West Side Story
Dir: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise
1961
*****
I hear ‘I hate musicals’ quite a bit from friends. I do understand the puzzlement of watching people suddenly burst into song for no apparent reason but I would argue that when done well it can be a magical experience. I generally remind them that Little Shop of Horrors, The Muppet Movie, Meet the Feebles and The Rocky Horror Show are all musicals and they relent a bit. I then tie them to a chair and make them watch All That Jazz, Fiddler on the Roof, Once and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. In all honesty I’d much rather watch The Great Race (technically a musical) over Singing in the Rain and to be honest there are musicals that really do nothing for me, such as My Fair Lady, Moulin Rouge and Meet Me in St Louis. I won’t get into Mama Mia because I will get upset and angry and will most likely use rude words. West Side Story on the other hand is something else. Musicals are very much about personal taste – some people like one and not the other and vice-versa – but everyone loves West Side Story. The idea itself works because it is a familiar story (William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet) but more than that, it’s a brilliantly contemporary adaptation. Modern adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays are generally awful and West Side Story still remains the most successful over fifty years later. I would hazard a guess that more people know more about West Side Story then they do about Romeo & Juliet but then a lot of that has to do with the other thing the film gets right – the songs. While many of the original songs were changed for the film for legal reasons (In the scene on the roof before the musical number "America", when the girls are mocking Bernardo's speech, one of the girls say ,"We came with our hearts open", one of the Sharks says, "You came with your pants open!" This line had to be changed to "You came with your mouth open," for the movie because of censorship standards) they mostly remained in tact and in the case of ‘America’ they were changed for the better as there had been complaints that the Broadway version was too belittling to Puerto Ricans, in that the song mainly ridiculed Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. The movie lyrics emphasize the racism and discrimination that Puerto Ricans were subjected to in America, making the film a remarkable social piece as well as a great musical. I struggle to think of a musical with as many well-known and much-love songs in it than West Side Story. Songs include; ‘America’, ‘I Feel Pretty’, ‘Maria’, ‘Tonight’, ‘Somewhere’, ‘Cool’ and ‘Something’s Coming’. My personal favorite is ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ but they changed all the good bits. Stephen Sondheim (who wrote the lyrics) said in a 2010 interview that while he was writing the stage musical, he originally wanted the show to be the first one in Broadway history to use the words "fuck" and "shit" in its song lyrics. He wanted the end of the song "Gee, Officer Krupke" to be "Gee, Officer Krupke/Fuck you!" (instead of what it became, which is "Gee, Officer Krupke/Krup you!"), and he wanted the lyrics in "The Jets Song" to be "When you're a Jet/If the shit hits the fan" instead of "When you're a Jet/If the spit hits the fan". However, the show's writers were informed that if the Original Cast Album contained those profanities, it would have been illegal to ship the record across state lines. So Sondheim made the substitutions for those words that appear in both the stage show and the movie. The dance-sequences and choreography is something else. West Side Story isn’t my favorite musical in terms of song (but it’s up there) but in terms of movement and dance it has got to be one of the greatest contemporary pieces of all time. Turning a street fight into a dance is a weird thing to do but an amazing thing to watch. The ‘Cool’ sequence in particular has to be one of the coolest scenes in the history of cinema – it’s just phenomenal. I also think a big part of the film’s success is down to the fact that it had two directors. Veteran director Robert Wise was brought in for the serious scenes thanks to his work on Odds Against Tomorrow and other gritty New York films. Jerome Robbins, who directed the stage version, was brought in to work on the musical numbers, although he over-ran quite a bit costing the studio a lot of money, so he was let go and his assistant director finished the scenes he hadn’t done. It is a shame that Robbins was cut from the film, he was clearly a perfectionist and I do think there is a clear difference between the dance scenes he did shoot and those he didn’t. Both directors won Best Director at the Academy Awards, making them the first to ever share an Oscar. The awards and praise were well deserved as the direction and cinematography were sensational. The composition in every shot is stunning and the colours pop magnificently. The use of then modern effects was pretty neat too, the look of the film now being iconic. It’s not just great musical direction but great cinematic direction, one of the best of all time. The original stage actors were controversially overlooked for the film version but West Side Story wouldn’t be the same without the beautiful Natalie Wood. Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris were all great but Wood stole every scene she was in. None of them sung but they almost all danced themselves. Pretty much every element of the film is perfect, from the costumes to the social comment on immigration and diversity. It’s a stunning film and you can only imagine just how much work was involved while watching it. If you still don’t like musicals after watching it then you don’t deserves eyes or ears.