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I realized upon reviewing my post Extramarital affairs: getting a negative pass that all I did was describe the films, and where I thought they divulged their disapproval of these affairs. I did a bit of why (one to do with the conservative actor Charleston Heston, and the other to do with the Russian Orthodox Church), but I didn't go much into that. So, here is a bit more explanation.
I think that Earthquake and Dr. Zhivago, by actually killing off their protagonists, were not just showing them as guilty but as sinful. These days, very few films look at such breaches of moral conduct as sin. There may be guilt involved, law suits, apologies, etc. So what was different about these two?
In Earthquake, I think that it was Charlton Heston’s background that contributed to Earthquake's conclusion. I think as a conservative, his agreement to participate in the film was related to its ending. I may be reading too much into this, but I have a thesis!
Dr. Zhivago gets more interesting. I thought perhaps it was the Russian Orthodox psyche that added the moralistic elements. But it was actually the writer’s. Pasternak fashioned Yuri’s mistress Lara after his own mistress. And presumably, he was Yuri. Was Yuri’s death his innermost expiation? In real life, nothing as dramatic happened to Pasternak, who continued to see his mistress throughout his life. Perhaps the book added a release to his darkened soul. Surely the Ten Commandments must have surfaced periodically in Pasternak’s psyche (who was Jewish). And as I always say, the truth comes out somewhere in art.
So, what’s the point? I think if true conservatives and truly religious people start making films, their conclusions will be very different from what we see these days. Morality will once again become an issue, rather than an aberration. And movies will not be just entertainment, but lessons in human life and conduct.
What struck me about these films, made at an age when Hollywood had already turned permissive and liberal, is that they had a kernel of this morality embedded in them. It is possible, therefore, that one can make the right kind of movies by following the above ingredients - conservatism and religion.