Doctor Zhivago revisited

In this column I am going to alleviate the pain and suffering of anyone who saw the movie Doctor Zhivago and loved it and has been feeling conscience-stricken after my recent words of opprobrium (namely, me).

I have decided I am not going to let Satan have it! He may not claim Doctor Zhivago as entirely his. There was some real beauty in it that we need not be ashamed of loving. All beauty comes from God. Satan and his proxies in the film business twist this for their own ends, but the important thing to understand is that they are obliged to start from what is good before they can create anything at all. That is to say, Satan has never had an original idea. He is not able to make lusts except by distorting true loves.

What were you and I loving in this film Doctor Zhivago? What was it that smote our hearts and made us swoon? Was it that we loved adultery? I think not. The severe beauty of a Russian landscape in winter enraptured us (God's landscape, God's winter). Our heartstrings were tugged by the haunting beauty of "Lara's Theme." That was all of God. And yes, we were even legitimately enthralled with the tenderness of romantic love (again, God's invention-See Song of Solomon).

Now, I want us to do an exercise together. Let us roll back the celluloid tape and watch the movie again. Le us imagine two people, a man and a woman, stuck in the middle of the Russian Revolution. Let us imagine this time that they are married and very much in love; they are perfect for each other. You can have Julie Christie and Omar Sharif play the lead roles of husband and wife if you want. Same music. Same lovely sleigh rides. Same tearful separations.

See how the beauty is restored and it is good. No spoiling of everything that is lovely and pure and joyful by the contamination of adultery. In the movie I saw in 1966 the game was rigged, the cards were marked in advance; you and I were manipulated by a demonic fantasy. But you don't need to throw out the good with the bad. "All things are yours," said Paul, "whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future-all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's" (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.