a man for pilfering firewood. But nothing ordered by the party is beneath the dignity of any man, and the party was right: One man desperate for a bit of fuel is pathetic. Five million people desperate for fuel will destroy a city. That was the first time I ever saw my brother. But I knew him. And I knew that I would disobey the party. Perhaps it was the tie of blood between us, but I doubt it. We were only half tied anyway, and brothers will betray a brother. Indeed, as a policeman, I would say, get hold of a man's brother and you're halfway home. Nor was it admiration for a better man than me. I did admire him, but I didn't think he was a better man. Besides, I've executed better men than me with a small pistol.
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Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : [narrating; on World War I] By the second winter, the boots had worn out... but the line still held. Even Comrade Lenin underestimated both the anguish of that 900-mile long front... as well our own cursed capacity for suffering. Half the men went into action without any arms... irregular rations... led by officers they didn't trust.
Officer : [to soldiers] Come on, you bastards!
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : And those they did trust...
Pasha : [leaps out of the trench and begins leading his men in a charge] Come on, Comrades! Forward, comrades! Earth-shakers!
[an artillery shell explodes in front of him; he falls to the ground, and the soldiers retreat to their trench]
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Finally, when they could stand it no longer, they began doing what every army dreams of doing...
[the soldiers begin to leave their trenches]
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : They began to go home. That was the beginning of the Revolution.
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[repeated line]
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : How did you come to be lost?
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Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : [on Lara's last years] She'd come to Moscow to look for her child. I helped her as best I could, but I knew it was hopeless. I think I was a little in love with her. One day she went away and didn't come back. She died or vanished somewhere, in one of the labor camps. A nameless number on a list that was afterwards mislaid. That was quite common in those days.
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Engineer : We admire your brother very much.
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Yes. Everybody seems to, now.
Engineer : Well, we couldn't admire him when we weren't allowed to read him...
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : No.
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Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : But if people love poetry, they love poets. And nobody loves poetry like a Russian.
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Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : [narrating over a military parade in Moscow] In bourgeois terms, it was a war between the Allies and Germany. In Bolshevik terms, it was a war between the Allied and German upper classes - and which of them won was of total indifference. My task was to organize defeat, so as to hasten the onset of revolution. I enlisted under the name of Petrov. The party looked to the peasant conscript soldiers - many of whom were wearing their first real pair of boots. When the boots had worn out, they'd be ready to listen. When the time came, I was able to take three whole battalions out of the front lines with me - the best day's work I ever did. But for now, there was nothing to be done. There were too many volunteers. Most of it was mere hysteria.
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Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : This man was your father. Why won't you believe it? Don't you want to believe it?
The Girl : Not if it isn't true.
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : That's inherited.
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The Girl : I'm not your niece, Comrade General.
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : Well, I'm nobody's idea of an uncle. But if this man were my father, I should want to know.
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Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : [narrates] He was walking about with a noose round his neck and didn't know. So I told him what I'd heard about his poems.
Zhivago : Not... liked? Not liked by whom? Why not liked?
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : [narrates] So I told him that
Zhivago : Do you think it's personal, petit-bourgeoise and self-indulgent?
[Yevgraf nods]
Gen. Yevgraf Zhivago : [narrates] I lied. But he believed me.