Post by erik on Dec 13, 2021 10:25:27 GMT -5
Here is my take on director Steven Spielberg's reworking of the 1957 Broadway musical (and subsequent 1961 film) WEST SIDE STORY.
It takes an awful lot of nerve for any director to remake or rework a movie musical that has been loved for decades. But then again, Steven Spielberg, throughout his career, even during the so-called "blockbuster" years, has shown that kind of nerve, which I liken to that of a riverboat gambler. And when you have a filmography that, when added up, has made $15 billion at the box office, you allow yourself room to take really big chances.
Ever since the huge commercial and artistic success of SCHINDLER'S LIST, in 1993, Spielberg has managed to make films that veer between what we might call "popcorn" entertainment (READY PLAYER ONE; INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL; THE LOST WORLD) and the more "artistic" fare (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN; BRIDGE OF SPIES; THE POST), and done so with continuing and considerable success. But now he has really taken a gigantic gamble in remaking one of the most cherished musical movies of all time, the 1961 classic WEST SIDE STORY, which won ten Academy Awards in its day. While he was living in Phoenix (between 1957 and 1964), his parents had the original Broadway cast recording in their record collection; and when he turned 15, he saw the movie itself and was floored. But as a filmmaker, although there were some musical moments in his films (the jitterbug dance sequence in 1941; the opening setpiece of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM), he had never done a full-blown musical film from start to finish. In fact, his take on WEST SIDE STORY was to have come out last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic kyboshed that. The irony that his version should come out now, sixty years after the original movie, is quite radiant.
My verdict? I think it works incredibly well.
Spielberg's film, which hews closer to the original Broadway musical than the 1961 film, is otherwise quite unchanged, though the neighborhood in which this is set is depicted as being razed for the development of what would become Lincoln Center. The vicious feud between the Sharks and the Jets, set to Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, is highly charged, with a lot more in the way of ethnic slurs being thrown between the Jets (largely lower-class Whites, primarily Polish guys) and the Sharks (all of whom are Puerto Ricans). Riff (Mike Faist), the leader of the Jets, resents the change in the lower West Side neighborhood coming upon him and those of his stripe as the result of an influx of people he just doesn't like (any of this sound vaguely familiar? [he asked rhetorically]). His former Jet, Tony (Ansel Elgort), having spent a year in jail for beating the member of a previous ethnic gang senseless, now works in a drugstore run by a wise elderly Puerto Rican woman named Valentina (Rita Moreno, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Anita in 1961), and is not allowed to have overt contact with the Jets, lest he break his parole. But he is invited to a "get together" in the school gym between the Jets and the Sharks---and that's when it happens: he spies the sister, Maria (Rachel Zegler), of one of the Sharks, Bernardo (David Alvarez), and the forbidden Romeo And Juliet connection is made.
Having seen the original 1961 film a number of times, and also having seen a concert version of the musical done on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl during the 2016 summer season, I have to say that Spielberg has pulled off a tremendous success with his own individual version, supported by the screenplay adaptation by Tony Kushner, who worked with him on his previous films MUNICH and LINCOLN. The original Jerome Robbins choreography is given added zing under Justin Peck's direction; and the supporting performance by Ariana DeBose in Moreno's original role of Anita is fiery in a way that avoids the previous clichés of Latin Americans. Moreno herself has a fair amount of screen time, especially in her interactions with Elgort; and everyone does their own singing, which wasn't the case back in 1961 (even that film's Tony, Richard Beymer, was dubbed by Jimmy Bryant, while Natalie Wood's Maria was dubbed by Marni Nixon, the mother of Linda's long-time sideman Andrew Gold). Also, ten percent or so of the dialogue in the film is in un-subtitled Spanish, for purposes of authenticity.
As to this film's Tony and Maria? Well--let's just say that Elgort is coming in for a hell of a lot of criticism for his portrayal of Tony; and I'm just going to go on the record here and call "BS" on that criticism, simply because it is roughly the same that Beymer got back in '61. He does his role well enough. Zegler, however, has the even tougher, even Herculean task of not only being in her first-ever film, but stepping into a role first personified on the Broadway stage by Carol Lawrence in 1957 and then by Natalie Wood on the big screen in 1961, and with Hollywood's most commercially and artistically successful filmmaker of all time helping her; and she just aces Maria in what I think is a performance for the ages (it also helps that she, like the other Puerto Rican roles cast here, is naturally Latinx), perhaps best exemplified at the ending, which is not only tragic but downright catastrophic. She won a Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Film, and rightly so..
I'm probably giddier about this film than the law allows, not only because this is a Steven Spielberg film but also because it is the first film by anyone that I have seen in an actual movie theater in twenty-three months. But I'm just going to say that this WEST SIDE STORY, which compliments both the original 1957 Broadway musical and the 1961 cinematic adaptation, is a masterpiece.
It takes an awful lot of nerve for any director to remake or rework a movie musical that has been loved for decades. But then again, Steven Spielberg, throughout his career, even during the so-called "blockbuster" years, has shown that kind of nerve, which I liken to that of a riverboat gambler. And when you have a filmography that, when added up, has made $15 billion at the box office, you allow yourself room to take really big chances.
Ever since the huge commercial and artistic success of SCHINDLER'S LIST, in 1993, Spielberg has managed to make films that veer between what we might call "popcorn" entertainment (READY PLAYER ONE; INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL; THE LOST WORLD) and the more "artistic" fare (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN; BRIDGE OF SPIES; THE POST), and done so with continuing and considerable success. But now he has really taken a gigantic gamble in remaking one of the most cherished musical movies of all time, the 1961 classic WEST SIDE STORY, which won ten Academy Awards in its day. While he was living in Phoenix (between 1957 and 1964), his parents had the original Broadway cast recording in their record collection; and when he turned 15, he saw the movie itself and was floored. But as a filmmaker, although there were some musical moments in his films (the jitterbug dance sequence in 1941; the opening setpiece of INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM), he had never done a full-blown musical film from start to finish. In fact, his take on WEST SIDE STORY was to have come out last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic kyboshed that. The irony that his version should come out now, sixty years after the original movie, is quite radiant.
My verdict? I think it works incredibly well.
Spielberg's film, which hews closer to the original Broadway musical than the 1961 film, is otherwise quite unchanged, though the neighborhood in which this is set is depicted as being razed for the development of what would become Lincoln Center. The vicious feud between the Sharks and the Jets, set to Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics, is highly charged, with a lot more in the way of ethnic slurs being thrown between the Jets (largely lower-class Whites, primarily Polish guys) and the Sharks (all of whom are Puerto Ricans). Riff (Mike Faist), the leader of the Jets, resents the change in the lower West Side neighborhood coming upon him and those of his stripe as the result of an influx of people he just doesn't like (any of this sound vaguely familiar? [he asked rhetorically]). His former Jet, Tony (Ansel Elgort), having spent a year in jail for beating the member of a previous ethnic gang senseless, now works in a drugstore run by a wise elderly Puerto Rican woman named Valentina (Rita Moreno, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing Anita in 1961), and is not allowed to have overt contact with the Jets, lest he break his parole. But he is invited to a "get together" in the school gym between the Jets and the Sharks---and that's when it happens: he spies the sister, Maria (Rachel Zegler), of one of the Sharks, Bernardo (David Alvarez), and the forbidden Romeo And Juliet connection is made.
Having seen the original 1961 film a number of times, and also having seen a concert version of the musical done on the stage of the Hollywood Bowl during the 2016 summer season, I have to say that Spielberg has pulled off a tremendous success with his own individual version, supported by the screenplay adaptation by Tony Kushner, who worked with him on his previous films MUNICH and LINCOLN. The original Jerome Robbins choreography is given added zing under Justin Peck's direction; and the supporting performance by Ariana DeBose in Moreno's original role of Anita is fiery in a way that avoids the previous clichés of Latin Americans. Moreno herself has a fair amount of screen time, especially in her interactions with Elgort; and everyone does their own singing, which wasn't the case back in 1961 (even that film's Tony, Richard Beymer, was dubbed by Jimmy Bryant, while Natalie Wood's Maria was dubbed by Marni Nixon, the mother of Linda's long-time sideman Andrew Gold). Also, ten percent or so of the dialogue in the film is in un-subtitled Spanish, for purposes of authenticity.
As to this film's Tony and Maria? Well--let's just say that Elgort is coming in for a hell of a lot of criticism for his portrayal of Tony; and I'm just going to go on the record here and call "BS" on that criticism, simply because it is roughly the same that Beymer got back in '61. He does his role well enough. Zegler, however, has the even tougher, even Herculean task of not only being in her first-ever film, but stepping into a role first personified on the Broadway stage by Carol Lawrence in 1957 and then by Natalie Wood on the big screen in 1961, and with Hollywood's most commercially and artistically successful filmmaker of all time helping her; and she just aces Maria in what I think is a performance for the ages (it also helps that she, like the other Puerto Rican roles cast here, is naturally Latinx), perhaps best exemplified at the ending, which is not only tragic but downright catastrophic. She won a Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Film, and rightly so..
I'm probably giddier about this film than the law allows, not only because this is a Steven Spielberg film but also because it is the first film by anyone that I have seen in an actual movie theater in twenty-three months. But I'm just going to say that this WEST SIDE STORY, which compliments both the original 1957 Broadway musical and the 1961 cinematic adaptation, is a masterpiece.