West Side Story (2021) — Movie Review | Steven Spielberg Musical | Potential Best Film of the Year! Part -1
This was spectacular.
Hi, my name is sithagai and WEST SIDE STORY was just released this last weekend.
Obviously, the movie is always referred to as a remake of the 1961 classic and ten-time Oscar winning Robert Wise version, and you can certainly regard it as one, but if the source material wasn’t originally a movie, I find it always more accurate to just call it a new adaptation.
Before the 1961 film, there was already the original 1957 Broadway musical, that was conceived by Jerome Robbins, with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by the just recently deceased Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Spielberg’s new version is very close to the 1961 film, because that film was very close to the original musical.
Though there were differences and Spielberg’s film also has differences to the old movie by being closer to the original musical in certain aspects, for example by putting the famous “I Feel Pretty” song after the tragic rumble, while the 1961 film put it before that.
Now honestly, I’m really no expert when it comes to WEST SIDE STORY. I have never seen a stage production of it and it has been probably almost ten years since I saw the Robert Wise film.
The minor point I’m trying to make here is that I’m really not someone who’s in that “screw all remakes” camp, especially if it’s something that wasn’t originally a film anyway.
With that being said, Steven Spielberg’s version is absolutely spectacular, rousing, contagious and just super emotional.
Just two or three sentences about the story, in case someone has never heard about it.
It’s basically a modern ROMEO AND JULIET story, only that modern is now also the past, because Spielberg decided to keep the original 1950es setting.
It’s about two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The Jets, consisting of white Americans, and their rivals, the Puerto Rican Sharks.
Both gangs claim a small neighborhood in the titular Upper West Side of New York their own and in the middle of that conflict are two young lovers.
Tony, in this version played by Ansel Elgort, and Maria, played by Rachel Zegler.
And that’s really all you have to know. 2021’s WEST SIDE STORY has a beautiful, nostalgic, classic musical flair and it gorgeously reconstructs its period setting, but it also still completely works today because of its timeless story, which especially nowadays seems super timely, which is of course very unfortunate.
It’s a story about people who should actually team up and fight the system together but instead they fight each other, because of their ethnicity and the territory they believe belongs to them.
This has been an absolute passion project for Steven Spielberg, who long dreamed about making his own version of WEST SIDE STORY, a musical he has fond memories of from when he was a young child.
Spielberg is one of the few great directors who explored many different genres and created wonderful films in them.
Horror with JAWS, sci-fi with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, E.T., A.I. or MINORITY REPORT, action adventure with the INDIANA JONES and JURASSIC PARK movies, biopics with LINCOLN, dramas with THE COLOR PURPLE, SHINDLER’S LIST and several more or World War Two films with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
And now, already in his 70es, he has made his very first musical.
And from what he achieved with his team, it’s crystal clear that he knows exactly what a big classic Hollywood musical like this needs.
There’s an energy and a magic and it will just immerse and enchant you for its runtime of a little bit more than two and a half hours.
It’s certainly a long movie, pretty much exactly like the 1961 version, if you consider the slightly longer closing credits, but if you are into musicals, you want to spend all this time with the glorious song and dance sequences and this classic story full of big emotions.
Spielberg knows how to tell a story like this and how to bring those musical numbers to life. And my god are they alive.
The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, who already won two Oscars, one for SAVING PRIVATE RYAN and one for SCHINDLER’S LIST, is phenomenal.
I was glued to the screen and in awe about the way Spielberg and Kaminski created some true movie musical magic here.
The staging, the dance choreography, how the camera movements are interrupted and motivated by the movements of our characters.
How so many times everything is beautifully captured in these long, continues wide shots, that really let you appreciate all the things going on in the scenes.
All the movements, all the bodies, all the faces, as well as the great locations. It’s visually spectacular.
How Spielberg uses light and shadows. It’s so expressive and all of that really lets you become a part of this world and story.
How he shoots the moment in which Tony and Maria see each other for the first time, with all the fast movements around them and only them in clear focus. Or how he and his choreographer Justin Peck make all those dance numbers come to life.
Just look at the whole sequence at the police station with people jumping on top of tables, pushing each other around and so on.
There is so much kinetic energy to it. And the cast is doing a fantastic job as well.
See you part -2
Please find the second story of West Side Story part -2
