Okay. Stephen Spielberg, today's highest-grossing living director worldwide, made a musical. His "West Side Story" had a $100 million dollar budget. Watching it you wonder, "Where did the money go?" Most "big" films today have a considerable CGI budget, but did it all go to creating rubble? While there's a honey-colored nostalgic light over most of the film, it's also oversaturated in color to highlight the reds, which also does odd things to skin color, and, yes, this is movie about skin color.
While it may sound like a good idea to bring in Tony Kushner to brush up the book, it really wasn't necessary. The whole idea of the sins of redevelopment being added really takes too much exposition to pull off successfully, although having the setting being where Lincoln Center arose was clever, since Leonard Bernstein opened it with the New York Philharmonic. But what did all that additional material really do to illuminate an already clearly defined book by Arthur Laurents. There was some nonsense about bringing back Laurents "original intent" but that's just silly. All Kushner did was add unnecessary running time where musical numbers are attenuated to give Kushner more time to expound on what we already knew or didn't really need, e.g., an elaborate back story to Tony's trouble with the law.
The purpose may have been to brush over the central problem with "West Side Story" in any version: the Tony/Maria conundrum. They're boring. They're drips. What's compelling about "West Side Story" is the tension and the colorful life in the barrio that swirls around them. That's what draws people to this story, and it's very difficult to go from a mambo in "Dance at the Gym" to an operatic/pop song like "Maria" without disappointing the audience. Plus, apparently when making a movie of "West Side Story" you have to cram the camera about 6 inches from Tony and/or Maria's face to emphasize their infatuation with one another. The close-ups in this version are trite and very tiresome. The action scenes take on a brutality which, sadly, is what our culture is fascinated with.
Some other choices, like timing the gathering of dried laundry to the music are very distracting, particularly for a master film maker like Spielberg. $100 million and we get dancing laundry. Spielberg abandons the wide screen sharply focused formal compositions of the 1961 film for a rotting, debris filled, very crowded frame. It's the most obvious change between the 1961 version and Spielberg's. There's still the problem of credibility where City gangs and their threatening swagger will pull off a perfectly executed pirouette and we aren't tempted to giggle. "West Side Story" belongs on a stage, it's bluntly theatrical and putting it in the streets of New York City would be like filming "Swan Lake" outdoors on a lake bank.
The musical is as timely and fresh as when it opened in 1958. Had Spielberg spent his money on adapting something like the 2020 Broadway revival (which was a combination of live stage performance and film maybe something new that added to the revivals of "West Side Story," great. For me, because it's retro and often a shot for shot duplicate of the 1961 film, it was redundant...well, you do get to hear the magnificent score in Dolby Atmos sound, and if that's worth your while, head for an IMAX.
While it may sound like a good idea to bring in Tony Kushner to brush up the book, it really wasn't necessary. The whole idea of the sins of redevelopment being added really takes too much exposition to pull off successfully, although having the setting being where Lincoln Center arose was clever, since Leonard Bernstein opened it with the New York Philharmonic. But what did all that additional material really do to illuminate an already clearly defined book by Arthur Laurents. There was some nonsense about bringing back Laurents "original intent" but that's just silly. All Kushner did was add unnecessary running time where musical numbers are attenuated to give Kushner more time to expound on what we already knew or didn't really need, e.g., an elaborate back story to Tony's trouble with the law.
The purpose may have been to brush over the central problem with "West Side Story" in any version: the Tony/Maria conundrum. They're boring. They're drips. What's compelling about "West Side Story" is the tension and the colorful life in the barrio that swirls around them. That's what draws people to this story, and it's very difficult to go from a mambo in "Dance at the Gym" to an operatic/pop song like "Maria" without disappointing the audience. Plus, apparently when making a movie of "West Side Story" you have to cram the camera about 6 inches from Tony and/or Maria's face to emphasize their infatuation with one another. The close-ups in this version are trite and very tiresome. The action scenes take on a brutality which, sadly, is what our culture is fascinated with.
Some other choices, like timing the gathering of dried laundry to the music are very distracting, particularly for a master film maker like Spielberg. $100 million and we get dancing laundry. Spielberg abandons the wide screen sharply focused formal compositions of the 1961 film for a rotting, debris filled, very crowded frame. It's the most obvious change between the 1961 version and Spielberg's. There's still the problem of credibility where City gangs and their threatening swagger will pull off a perfectly executed pirouette and we aren't tempted to giggle. "West Side Story" belongs on a stage, it's bluntly theatrical and putting it in the streets of New York City would be like filming "Swan Lake" outdoors on a lake bank.
The musical is as timely and fresh as when it opened in 1958. Had Spielberg spent his money on adapting something like the 2020 Broadway revival (which was a combination of live stage performance and film maybe something new that added to the revivals of "West Side Story," great. For me, because it's retro and often a shot for shot duplicate of the 1961 film, it was redundant...well, you do get to hear the magnificent score in Dolby Atmos sound, and if that's worth your while, head for an IMAX.