In "Dr. Zhivago," one line stands out — starkly — and reveals the meaning of the long, stately sequence of images.

Ah, I know I could not understand it in 1965 when I was 14, and I could barely understand movies at all. I hadn't yet accustomed myself to cinematic storytelling. I was continually confused. Why are they going there? Is that the same guy? It took me a while to face the fact that it was my job to pick up the clues and put things together. If you're drifting along waiting for things to make sense, wondering what you're looking at that and why are they doing that, a 3-hour-and-39-minute movie is an awful slog.

And it was a slog the second time around too. Even with better understanding of the grammar of film, I wasn't patient with the filmmaker's approach to storytelling, the long lingering on images — branches of trees waving in the wind, a corpse inside a grave, the gray sky, the balalaika, the expanses of snow, the frosted-up windows, the lovers' eyes. It was only thinking about it the next day that it occurred to me that all those shots represented the poetry that formed inside the head of Dr. Zhivago. We were told time and again that he was a great poet, but not one word of his poetry was ever heard. Instead, we got the poetry of the filmmaker (David Lean). I don't believe his shots were wonderful enough to stand in for great poetry, but then, if we'd heard the words, they probably wouldn't have sounded so great either. So let the big brown gazing eyes of Omar Sharif represent ART!

The line that reveals the meaning of the movie is: "The personal life is dead in Russia. History has killed it." The revolution has taken place and Zhivago is confronted by the Bolshevik commander Strelnikov (Pasha Antipov):

Pasha: I used to admire your poetry.
Zhivago: Thank you.
Pasha: I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead in Russia. History has killed it. 

I had trouble in 1965 — and I had trouble in 2019 — understanding why I should care about Dr. Zhivago's romantic life. He has a wife, and she's perfectly fine (Tonya, played by Geraldine Chaplin), but he's fixated on another woman (Lara, played by Julie Christie), and we're supposed to root for Lara, apparently because her eyes are fakely lighted up and a balalaika tune plays every time Zhivago feels drawn to her.

What's the most disgusting thing about this Looper video, "Actors Who Were Drunk During Filming"?

I'll give you my answer later.

ADDED: The commenter Virgil Hilts essentially got it, in this comment that went up 9 minutes after the post (and it took 6 minutes to watch the video):

Thinking like Ann -- wow, the only examples they could come up with for actresses related to shooting sex scenes.

Thinking like most men -- wow, why didn't they show the actual sex scenes from the movies involving the drunk actresses.

Yes, all — I think all — of the actresses had used alcohol to get through sex scenes. There was variety to the stories of the male actors, and I don't think any of it had to do with sex (or even with overcoming inhibition caused by the ordeal the script imposed on them (unless you count Omar Sharif's fear of falling off a camel)).

"Omar Sharif, star of Dr Zhivago and one of the world's greatest bridge players, dies."

He was 83 and suffered from Alzheimer's disease.

In May, Sharif's son Tarek El-Sharif, revealed that his father had Alzheimer's... He said the actor mistook fans for people he used to know....

"He remembers for example that it was Doctor Zhivago but he's forgotten when it was filmed," he added. He can talk about the film but he forgets its name or he calls it something else like Lawrence Of Arabia."

ADDED: The video looks long, but it's very interesting, including how he learned English — his mother was disgusted that he'd gotten fat and sent him to an English school so he'd be stuck with bad food — and how he preferred acting in English — because it's efficiently expressive with words like "why?" and "yes" (unlike the comparable Arabic words) — and how the English director David Lean taught him not to move his head around (as the French and Egyptians do).