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West Side Story – Spielberg remake (1 Viewer)

Chelsearicky

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That was not my intention at all. Bernardo's casting is equally problematic by 2019 standards (though not, of course, by 1961 ones.) I think it's a bit harsh of you to assume misogyny; Natalie Wood just sprung to mind first because she was the lead of the movie. Of course the same standard applies to everyone else, but they weren't the lead.
I didn’t mean this as a personal accusation; it’s just that this issue always plays out the same way when ‘WSS’ casting is discussed.
 

Cineman

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I know that the remake is definitely happening and nothing can be done to stop it, but I want to put in my two cents anyway.

I don't have much against remakes in general - I think for the most part, they are unnecessary and cheapen the experience of the movie that got it right the first time around. I believe if you insist on remaking a movie, remake a bad movie. A lot of bad movies had great ideas in them somewhere but they were executed poorly. But we all know Hollywood is more concerned about cashing in on the success of blockbuster movies than actually being creative and caring about telling a good story. But the one movie I had hoped they would never remake ever is my favorite movie of all time, West Side Story.

The main reason is that the stage show is just not that good! Even though it's the same story, the movie executes it far better. The movie is exactly what the play should have been, and I really wish stage directors had the option to make their productions more like the movie, while probably keeping some good ideas the show had like the Somewhere ballet. Even the music is better in the movie - I mean, having Tony sing so high he sounds like a pretty girl? His range and his songs sound much better in the movie - he sounds very masculine while still being a tenor. It makes for a much more believable romantic lead, especially comparing his voice to Maria's very feminine soprano voice.

And just reading the play script...it is so full of awkward and rushed dialogue, character inconsistencies, and heavily misplaced songs/scenes. It's like they wrote their first rough draft and decided to make it their final product. Cool and Gee, Officer Krupke's placements in the show alone proves that the author's writing leaves a lot to be desired. Arthur Laurents, I am looking at you.

Yes, I have heard the argument that Gee, Officer Krupke is supposed to be an angry song. Yes, I have heard the argument that Cool was meant to show Riff as a powerful leader. But those arguments still don't work, and I'll tell you why.

The Jets may have been angry when singing Officer Krupke, but they were still laughing and having fun, and it's a very funny song regardless. After Riff's death, we are not supposed to laugh. The enjoyable moments were supposed to be before the rumble, and now that it's happened and lives have been lost now it is time to get serious. The movie did a wonderful job of making this clear but the play did not. There were no tension or emotional stakes. It didn't seem to me that the Jets were really that concerned about what just happened. They didn't seem to be reacting as urgently as they should have been. Unlike in the movie, where they were scared out of their minds and wanting to kill the Sharks, they weren't worried at all about what was going to happen to them. In the stage show, they weren't focused on the Sharks at all during this scene. Singing Officer Krupke had nothing to do with making sure they got revenge on the Sharks, and then when Anybodys shows up that's when they decide to take their situation seriously - now they want to protect Tony and get revenge on the Sharks. That seemed really forced and out of place. Time to get serious about the plot now!

Which brings me to my next point; of all the Jets they could have chosen to take Riff's place as leader, they chose Action.:unsure::wacko: And they don't give any early hints or indications for any character development on Action's part, Oh No!! :emoji_confounded: He goes out of character and immediately becomes the cool-headed, authoritative type for no reason. Throughout the entire story, he is consistently portrayed as hot-headed, always ready to fight, always yelling and using his fists, and he would NEVER make the good decisions the writers forced him to make. This is what I mean by character inconsistencies. Action didn't become the way he did in the second act because he had the character development for it, he did the things Ice ended up doing because the plot needed him to.

Here is where the movie got this right: They put Gee, Officer Krupke in Act I before the war council, and they put Cool after the rumble which made much better sense. (I mean, why is Riff telling Action and everybody else to "play it cool" just before the war council? Nothing that bad has happened yet - also, Riff is the type of character who likes to have a good time, so Gee, Officer Krupke was a great fit for him.) And, they kept Action in character by having him blow up and get the rest of the Jets in a mindless frenzy, and chose a better, more realistic candidate to replace Riff and get everyone else under control: Ice. This character should have been in the play! Why wasn't he?? :emoji_disappointed:

Another song in a different scene I take issue with is I Feel Pretty taking place after the rumble and before Maria finds out that Tony killed her brother Bernardo. The tone is still very inappropriate when it's surrounded by violent, tragic events back-to-back. In the back of our minds we know that Maria's happiness is going to be horribly shattered when she hears what Tony did, and it's just more torture on the audience. At least in the movie, when the song took place in the bridal shop, you still had hope that everything was going to work out well for our two lovers. Seeing her perform it after the rumble is just more torture. There's not supposed to be "more fun to be had" in Act 2. After the rumble, it's serious business.

America...OMG, America...what were Laurents, Bernstein, and Sondheim thinking?!?! In the movie it's one of the best songs, but it's quite the opposite in the stage show. Yes, I'm going as far as to say America is the worst song in the stage show. Why? Because it's so boring and one-sided! I mean, the dialogue working up to that scene onstage is about the same as the movie, and then Bernardo and his Sharks just leave, and it's the Shark girls alone onstage. The writers cheated us out of a really juicy scene with these boys and girls! Once again, the way it is written and performed in the movie is what America should have been. It's a fun, exciting song and dance number that gave some women the chance to perform and compete with the Shark boys who otherwise don't do much in the stage show except dance and look intimidating. Bernardo also suffered the short end of the stick on character development too - he was given a much better chance to shine in the movie.

I mean, all the Shark girls are in love with America except Rosalia, and she's the only one they're pitted against?? Really? We're supposed to find a dozen girls mocking one homesick girl entertaining? Seriously? This scene might have worked if there were at least several more girls on Rosalia's side and the girls who were on the side of America didn't have such an unfair advantage. This conflict goes nowhere else in the plot and it's just as well because we don't care as much about the Shark girls as we do the gang - it's their story, so why were they not originally written in this musical number? Plus, the lyrics, like the dialogue, were awkward, rushed, choppy, and pathetic. Not to mention that the Jets already dominate the story more than the Sharks even in the movie, and the way this scene is written in the stage show gives the Shark boys even less to do!

The lyrics in the movie's version of America were wittier and much more clever. It also makes much more sense because we know the Shark boys hate America in the stage show too. It doesn't force the situation by forcing Bernardo to leave before the song. It further develops the scene by having him stay, and actually letting him have a singing part. The show tells you that Bernardo is a lead role, and yet he doesn't sing once by himself - not one line for a solo. Not only that, but Bernardo is a much more one-dimensional character in the stage show - he doesn't even have the tenderness and love towards his sister, at least not at the same level. The part where they tease each other in the bridal shop and hug before the dance? Gone. In fact, he acts more possessive of Maria in the stage show rather than over-protective. The scene where he takes the time with her in her room to explain where he's coming from in a way he believes she will understand? Non-existent!

He didn't have that many lines at the beginning of the movie, but in the stage show's beginning he has even less lines, and none of them define his character. He doesn't mock Krupke by saying nothing is impossible in America, and he doesn't get to say his best line of all in that scene to Schrank (Would you mind translating that into Spanish?). Schrank just tells him and his gang to leave out of the blue after one of his tirades against the Jets and calls them trash, making Schrank even more of a racist douche, and this time more unprovoked because Bernardo doesn't act like a smart aleck to him. The character defining moments for Bernardo are even less throughout the whole stage show. The only line he was given in the stage show that outshines its parallel in the movie and really defines his character is what he says to Riff about shaking hands before the rumble. In the movie he just turns him down in a direct, no-nonsense way but in the stage show, he comes down hard and just blows the whole issue out of the water. He should have had more moments like that.

Another reason I wish directors could have more freedom about what they could change in the show is because you may have one or two movies based on a stage play, but that play will be performed hundreds, thousands, millions of times over with many different casts and people will be seeing that far more often. That fact does shows like West Side Story a huge disservice - the movie makes much more sense in terms of story, three of the songs are much better placed in the show, and one of the songs was given a complete 180 in the right direction - the movie perfected that song! (Among everything else.)

And that's why WSS shouldn't be remade. All the things the 1961 movie got right the remake is likely to mess it all up by making it like the inferior stage show. I don't care that Steven Spielberg is in charge. Even though he's known for making some real masterpieces, he's made some pretty bad movies too. (Also, like some people pointed out here, he has never directed a movie musical before.) I have no reason to believe that they won't go by the stage show this time - the one thing I might look forward to seeing is how they might do the Somewhere ballet onscreen.

I think your assessment of the problems with the original stage show and how it was made so much better in the original movie are right on with the possible exception of the placement of "Gee, Officer Krupke" later in the show. No doubt about it, that song logically works better where it was placed in the movie. But I can't say Prince, Laurents, Bernstein, Sondeim, et al, "made a mistake" by putting it where it was in the stage version. They were faced with a dilemma regarding a live stage show that doesn't usually apply to a movie; they needed something with pop and energy, even a bit of humor in the latter third of the show to keep the live audience from squirming through such a depressing, downer mood for quite so long and all the way to the final curtain.

This is something that, for whatever reason, does not apply to a movie-going experience nearly as much as it does to a live show experience. As an aside, I have always thought the reason we are willing to sustain and endure a more prolonged downer of a mood in a movie that we are not so willing to accept and endure in a live show is because of the addition of almost ever-present, incidental, background soundtrack "mood" music in a movie to accompany and carry us through the experience, which is generally not the case in a live show.
 
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StrongRex

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I think your assessment of the problems with the original stage show and how it was made so much better in the original movie are right on with the possible exception of the placement of "Gee, Officer Krupke" later in the show.

That's interesting, because that part of my assessment is what I feel strongest about. With "Cool" taking place before the war council, I can at least forgive it because it's not completely illogical - the worst I can say about it is that the song's atmosphere is just way too extreme for this scene and Riff is overreacting to Action and the Jets being pumped about the upcoming fight with the Sharks.

But with "Gee, Officer Krupke," it doesn't belong after the rumble. At all. Riff is dead. Bernardo is dead. Tony committed murder. Both the Jets and the Sharks took part in the scene that led up to that murder. They're all in big trouble. Now is not the time or place for humor or lightheartedness of any kind, even sarcastic, angry humor.

Action would also never take control of the situation the way Ice did.

No doubt about it, that song logically works better where it was placed in the movie. But I can't say Prince, Laurents, Bernstein, Sondeim, et al, "made a mistake" by putting it where it was in the stage version.

They did make a mistake. I've known for a long time that even great artists can be wrong about their work, but Laurents and Bernstein were stubborn to a fault about this issue, as far as what I've been told about them. And as far as I know, they held on to this position to their graves.

Also, I'm pretty sure Prince wasn't involved in the making of West Side Story.

They were faced with a dilemma regarding a live stage show that doesn't usually apply to a movie; they needed something with pop and energy, even a bit of humor in the latter third of the show to keep the live audience from squirming through such a depressing, downer mood for quite so long and all the way to the final curtain.

Yeah, I have something to say about that too. I read this tidbit in the IMDb trivia of West Side Story:

"Robert Wise wanted the film to have a single rising line of tension, with no light moments after the rumble. Therefore, "I Feel Pretty" was moved earlier, and the positions of "Cool" and "Gee, Officer Krupke" were reversed. Those who feel that the sassy, lighthearted tone of "Gee, Officer Krupke" is out of place following the deaths that end the first act prefer the film's ordering of the numbers. The placement of "I Feel Pretty" and "Gee, Officer Krupke" after the rumble in the stage version was meant to help cheer people up after the deaths of Bernardo and Riff, as audiences were not used to death occurring in Broadway musicals. This issue is still heatedly debated among the film's fans. Stephen Sondheim himself had voiced concerns about the issue in the original production, and later confessed he felt partly responsible for the ongoing debate."

My response - tragic deaths in stage shows of any kind have been going on for thousands of years. They go all the way back to ancient Greece. Plays, operas, ballets, you name it had them. Shakespeare alone was notorious for having multiple characters die off throughout his tragedies (and hello, this musical is an adaptation of a famous Shakespeare play!). So I don't buy it for a second that audiences "weren't used" to deaths on Broadway - it's happened before I'm sure, and they've seen deaths in stage productions other than Broadway and in movies. And even if that was true, I care more about the story and characters making sense than the audience's fragile feelings. Also, it's much more powerful this way, the show stands out a whole lot better, and the message really gets across. The message gets watered down if the writers don't take the show seriously and trade a powerful message in for lighthearted humor that ultimately doesn't matter or lead to anything.

And if audiences can't handle that, then maybe they shouldn't be near theatre. Why would they go see a Shakespeare tragedy where characters die throughout the show and not a musical where a few die in the second half and consequences arise because of it? Besides, I'm not even sure that's true - I would argue that if West Side Story onstage had been written just like the movie, with the Somewhere ballet still intact, it would have run even longer on Broadway. With only 732 performances, it's not even close to being in the top 120 longest running Broadway shows, which is a real tragedy because the movie is an absolute masterpiece!

I did hear that Sondheim had reservations about the placement of those two numbers in the stage show, but now he regrets saying something about it?

Give me a break, Sondheim. It's not my problem if you're not assertive enough to stand by your concerns.

All I can say is this - Robert Wise, you made the right call.

This is something that, for whatever reason, does not apply to a movie-going experience nearly as much as it does to a live show experience. As an aside, I have always thought the reason we are willing to sustain and endure a more prolonged downer of a mood in a movie that we are not so willing to accept and endure in a live show is because of the addition of almost ever-present, incidental, background soundtrack "mood" music in a movie to accompany and carry us through the experience, which is generally not the case in a live show.

To me, there is no difference between storytelling in a movie or stage show, only limitations on what you can do in either. Background soundtrack mood music has nothing to do with it for me. The story would make sense (or not) with or without it.
 
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Cineman

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For me, of the many classic, superlative elements of the original West Side Story movie, the most important, the most beautiful and most memorable is the music and orchestrations. What Leonard Bernstein, Irwin Kostal, Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin, Richard Carruth as well as each and every musician involved in the movie soundtrack produced is absolutely transcendent. I might notice places where a minor detail here and there could have been changed or improved upon ever so slightly elsewhere in the original movie. But not those musical sounds entering my ears, brain, heart and soul for all time.

Not to exclude Sondeim's contributions to the emotional effect by any means. Or the vocals. I am only pointing to the one element where, if the remake falls short in any way, I will feel the effort diminished the potential impact of a great work of art as we now know it could have been done instead.
 
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MartinP.

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What is the difference between Natalie Wood being made up to play a Latina and a white person in blackface? It's the same issue and it is a problematic decision in either case by the cultural standards of 2019.

It's not quite the same issue. Blackface was meant to portray caricatures of black people and the face was usually the only thing made up. Natalie was meant to be a Latina character in whole and not a caricature.

It's the fact blackface was used by whites to caricaturize blacks that is the more problematic notion. Just as gay men are/were often caricaturized as nelly, lisping, limp-wristed and non-manly. It's the stereotyping that's problematic.

But, yes, in 2019 these are problematic decisions.

Another song in a different scene I take issue with [in the stage version] is I Feel Pretty taking place after the rumble and before Maria finds out that Tony killed her brother Bernardo. The tone is still very inappropriate when it's surrounded by violent, tragic events back-to-back.

I don't think it's inappropriate at all. I find it quite compelling watching the girls optimism while the audience knows what's happened. It's like watching a Titanic film and knowing what's going to happen to those people. It makes you feel even more empathy for the plight of these characters and the situations they're coping with. I think it's quite effective.

In the back of our minds we know that Maria's happiness is going to be horribly shattered when she hears what Tony did, and it's just more torture on the audience. At least in the movie, when the song took place in the bridal shop, you still had hope that everything was going to work out well for our two lovers. Seeing her perform it after the rumble is just more torture.

Well, to quote your post above:

And if audiences can't handle that, then maybe they shouldn't be near theatre.
 

StrongRex

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I don't think it's inappropriate at all. I find it quite compelling watching the girls optimism while the audience knows what's happened. It's like watching a Titanic film and knowing what's going to happen to those people. It makes you feel even more empathy for the plight of these characters and the situations they're coping with. I think it's quite effective.

I will admit I don't feel as strongly about this as I do Cool and Gee, Officer Krupke because you really can't blame Maria for not knowing the truth yet. If Cool and Gee, Officer Krupke were in their proper places but I Feel Pretty was still after the rumble, it wouldn't bother me as much. But I still consider it to be the right move to place the number in the bridal shop before the rumble simply because I agree with Robert Wise's decision to have a single line of rising tension throughout the show, with no light moments after the rumble whatsoever.

I wouldn't say I Feel Pretty is one of my favorite songs from WSS, but I definitely enjoy listening to it in the movie and in my car when it pops up in my playlist. I wouldn't enjoy it as much in the stage show simply because too much is at stake. In the bridal shop, you can relax a little and enjoy the song more plus it's a point of character development for Maria. It's a much more appropriate atmosphere because we know Maria is in love with Tony and we get to see her friends react to her suddenly showing feelings of being lovestruck. Not to mention the bridal shop couldn't be a more perfect setting to have that song performed in, with all the flowers and pretty dresses hanging around and with Maria trying on different ones - another wasted opportunity by the writers of the show! After the rumble, it's kind of already too late to have that kind of song and we just want to keep things moving.

I also have to say that it works better for the structure of Act I and Act II. If you have Act I end with Tony killing Bernardo at the rumble, it makes it too long and Act II too short. Plus, I'm pretty sure Tony is still in his dancing attire when he cleans up Doc's store during the war council, so if I Feel Pretty is not in the next scene during the bridal shop, that's one very fast costume change Tony will have to do! He won't have very much time between his conversation with Doc and when he's supposed to pop in to see Maria.

If Act I ends with Doc saying "I'm frightened enough for the both of you", that's a perfect amount of foreshadowing to leave the audience uneasy enough to know the possibility that things won't turn out well for our two lovers, but hoping that they might anyway. If Act I ends with the rumble and Riff and Bernardo dead, the entire mystery and most of the suspense is gone - you know that it's all going to go downhill from there, there's no coming back, and that's not a good cliffhanger. You can pretty much guess what will happen after that if you've never seen WSS before. The way the movie writers handled it showed they had a much better understanding of how good cliffhangers work, unless you just keep watching the movie without taking a break, of course. (Plus it gives Tony more than enough time to change his costume for Act II when he's next seen in the bridal shop.)

Well, to quote your post above:

In that quote, I was referring to the claims that having Gee, Officer Krupke after the rumble works because "it cheers up the audience" or that it shows the audience that "there's still more fun to be had". And I believe that's wrong because it doesn't work in terms of story. My point was if audiences prefer humor and light moments to good storytelling and can't handle the rough parts then they shouldn't be near theater and I stand by that statement, because theater (and movies) are full of tragic and dark subjects depending on where you go. Also, different audiences prefer different things - Bernstein, Laurents, and Sondheim should have kept that in mind. It sounded like they didn't know who they wanted their audience to be if they had that kind of concern.

There's tension that drives the story and moves it forward, and there's tension that's there for the sake of having more tension. The case with "I Feel Pretty" being after the rumble falls into the latter category, especially because in the way it's written in the stage show, it brings the story to a screeching halt (Gee, Officer Krupke even more so) and delays the inevitable. I never said tension had to be in all situations, so you misapplied my quote.
 
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MartinP.

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But I still consider it to be the right move to place the number in the bridal shop before the rumble simply because I agree with Robert Wise's decision to have a single line of rising tension throughout the show, with no light moments after the rumble whatsoever.

I don't consider the song being placed after the rumble make it a light moment. It is for her, but not the audience, which makes it extremely effective, IMO. I also don't feel it brings the story to a screeching halt. However, besides that, I have no problem with it in the movie, nor do I have a problem with the play as staged. They're just different and I like both of them. I don't feel a need to elevate one over the other.
 

StrongRex

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I don't consider the song being placed after the rumble make it a light moment. It is for her, but not the audience, which makes it extremely effective, IMO. I also don't feel it brings the story to a screeching halt.

It's a light moment considering how upbeat the melody and Maria's mood is during the scene.

However, besides that, I have no problem with it in the movie, nor do I have a problem with the play as staged. They're just different and I like both of them. I don't feel a need to elevate one over the other.

To each their own. But if I had it my way, both the stage version and the movie would have this number as it is in the movie, for the reasons I listed.
 

usrunnr

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With Rita Moreno playing the Store Owner, I'd like to see her husband next to her --- played by George Chakiris
 

Robert Crawford

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The Moderator Staff has removed some posts. This discussion has gone off the tracks. Let's stop with the ethnicity comments regarding what color, people of Spanish descent are and re-focus our attention back to this upcoming movie. If anybody ignores this warning then they'll be banned from this thread as this isn't up for any type of debate as the staff isn't in the mood to discuss it any further.
 
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SamT

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58560239493082259321.jpg


IT'S A WRAP!

20th Century Fox has revealed that production has officially wrapped on director Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake.
 

Jake Lipson

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I do think it's weird that he used the phrase "without precedence," since, really, it does have a precedent in the previous film. I get that he was trying to be complimentary and was, but his word choice there was a little odd considering it is a remake.
 

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