West Side Story is my favorite Steven Spielberg film since at least Catch Me If You Can. Not merely a worthy successor to the landmark 1961 musical, it's a modern classic on its own terms, and is also a fascinating tour through Spielberg's career.
The 1961 adaptation of West Side Story, co-directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, has been my favorite movie musical ever since I first saw it.
I don't recall exactly when I saw it in high school, but when I did see it, it fit right in with other operatically intense (if not excessive) romantic tragedies I enjoyed at the time, among them Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (1968), Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Michael Mann's adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans (1992), and Doug McHenry's Jason's Lyric (1994).
The Robbins/Wise West Side Story (hereafter referred to as '61 WSS) also had the benefit of being just edgy enough not to feel stale to a teenager - racial epithets, snappy insults between cops and hoodlums, suggestions of sex and violence, and an unhappy ending all played a role - making the Romeo and Juliet-inspired love story between Tony and Maria more accessible. I got sucked in to the movie, crushed by the result of the brawl, and shattered by the ending. Considering it was also around the time I first fell in love, this movie (and the others named above) left an indelible mark on my teenage years.
Fast forward decades later, as I walked out of the theater having watched Steven Spielberg's West Side Story (hereafter '21 WSS), I felt something like a teenager again and was asking myself whether or not Spielberg had not only matched the 1961 original, but maybe even surpassed it.
Moving forward, I'm assuming some degree of familiarity with both the '61 WSS and the '21 WSS. Click the links if you require a synopsis of either film.
Let's get into it below the jump, with SPOILERS ahead.
