Evan D. As a project this year we are taking a trip through time to revisit all of the Best Picture winners in history, Wings to Anora. West Side Story is the thirty-fourth film in that series, to see all the other Best Picture reviews, click here. We have talked in this series already about the massive impact William Shakespeare has had on a medium of entertainment he never lived to see. Despite a countless number of adaptations, only two have translated the Bard into a Best Picture winning film. Olivier’s Hamlet took a direct approach, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins brought to screen a modern telling of Romeo and Juliet with West Side Story.
Something of a double adaptation, West Side Story originated on the stage in a play by Jerome Robbins and Arthur Laurents with songs and music by Steven Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein. It is the story of rival youth gangs in New York City: The Jets and The Sharks. Led by Riff (Russ Tamblyn), The Jets are a scrappy group of poor white kids that run the streets. The Sharks are a collection of Puerto Rican immigrants headed by Bernardo (George Chakiris in quite unfortunate brown face.) The Jets and Sharks clash with one another frequently as Riff’s crew try to hang onto the one track of land they feel they can claim for themselves and Bernardo’s group desperately try to carve out their place in a country that refuses to accept them. Amidst the conflict two young lovers try to carve out their place in the world, unfortunately for them they are on opposite sides of this brutal divide. Bernardo’s sister Maria (Natalie Wood, also in terrible brown face) falls for Riffs best friend and former Jet Tony (Richard Beymer). The star crossed romance has the chance to bridge the gap between these two groups of young people looking for anything to call their own. It also has the potential to tear them apart completely. Bringing in Robbins as a co-director proved a brilliant move as this movie-musical holds on to its theatrical roots in the very best way. Dance sequences are electrically choreographed and edited to highlight the emotion and physicality on display. Practical effects and staging — especially in musical moments like Tony and Maria’s first meeting — are more beautiful and tactile than anything you would see done with CGI today. It really is a wonder of the senses. The music itself is hit and miss. The songs you have probably heard of are iconic — I Feel Pretty, America, Officer Krupke are personal favorites — while some of the others drag in comparison. Berenstein’s score takes all the songs and weaves around them especially nicely. Through and through it is a delight of the senses in a way that only a well made movie musical can be. Of course, the film is a true product of the early sixties in a way that brings about serious issues. This review has alluded to the skin darkening make up but even that does not do justice to just how prevalent and frustrating it is. Nearly none of the Sharks, save for the standout Rita Moreno, are Hispanic at all and even Moreno’s skin is visibly darkened for the film. Casting Natalie Wood as Maria is downright baffling, especially given the fact her singing voice was not used in the film at all. Even in terms of the story the choices can be disappointing. West Side Story works fundamentally as a Romeo and Juliet riff because Tony and Maria are caught between a pointless conflict in which neither side is really right or wrong. The Jets, rightly or wrongly, feel like they’re losing the only space they have to be themselves and the Sharks, rightly, feel like they have no space at all in their new home. This is something Spielberg understands well in his modern remake, but this version empathizes far more with the white kids than the Puerto Ricans (or more accurately the white kids in brown makeup.) As always, you try your best to contextualize the dated material within its time but here it creates a structural imbalance in the storytelling. Placing the Jets on a pedestal above the Sharks places Tony and Maria on an uneven footing that Romeo and Juliet never were. It makes the film weaker. It goes from just a brilliantly realized musical to a brilliantly realized musical that you wish had a plot that could keep up. Ultimately there are a lot of joys to be found in West Side Story. They really don’t make ‘em like that anymore, a statement that is both complimentary and derogatory. As a film it remains one of the great movie musicals but one that is frustratingly imperfect. 8/10
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