Post by erik on Jan 17, 2022 21:42:01 GMT -8
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-- which is why he chose to revive the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim Broadway classic WEST SIDE STORY.
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. While he was living in Phoenix (between 1957 and 1964), his parents had the original 1957 Broadway cast recording of West Side Story 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 in December 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic kyboshed that, until last Christmas--sixty years after the original movie.
What's my verdict on Spielberg's film? Well, maybe it's because I have been a fan of Spielberg's filmography for decades now, but 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, of Irish, Polish, and Italian extraction) and the Sharks (all of whom are Puerto Ricans). Riff (Mike Faist), the leader of the Jets, resents the change in the upper 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 Jets co-founder, Tony (Ansel Elgort), having spent a year in jail for beating a member of the Egyptian Kings almost to death, 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 really can't 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, the latter of whom are led by Bernardo (David Alvarez), an up-and-coming boxer. The "get together", a dance-off, doesn't exactly devolve into a brawl, but it does give Elgort pause, because he can already see Faist and Alvarez getting into each other's faces. At that point, Alvarez's girlfriend Anita (Ariana DeBose) shouts "¡Oye, Javi! ¡Ponle fuego, vamos!", and the ever-famous Mambo starts.
Elgort, however, stays off to the side; and that's when it happens. Just twenty feet away, across the gym floor, stands Bernardo's sister Maria (Rachel Zegler) in the iconic white dress and red belt; and both of them catch one another's eye. The Romeo And Juliet connection is made, and thus begins a touching and poignant tryst between the by-his-own-admission flawed Tony and the unflawed Maria, in which the two manage to acknowledge and then overcome the fact that they are of two different ethnic backgrounds. It is made even more poignant by the fact that their respective "sides" are too caught up in their pointless turf war to see what the pair are trying to do. Neither knows how they're supposed to fit in in the world, but they do find commonality with one another. Neither the Jets nor the Sharks ever "get it", tragically.
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 done a tremendous job 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 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, whose son Andrew Gold was a prominent L.A. rock session musician known for working with, most prominently, Linda Ronstadt).
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 what I would consider unfounded 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 kind of criticism that Beymer got back in '61. He does his role well enough, underplaying Tony and revealing to Maria his past in a very honest way. Zegler, however, has the even tougher job of not only being in her first-ever film (having been a YouTube sensation), but stepping into Natalie Wood's shoes (and dress), and doing so under the direction of Hollywood's most successful filmmaker; and she just aces Maria in 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. Zegler has already won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, and may well be staring at some more awards in the not-too-distant future.
As I said, I'm probably giddier about this film than the law allows, not only because this is a Steven Spielberg film but also because it was the first film by anyone that I had 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.
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. While he was living in Phoenix (between 1957 and 1964), his parents had the original 1957 Broadway cast recording of West Side Story 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 in December 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic kyboshed that, until last Christmas--sixty years after the original movie.
What's my verdict on Spielberg's film? Well, maybe it's because I have been a fan of Spielberg's filmography for decades now, but 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, of Irish, Polish, and Italian extraction) and the Sharks (all of whom are Puerto Ricans). Riff (Mike Faist), the leader of the Jets, resents the change in the upper 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 Jets co-founder, Tony (Ansel Elgort), having spent a year in jail for beating a member of the Egyptian Kings almost to death, 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 really can't 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, the latter of whom are led by Bernardo (David Alvarez), an up-and-coming boxer. The "get together", a dance-off, doesn't exactly devolve into a brawl, but it does give Elgort pause, because he can already see Faist and Alvarez getting into each other's faces. At that point, Alvarez's girlfriend Anita (Ariana DeBose) shouts "¡Oye, Javi! ¡Ponle fuego, vamos!", and the ever-famous Mambo starts.
Elgort, however, stays off to the side; and that's when it happens. Just twenty feet away, across the gym floor, stands Bernardo's sister Maria (Rachel Zegler) in the iconic white dress and red belt; and both of them catch one another's eye. The Romeo And Juliet connection is made, and thus begins a touching and poignant tryst between the by-his-own-admission flawed Tony and the unflawed Maria, in which the two manage to acknowledge and then overcome the fact that they are of two different ethnic backgrounds. It is made even more poignant by the fact that their respective "sides" are too caught up in their pointless turf war to see what the pair are trying to do. Neither knows how they're supposed to fit in in the world, but they do find commonality with one another. Neither the Jets nor the Sharks ever "get it", tragically.
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 done a tremendous job 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 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, whose son Andrew Gold was a prominent L.A. rock session musician known for working with, most prominently, Linda Ronstadt).
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 what I would consider unfounded 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 kind of criticism that Beymer got back in '61. He does his role well enough, underplaying Tony and revealing to Maria his past in a very honest way. Zegler, however, has the even tougher job of not only being in her first-ever film (having been a YouTube sensation), but stepping into Natalie Wood's shoes (and dress), and doing so under the direction of Hollywood's most successful filmmaker; and she just aces Maria in 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. Zegler has already won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, and may well be staring at some more awards in the not-too-distant future.
As I said, I'm probably giddier about this film than the law allows, not only because this is a Steven Spielberg film but also because it was the first film by anyone that I had 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.