317: West Side Story

[00:00:00] Daily 27. Classic film. Let's get to West Side Story, the original from 1961. This one

[00:00:09] is directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, stars Natalie Wood, George Chakaris,

[00:00:15] Sarfai, so that name wrong, Richard Bamer, Russ Tamblin, Rita Moreno, and others. And

[00:00:23] the synopsis is, two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love,

[00:00:28] but tensions between their respective friends

[00:00:29] build toward tragedy.

[00:00:32] So in case you're unaware,

[00:00:34] this is considered to be, I think,

[00:00:35] one of the most iconic legendary musicals of all time.

[00:00:39] Incredibly influential and impactful,

[00:00:43] and still is at this point.

[00:00:45] Steven Spielberg did a remake of it a couple of years ago,

[00:00:48] which I reviewed on the Spielberg bonus show on Bandcamp,

[00:00:51] which you can check out, which I liked that movie.

[00:00:54] I didn't love it, but I did like it.

[00:00:57] I saw this one probably for the first time in high school,

[00:01:01] maybe college when I was getting into film.

[00:01:04] And I think maybe I'm wrong, there

[00:01:07] is a pretty unanimous consensus there where the not PC, if not outright racist aspects

[00:01:17] of the movie where, for example, Natalie Wood plays Maria and she is a white actress playing a Puerto Rican and then many of the Puerto Rican

[00:01:28] gang members are white men with their faces painted darker. So it is racist and there's absolutely no

[00:01:37] way to defend that either when it came out or now. And I'm really glad that Spielberg did rectify those problems in the new one.

[00:01:46] But besides that, the musical is very good. The musical aspect, like the dances are amazing.

[00:01:52] The opening with the snapping is great. The Maria song, I feel pretty song. Like it has

[00:01:58] some incredibly iconic songs and dance numbers and the choreography is crazy. And if you read into the production, the amount

[00:02:05] of hours spent rehearsing and the long, long days getting these very athletic physical numbers down

[00:02:12] is pretty insane to read about. And I don't know if that's ever been matched since in terms of that

[00:02:18] level of dedication, I guess you can say. So all that works for me, it is entertaining. It's got

[00:02:24] that very epic romance romance dramatic sort of feel

[00:02:27] that Romeo and Juliet inspired nature of the story.

[00:02:30] So all that works for me.

[00:02:32] I do find in both this one and the remake,

[00:02:37] both of them are too long.

[00:02:39] I think by the first hour and a half or hour 45 minutes,

[00:02:43] I'm kind of ready for it to wrap up. I think the first half is a half or hour 45 minutes, I'm kind of ready for to wrap up.

[00:02:46] I think the first half is better than the second in both versions.

[00:02:50] However, one thing that I like a lot that some people seem to sort of hate on is the ending.

[00:02:55] I like how quiet the ending is and some people are expecting this big epic ending for a film like this, but I really like how it does end with that spoiler here,

[00:03:09] death of a character,

[00:03:11] and both movies really delving into the pointlessness

[00:03:15] of hate and violence,

[00:03:17] and where it's just gang members attacking each other,

[00:03:19] and then most of the time,

[00:03:21] it ends up being innocent people who get hurt or killed,

[00:03:24] not actually the people involved in the fighting.

[00:03:26] So all that still has plenty of resonance today, even more so.

[00:03:30] And I think Spielberg's remake went even deeper into all of that.

[00:03:34] So that worked for me.

[00:03:36] So it's one that, you know, if you like musicals, whether or not you've seen the remake, it is worth watching because you can see the influence

[00:03:45] across so many aspects of film and filmmakers and all that.

[00:03:50] It's very, very worthy in terms of the musical aspect of its place in film history.

[00:03:58] So in that way, it is worth watching, but the not PC parts of the movie are not good and will never be okay

[00:04:08] besides that the

[00:04:10] location of the movie is great in New York and I love all the sequences in both versions where they're at Maria's

[00:04:18] Apartment complex and she's on the balcony and that's where it really gets into the Romeo and Juliet baseline

[00:04:23] So it looks amazing.

[00:04:25] The colors, it has that very classic golden era technicolor vibrancy to it.

[00:04:31] So there's no denying that it looks amazing.

[00:04:34] And the editing, of course, is unparalleled in terms of getting those dance sequences

[00:04:39] down and fluid and make sure they're matching up with the rest of the story and the pacing.

[00:04:44] Like it all works very well but nevertheless,

[00:04:47] information, it's not one of my all-time favorite musicals, either version. I

[00:04:51] think the flaws I pointed out are always there every single time I watch them so

[00:04:57] I don't think those will ever really go away and I think that there are a lot

[00:05:03] of others even putting aside the not PC stuff that work a lot better for me and are a little bit more engaging.

[00:05:11] So that one is a heavy four out of five.