Friday, March 21, 2008

West Side Story (1961): Eitan's Take

West Side Story is a movie that inspires near-blasphemous ambivalence in me. Like the pop art movement that was emerging at the time Jerome Robbins and Stephen Sondheim cooked it up, the film is colorful, strange, gritty, explosive, and ultimately very, very empty. Like its pathetically weak source material, Shakespeare's overrated Romeo and Juliet, it has barely enough plot points to sustain its 150-minute running time, and it blows its artistic load on three or four mind-bogglingly brilliant song and dance numbers, leaving the rest to drag. And drag. And drag. One cup Zeferelli's "Romeo and Juliet," one heaping teaspoon of "The Warriors," and a bit of Bob Fosse leaves us with a very colorful and very bland stew.

I'll focus on the positives of this iconic film first. The dance routines are, perhaps, the best ever captured on camera. Jerome Robbins' vision of a violent gangland ballet comes to life in ways that still inspire awe 47 years later. The high kicks, the spins, the snaps, the explosive arm gestures, the leapfrogs, and even the more subtle motions like scurrying up fences and racing through the street... it's all phenomenal eye candy, and it all definitely captures the simmering inner drama of young gang members. The attitude and bravado of these thugs comes through, and for a few moments we can even see the appeal of living like they do. Likewise, the cinematography is breathtaking; bright 60's yellows and blues and greens mix with the dark grit of Manhattan to great effect. The interplay of light and shadow adds to the general feeling of despair hanging over the movie. It's New York at a completely different angle from the melancholy sweetness of Billy Wilder's imaginary Manhattan. It's really quite akin to On the Waterfront, if the shipping yards were painted in glorious pastels. These two elements alone almost make the movie worth watching, and I have no doubt that along with Leonard Bernstein's epic score, these are the reasons why people return time and time again to West Side Story.

But there are so many elements of this movie -- again, this iconic movie -- are too overcooked to take seriously. At times, the singing is downright atrocious, even in some of my favorite tunes ("America," "Cool," "Gee Officer Krupke"). The love story is too hammy for its own good, and the changes from Romeo and Juliet actually weaken the overall thrust of the story. These two "star-crossed lovers" are supposed to die TOGETHER; seriously, one dies and the other is led away by a police as the camera cranes upwards?

While recontextualizing the violence and romance in the guise of an immigrant story is, of course, an interesting twist, it's hard to a) get past the feeling that these are just a bunch of really stupid and short-sighted kids and b) get past the fact that half of them don't even look like the ethnicity they're supposed to be portraying. By this point in the history of Western art, this story had been hashed and rehashed until all but a gloppy goo was left, and the tired storyline (which Shakespeare himself cribbed from several writers before him) really shows its age. Maybe "high-concept" reinterpretations of Shakespeare were new then, but by now they're old hat -- I've personally seen WWII-era "Much Ado," silent-film-era "Midsummer Night's Dream," a junkyard "Midsummer," an all-black "Othello," and pretty much every mushy Shakespeare-lite movie that Hollywood has cooked up ("Ten Things I Hate About You," et al). So while I can imagine the early-60's fervor over these hot kids doing Shakespeare in an alleyway (remember, this was even before Zeferelli's version), I'm viewing this from a 21st century lens, and I always find myself unimpressed with this movie, which everyone else seems to love.

Call me a grump, but I give this a 6/10. And once again, Natalie Wood does not LOOK, SOUND, or ACT Puerto Rican!

1 comment:

Rob Y said...

I am glad I am not the only one who didn't like this movie. I laugh when I see this movie. I had the opportunity to see this on my first time in the theater at my college. I busted out laughing when Maria bursts into song while Tony is dying. I got the nasty looks.

And yes, Maria should have died too.