Russia Reclaims Dr Zhivago

A Russian director is making a new homegrown film version of classic novel Dr Zhivago in a bid to correct the inaccuracies in the Academy Award-winning US-made 1965 movie.

David Lean's film starring Omar Sharif and JULIE CHRISTIE scooped five Oscars and is regularly ranked among the top movies of all time.

But its Western approach to a classic Russian story has long been criticised in the homeland of author BORIS PASTERNAK.

Director ALEKSANDER PROSHKIN hopes his eleven-part TV movie, with an all-Russian cast, will re-dress the balance.

Proshkin says, "It is a wonderful US film that belongs in its time. But it is American. it does not portray the reality of Russia. It is Russia through Anglo-Saxon eyes. In fact, it's neither Russia nor Pasternak.

"It's like when our actors play an American or Englishman. There are certain things that just can't be captured."

Dr Zhivago follows a wealthy doctor and poet's attempts to find love against the backdrop of the 1917 Russian Revolution.

Because the 1965 movie was made in the midst of the Cold War, it had to be filmed in Finland and Spain rather than Russia and Siberia.