Steven Spielberg’s carefully dusted “West Side Story” is a declaration of love for the musical classic.
When the musical adaptation “West Side Story” was released in 1961, Steven Spielberg was probably the ideal viewer. In fact, the recording of the Broadway production had been spinning on his parents’ record player since he was ten. Even for an ordinary 15-year-old boy in Arizona, New York’s danced gang fights and the Romeo and Juliet tragedy that framed them must have been irresistible. Here, however, they met the knowledgeable eyes of a filmmaker who was able to present his 40-minute 8-mm war film “Escape to Nowhere” that same year.
At 74, America’s most famous filmmaker makes another debut, in two ways. His version of the “West Side Story” is his first remake – and at the same time his first film musical. He does the first task so respectfully that it takes a while before you realize you are looking at something other than the spruced-up restoration of the Robert Wise classic.
Mastering the second task is hardly a surprise: weren’t most of his films meticulously worked out choreographies in collaboration with his favorite composer John Williams, who was called in again this time to oversee work on the Leonard Bernstein score? The leading actor couple Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler sings and dances terrific, Rita Moreno, the Maria of the original film, returns as Tony’s surrogate mother Valentina.
So where is Spielberg’s added value in this venture? Even the first film version adhered closely to a template; Choreographer Jerome Robbins adapted for the screen himself and was named as a director alongside Robert Wise. The 1961 film thus became the model for today’s “franchises”, in which the original productions and designs are always reproduced.
But what would the “West Side Story” be without its style, jazz realism? The songs are inseparable from their original choreographies, which begins in the prologue: the ball game of the white street gang of the “Jets” is weightlessly transformed into a dance – and the attitude of coolness is seamlessly carried over into the sphere of art.
Spielberg takes over the iconic elements, but enlarges the image spaces and lets the camera take part in the dance. Picture designer Janusz Kaminski is famous for masterful mobility in his medium. The later high school dance is even more spectacular; there is no such thrilling mass choreography in the original film either. Such feather-light perfection can lead to intoxicating feelings of happiness.
It is only gradually that it becomes clear that the director, whose fame began with an oversized rubber shark, once again reveals a little more of everything. In the realism of the street scenes, he goes much further than Robert Wise. Spielberg rebuilt the San Juan Hill neighborhood, a shabby part of Manhattan that was demolished in the 1950s. So the rival cliques, the Jets and the Sharks with Puerto Rican roots, now have a common enemy – the incipient gentrification. The fact that they lament the demise of their culture of life, but not ally themselves in the class struggle, becomes another tragic subtext.
Screenwriter Tony Kushner adapted the musical dialogue book by preserving the language style of the 1957 season on the one hand, but deleting sometimes discriminatory wording typical of the time if necessary. The topic of gender identity has been added: Iris Menas plays a transgender minor character – which was reason enough for a number of states in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait to ban the film. Last but not least, the female main character, who acts much more self-confidently and without the halo of the original Maria, has been upgraded.
In interviews, Spielberg emphasizes the realistic claim: This is not a stage, but a real street musical. But was there ever something in a Spielberg film that passed for street realism? Even his cinema debut, the autobahn horror film “Duell”, takes place in a cinematic reality, even when the cameras are photographing real highways. If the famous song number “Tonight” in Spielberg’s production is not supposed to be theatrical, then it is at least great Hollywood: Rachel Zegler intones the famous ballad as Maria at an open window of a masterfully illuminated house facade. It is framed by picturesque clotheslines.
In an interview with the broadcaster ABC, Spielberg confessed that he was afraid of the end of the shooting. “It had opened up something that was inside of me that I wanted to do since I was ten years old and listening to the Broadway album. A dream came true. ”It was his love that he wanted to bring to this material,“ for Stephen Sondheim (the recently deceased lyricist), Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents (the playwright) and Jerome Robbins ”. This proof of love hardly needs any explanation. It’s a completely unpretentious homage, without the external bells and whistles of many recent musical films.
Perhaps that is why, despite all the search for realism, the childlike view of the Disney fan lies above all images. But this is exactly where there is a daring, uncompromising innocence in dealing with the 65-year-old material. Wherever classics are performed, the director faces problems with updating. Here you are dealing with a 50s melodrama about racism, exclusion and sexist traditions of honor. It would have been easy to relocate the subject to the present. Spielberg does something different. He stages the play in its historical modernity. That with a view to the beauties of classic cinema.
Spielberg hired contemporary witnesses who had lived in the lost New York neighborhood to get the details right. But the decisive contemporary witness is himself: someone who went to the cinema in the 50s and 60s. At a time when Hollywood faced racism with its own means – in films like “As long as there are people” or “Lilies on the field”. Many of these films are difficult to convey to young viewers, because even if racism itself unfortunately wanders through the ages without prejudice, art sometimes ages after all.
While the Disney studio is currently filming all its classics from scratch, sacrificing their original beauties, Spielberg has managed the tightrope act: He dusted off the “West Side Story” and removed some varnish. He also hid a few aged spots and added details. But the beauty shines more than ever.
West Side Story. USA. Regie: Steven Spielberg. 156 Min.
