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.
Is this the West Side or a War Zone?
The first images are ruins of a low-income neighborhood on the West Side of New York, demolished to make way for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Historically, this occurred in the San Juan Hill neighborhood of Manhattan during the late 1950's. Here, it's depicted by Spielberg in the unvarnished manner of a war film and is startlingly reminiscent of the ruined Bayonne in War of the Worlds, the bombed out village of Ramelle in Saving Private Ryan, or even the Krakow ghetto in Schindler's List - as critic/essayist Walter Chaw points out: "it's not the first time Spielberg has shot the clearing of a ghetto". This makes the conflict between the Jets and Sharks over this "territory" already meaningless - whoever "wins" will not benefit from the victory. They're already judged as expendable and the world is moving on without them, in force. Matthew Robbins' *batteries not included (executive produced by Spielberg) is the only other mainstream entertainment I can recall which presents gentrification in such violent terms.
As mentioned by critic Richard Brody in his mixed-to-negative review of '21 WSS, this razing of a low-income neighborhood primarily affected African-American residents. That acknowledged, I'm giving Spielberg and writer Tony Kushner the benefit of the doubt for a larger point - the forced relocation of people to serve wealthy interests. It's analogous to other events in cities around the United States around the same time, some of which DID adversely affect Latin-American people, like, say, the clearing of Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium in 1950s Los Angeles.
Speaking of force, it's also worth emphasizing another significant change Spielberg makes in this film. Unlike the '61 WSS, where the fight sequences are highly stylized and choreographed dance moves, the brawling in this film is intensely physical, with real physical consequences, and Spielberg doesn't pull his punches. After one brawl, the Jets' Baby John finds his ear pierced by a nail. Paint cans are bashed against heads. Punches during the rumble land with sickening force. Knives and bullets draw blood.
This context particularly affects how the Jets are portrayed within the film. There's certainly a hint of Spielberg's previous "lost boys" in these Jets, but they're well past anything we see in Hook, Jim Graham in Empire of the Sun (whose ragged ghostly appearance would fit well with these Jets), or even the Jets in the '61 WSS. Early in the film, after the first brawl, Lieutenant Shrank derides the Jets as the "last of the can't make it Caucasians", and another character later in the film makes a comment about "mutually assured destruction" when Riff (Mike Faist) acquires a gun, just in case the Sharks break the terms of the rumble. It's an outcast group of people assigning false equivalency to their opponent, in order to justify the escalation they already want, a distinctly authoritarian impulse. And they have no concept of responsibility; immediately after getting the gun, they play act shooting each other, treating a loaded gun like a toy.
Also, Spielberg's version of "Gee Officer Krupke" is staged inside a police precinct, as opposed to the street outside Doc's Store. These kids have heard all of the rationalizations for their delinquent behavior, and can recite them ad nauseum. In the '61 WSS, it comes off as playful self-pity outside Doc's, but in the '21 WSS there's an added self-awareness which makes these kids genuinely dangerous, because they've learned how to weaponize these rationalizations in bad faith to avoid responsibility. In '21 WSS, the Jets are reactionary punks who lash out at everything around them in impotent rage, and the Sharks are the just the next available targets. Some of this contextual background does exist in the '61 WSS, but it's so spare that it doesn't land with much impact.
Making it explicit in the '21 WSS, by layering it into setting, set design, and staging makes it clear without being oppressive. It fundamentally changes the film for the better. Which leads us nicely into...
A group of very good performances, including a defense of Ansel Elgort's Tony.
I agree Ansel Elgort is not the most dynamic performer or singer, nor does he exhibit the most charisma of the primary actors in this cast. But I disagree with critics who have knocked his performance, referring to him as "a blank slate", or his "gawky mediocrity". I think it should be acknowledged some of that is because of the conception of the character, expressly designed to allow the audience to project themselves onto them (which is frankly true of Maria as well).
However, in '21 WSS, Tony has been provided with a new backstory; he's a reformed punk who still carries that angry, almost predatory edge just below the surface. He's learned to keep it under control working for Doc's widow, Valentina (Rita Moreno), and the hopeful dreamer inside Tony which was held back for its vulnerability, has taken its place, but the duality is evident in Elgort's performance. One benefit we see is Tony's relationship with a Puerto Rican woman who'd been in a loving interracial marriage; compared to the rest of the Jets, he's already got one foot off the streets and a close up look at something richer. It's the best feature of the revised character, as it gives Elgort's rendition of "Something's Coming" genuine heft. Later on, when Tony is desperately trying to stop the fight between the Jets and Sharks, you see him constantly having to hold back that predatory instinct against Bernardo (David Alvarez), and how horrified he is when it does finally break through.
All that said, presenting this duality is also troubling for two reasons: First is the idea that prison has successfully reformed Tony; it's revealed that he did a yearlong stint for beating a member of the Egyptian Kings nearly to death. The idea of prison being a genuine opportunity for reform does not square with the otherwise lucid social points this film makes (which is also mentioned in Brody's review linked above). Second are the allegations of sexual assault made against Elgort in June of 2020, several months after production wrapped, which he has denied. The meet-cute between Tony and Maria under the bleachers almost threw me out of the film, because Tony's initial gazes at Maria include one or two moments where he leers at her, and there's no getting around the creep factor as he physically looms over her.
Rachel Zegler's performance as Maria deserves to be her "star is born" moment; she's sensational. I preferred her singing to the work Marni Nixon provided in the '61 WSS; I feel like you can hear her youthful exuberance in every note she hits. There's not really much for Zegler to hang her hat on in terms of character development, but she makes the most of Maria's wide-eyed innocence and naïveté, and it's backed up with some real toughness, a nice contrast to her slight frame. Her early confrontations with Bernardo establish her independence without seeming petulant. At the dance, Maria is so genuinely lovely, sweet, and sincere that she completely disarms Tony, and Elgort lets you see Tony's protective predatory façade fall away, how she changes everything for him in an instant and makes a path to the world of Doc and Valentina feel possible. Later, she goes toe-to-toe emotionally with Ariana De Bose's Anita. It's an extraordinary scene between two women trapped in a nightmare of rage and grief - their intensity is laced with empathy, and Maria shows that, emotionally speaking, she's older and smarter than she presents. Maria asking Anita if she can forgiver her is an unbearably emotional note of love and sadness.
Ariana De Bose uses Anita's sensuality as an anchor for her performance. You feel the passion, energy, vitality, and righteous anger roiling underneath and she lets it out in hints, as during her fierce defense of America in "America", and her amusingly scandalous moment in the quintet "Tonight". When she's forced to identify Bernardo and Riff at the City Morgue, you can feel her pain and anger raging beneath the surface. David Alvarez is likewise terrific as Bernardo - here given a nascent boxing career as his stepladder to success - it emphasizes his danger as a character while also giving it an optimistic veneer, while also conveying a bit of tenderness and avuncular sweet exasperation with Maria and Anita. The two of them are the core of "America", and the number works as the movie's big showstopper largely because of the energy and chemistry these two performances bring to the movie - which then sets up Anita's devastating exit line at Doc's... "Yo no soy Americana, yo soy puertorriqueña."
Mike Faist makes for a dangerously feral Riff - his sharp eyes, lean physique, and tomcat-like physicality make him feel simultaneously rough and sharp along the edges. During Spielberg's electric staging of "Cool" (now before the fight, rather than in the aftermath), Tony and Riff grapple for control of the gun on a disintegrating dock with holes leading into the inky dark Hudson River. Watching them battle while negotiating pitfalls with an abyss beneath them feels like a musical variation of a smaller Indiana Jones setpiece. Tony's desperate hopes to stop the fight are crushed and we feel the weight of his disappointment and failure, especially as Riff sings the lyrics back to him in cruel mockery trying to bait him into joining the Jets' for the fight.
And of course, there's Rita Moreno's poignant role as Valentina. Her version of "Somewhere" plays not just as an ode to Doc, it's also a Cassandra from the past lamenting another dream between another Tony and Maria doomed to tragedy; trapped in an endless cycle of pointless violence and all she can do is convey a lifetime of grief at having to see it unfold again, while also knowing the attempt to succeed in love must be taken no matter the risk or cost. It's a quietly devastating rendition.
One of my few issues with '21 WSS is that the members of the Jets and the Sharks are relegated to background status. The two exceptions; Anybodys (iris menas), who goes from a tomboy in the previous version to a trans male in this version - a change which feels more honest and echoes the social and cultural barriers placed between Tony and Maria. Chino is recharacterized as an intelligent, hard-working, bookish young man, engaged in creating a career and life for himself, and it gives his eventual tragic turn at the end more heft than it did in the previous film. Otherwise, vivid characters in the '61 WSS such as Ice, Action, and A-Rab are largely ignored in this version.
West Side Story is a perfect match of material for Steven Spielberg, and another late career re-examination of his legacy.
Spielberg has always been an emotionally generous storyteller. It usually works best in his genre entertainments, where emotions are heightened and the drama is not understated or underplayed, and it allows his work to feel effortlessly entertaining. As a big theatrical production full of heightened emotion, West Side Story is a perfect vehicle for Spielberg's savant-like technical skill, crowd-pleasing instincts, and emotional generosity. His intuitive understanding of where to put the camera, when to move the camera, and how to move his performers with the camera opens this production up and, combined with new choreography by Justin Peck, makes it feel thrillingly, vibrantly alive on a movie screen.
Conceding that there are technical resources available to the '21 WSS that were not available to the '61 WSS, one thing I noticed was that Robbins and Wise often put the camera low and shot wide angles which captured Robbins' exquisite choreography, but often also resulted in a film which felt often like a filmed stage production. By contrast, Spielberg's camera is often flying and diving among the dancers, never losing track of the larger geography or making you feel like you're missing part of the choreography because of quick cutting.
Spielberg's staging of "America" is so expansive and colorful - spilling out of a tenement stairwell and out onto the city streets - that there's no point in comparing it to the original, which is staged on a rooftop. The same can be said for other numbers, like the aforementioned "Cool" and "Gee Officer Krupke". Even the staging of "I Feel Pretty" in a department store rather than a small boutique and relocated to the original point in the stage production (after the brawl) makes it acidly tragic even while doubling down on the social/political themes suggested in the film's opening - click on the link above for Chaw's take on this restaged number, it's a fascinating insight, also echoed here by theater critics Jackson McHenry and Helen Shaw.
The high school gym in '21 WSS actually looks like a gym, rather than a church fellowship hall, and Spielberg - working with ace DP Janusz Kaminsky - turns it into a candy-colored kaleidoscope of lens flares and bright lights. Compared to the basement in Doc's store where we meet Tony and the apartment where Maria lives with Bernardo and Anita, watching their worlds collide and then virtually explode with color and life upon meeting each other feels like a perfect expression of love at first sight, as well as the combustibility their love brings to the larger community.
Immediately after, "Maria" is restaged with Tony wandering past a fence onto a playground, like falling in love has immediately pushed him into the simpler time he should be living in at his age - and another depiction of Spielberg's career long fascination with boys from broken homes/families who are desperate to return to the innocence they've lost, before he takes to the streets in search of his new love.
Another contrast between '21 WSS and '61 WSS is watching Spielberg's staging of the Balcony duet of "Tonight". He constantly frames Tony and Maria between rails and steps, moving along catwalks and fire escapes, fighting through obstacle after obstacle just to see each other clearly, then to touch each other, then to kiss each other. The staging gives their romance an immediacy and urgency by visually emphasizing how much they have to overcome to be together. Combined with the actual singing and performances of Elgort and Zegler during the sequence, it's my favorite moment in any movie I've seen this year.
Lastly, '21 WSS feels like Spielberg finding a way back to dozens of reference points from throughout his career. Similar to his underrated adaptation of Ready Player One, but instead of commenting on the work of other directors and interrogating his own influence on popular culture, here we see a late-career master redeploying visual ideas and themes to startling effect. I've mentioned several already throughout this post, but there are others worthy of mentioning. Among them...
- Tony looking out of the basement into a fiery sunset during the quintet "Tonight" hints at the violence to come, while the same fiery sunset hints at violence past in War Horse.
- The kaleidoscope of music and colors during the school dance recalls the sense of wonder during the similarly musical kaleidoscope at the climax of Close Encounters of the Third Kind where people from different worlds are united through light and music, while also evoking the carnality of Rouge City in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, where child-like machines are introduced to a seductively dangerous world.
- The shadowy figures looming towards each other for the brawl in the Salt Warehouse, also reminds me of the emerging aliens from the mothership at the climax of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, though these species are unwilling and unable to communicate with each other.
Closing Thoughts.
Until I sat down to watch it, I had no idea how much I needed Spielberg's West Side Story.
We're now moving close to 2 full years of a pandemic, and when you consider the extreme shifts in America's social, political, and cultural norms, the stresses involved with navigating how all these events impact our work, our kids' education and social development, and our own social lives have been taxing, to say the least. Personally, add in a particularly stressful last few months for reasons I won't get into, and I think I've probably been dealing with mild depression for a while.
Watching this movie in a theater, and getting taken away by the movie not only felt like an island in the middle of a raging ocean, it also took me back to the original and the feelings the original evoked for me when I was a teen. I'm not going to say whether it's a better adaptation than the 1961 original - I'm honestly not sure - but I can say this version works better as a movie. The updates serve to enhance the drama and add grace notes without disrespecting anything which has come before.
After a career spanning 50 years, and having over the course of his career invented the modern blockbuster and defined two generations of popular culture, largely by taking long forgotten adventure serials, science fiction, and monster films and reinventing them into modern classics, Steven Spielberg has turned at last to musicals and largely accomplished the same feat here. His West Side Story is both a modern classic and a fascinating revisiting of his directing career.
You should see it if you get the chance. I can't wait to see it again.
Note: The blog is more educational/discussion purposes and the Author receives no money for this blog. All images are stills form trailers or from the films.
