Day 41
Film 32
Directed by: Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise
Screenplay by: Jerome Robbins, Aurthur Laurents (play) and Ernest Lehman
Starring: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, and George Chakiris
West Side Story was a film that I was very quizzical about going into it. I am not a musical guy, and for the first thirty minutes I was a little uneasy about the film, because everything felt a little too rigid and a little too out of place. But as I warmed up to the film I came to understand why it considered a classic. It is a good film, and beyond that it is a very important film.
The original musical was put out in 1957, the film appearing in 1961. This was a time right at the tail end of a repressive time for the baby boomers, and it comes to no surprise that almost every adult figure is portrayed as a drag. This takes a secondary stage to the real message of the film, which focuses on racism from both sides of the issue which was much more prominent in the news of the times.
The plot is a very basic one, based off Romeo and Juliet (A story most people know very well.) This shell allowed the director focus more on the racial interaction as a war. It becomes apparent that it is not a fight between gangs but instead a war of peoples, one where the cops are biased toward the whites and who's parents are as sided as the kids fighting. It grows into an unending fight in which no one can truly win. The only hope is in the final scene where boys from both gangs carry away.
It is a truly great film, not because it is a good story, or because it is filmed well (even though it is) it is an important slice of the times.
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