West Side Story 2021
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Tony Kushner
Based on West Side Story, by Jerome Robbins
Leonard Bernstein
Stephen Sondheim
Arthur Laurents
Produced by
Steven Spielberg
Kristie Macosko Krieger
Kevin McCollum
Cast
Ansel Elgort as Tony
Rachel Zegler as Maria
Ariana DeBose as Anita
David Alvarez as Bernardo
Mike Faist as Riff
Rita Moreno as Valentina
Brian d’Arcy James as Officer Krupke
Corey Stoll as Lieutenant Schrank
Josh Andrés Rivera as Chino
iris menas as Anybodysň
Andréa Burns as Fausta
Mike Iveson as Glad Hand
Jamila Velazquez as Meche
Annelise Cepero as Provi
Yassmin Alers as Lluvia
Jamie Harris as Rory
Curtiss Cook as Abe
Cinematography Janusz Kamiński
Edited by Michael Kahn & Sarah Broshar
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Production companies Amblin Entertainment & TSG Entertainment
Distributed by 20th Century Studios
I wonder how many people told Steven Spielberg – including Spielberg himself – that he was utterly mad to consider doing a remake of West Side Story. The 1961 original is considered one of the untouchable classics of cinema, a film that can’t possibly be matched, like Casablanca, or African Queen, or Princess Bride. The actors OWNED the roles, and usually with individual quirks that resulted in an equally unique production. (Nearly all of Casablanca was shot with nobody, including the writers, having the faintest idea how the story was going to end.)
West Side Story bombed in the movie theaters, which didn’t surprise me; mostly kids and teens go to the movies these days, and I didn’t think a 60 year old story about JDs who snapped their fingers was going to be big with the Tik Tok crowd. Also, the usual dreary bigots in the anti-woke bunch hated it, because Spielberg used real Puerto Ricans speaking PR Spanish and made Anybodys, the “tomboy” in the original, actually transgender.
But, I was interested to note, the critics raved about it, which I didn’t expect. Some even declared it “better than the original.”
Spielberg, no fool, kept the three most important elements of the original: the eye-popping choreography, and Bernstein’s music. And everyone falls in love with María.
The opening sequence sets the tone: the camera pans down across a devastated cityscape following a large chain down to a wrecking ball that bears an amazing resemblance to Pluto. From there, it pans down to the ground, a rubble-strewn scene of “magnificent desolation.” It’s evocative of the cold emptiness of space. (Spielberg touches like this abound.) Then suddenly a trap door opens up, and a grinning gang member appears, tossing a can of paint out to a fellow member.
Spielberg did make changes in the pace and order of the storytelling. It made the storyline a bit easier to follow, and does a more masterful job of foreshadowing the tragedy to come. It made the development of the relationship between María and Tony a bit rushed, but on reflection, I feel it showed better that the two were as trapped by their youthful lust and impetuousness as by the Shakespearean feud raging about them.
Even having the characters speak in their native tongues worked out well. The first couple of times they spoke without subtitles, I gave my wife an inquiring glance. But she speaks Mexican Spanish, and could only give me a helpless shrug. We have the same problem when there is a French speaker from Haiti or the Cameroons on the telly. My Canadian French isn’t strong enough to handle the dialect/accent.
But what it did was make us lean forward and WATCH the characters as they spoke, and infer what they were saying. It worked to deeply humanize them and make us think harder about the emotional and political situation surrounding the star-crossed.
I’m not prepared to say this is better than the original. But it is every bit as great, and Spielberg has done a masterful job, not only of recreating the classic, but reinventing it without ruining it.
Note to Tik Tok crowd: OK, you’ve seen what the Greatest Generation can do with stylistic realism. Your turn.
Now on Apple TV.