“West Side Story” was released at a glorious time for modern cinema, when musicals that predicted the demise of the genre only yesterday captured the attention of audiences and critics. Leon Carax’s “Annette” directed the Cannes Film Festival, Joe Wright directed “Cyrano”, Andrew Garfield “Tit-tock… Boom!” He received an Oscar nomination. Against the general background, Steven Spielberg’s decision to make his own adaptation of Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ 1961 cult musical not only seemed strange, it seemed the most logical, especially since he himself had been a fan of the original film ever since. early childhood.
Steven Spielberg approached the film version with all seriousness: it does not change the time and place of the action (New York, 1950s), does not make categorical changes to the source material, even filming the authors working on West Side Story and 60 years. work back. Thus, screenwriter Arthur Laurents, composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricist Stephen Sondheim are on the list of authors. The director’s approach to the casting of the film turned out to be more complicated: if in the 1961 version the main character was played by Natalie Wood, a Puerto Rican, daughter of Russian immigrants, and her brother was played by an actor. With Greek roots (both made up), now Steven Spielberg insisted that Puerto Ricans be played only by Hispanics. This easily explains the absence of big names in the cast, with the exception of Ansel Elgort and Rita Moreno, who are remembered by the audience for their roles in Baby Driver and The Goldfinch – he once received an Oscar for the first Western. Side Story and during this time played the cameo role of Doc’s widow, pharmacist Valentina. Otherwise, you are unlikely to see familiar faces here: the main female character, Maria, is played by 20-year-old Rachel Zegler, accompanied by Ariana DeBoss, who for many has become one of the main characters. last year’s discoveries and dozens of young people are going to dance with them on the big screen, artists whose names Hollywood has often heard for the first time.
West Side Story was originally considered a modern-day tale of Romeo and Juliet that was transferred to America in the ’50s, and Steven Spielberg didn’t argue with that. In the center of the plot are the same motifs of impossible love at first sight, which seem incredible to someone, but nevertheless it happened. And if you can still call it “unreal” about Tony and Maria’s romance, then everything else in the movie sounds incredibly relevant – social inequality and the pursuit of the American dream, xenophobia and ethnic conflicts with tragic consequences. results. Steven Spielberg speaks openly about this without correcting, unmasking, and softening the corners that the original movie partly sinned about: he explains the motives of rival clans (at the heart of West Side Story is the conflict between street gangs, white Rockets, and Puerto Rican Sharks), adding comfort to the characters, Replicas of Puerto Ricans are often written in their native language without subtitles and even open the film with a panorama of slums that are about to be demolished to build Lincoln Center, which later became the city’s largest. Cultural Center. Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ film saw Manhattan from a bird’s eye view.
Speaking of West Side Story, of course, it’s impossible not to mention the music, and Steven Spielberg treats this part of the picture with less attention than social overtones. Here, predictably, it pays tribute to the original: in its version it all sounds the same “Great”, “Tonight”, “Feels Good”, “America”, “One hand, one heart”, “Somewhere”, but these are made more lively . According to the director’s decision, most of the scenes were shot on location – on the real streets of New York, the actors performed their dance numbers without the help of assistants, in some cases the sound was even recorded directly on the set.
Steven Spielberg does not set himself the goal of bringing something fundamentally new to West Side Story, but instead pays homage to the classics, conveying meanings that still apply from the distant 50s of the twentieth century to the present day. For him, his attempt to write a new genre for himself – a musical – proved more than successful and brought 7 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture), although lower than the original with a presentation in 11 categories. , but it proves perfectly that some plans are universal for any time. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story failed to repeat the success of its 10-Oscar-winning predecessor (only Ariana DeBos won the Best Supporting Actress for the movie), but in the case of this story, it doesn’t look too scary.
Source: People Talk
