The Resurgence of West Side Story

After fifty years since its release in 1961, West Side Story has made impressive return. The story about love left people heartbroken in 1961 and once again on December 10th, 2021. Stephen Spielberg the director of was put at the helm for this musical as he quoted, “It will be his only musical as a director” as with a budget of hundred million dollars he wanted to make it his best and only one. Spielberg has made himself quite a directing career as he has produced classics like Saving Private Ryan, The Jaws Series, and E.T the Extra-Terrestrial.

Director Stephen Spielberg

Picture by Gage Skidmore

West Side Story was a great adaptation to Romeo and Juliet as the story made it more appealing to people like me who are not interested in Shakespeare as those can be boring at times. The film brings in a more modern take on Romeo and Juliet as the story had many similarities but was brought up in a different way. The story still gave the same experience that two lovers were not supposed to be together, but they did not care, with 500 years difference between the two, they both end in similar tragedy as both stories end with death and sadness. Instead of the Montagues and the Capulet families we have the street gangs of the Jets and the Sharks. The settings within these two tales are different but the stories are the same. Romeo and Juliet take place in the fourteenth century in Verona Italy while West Side Story takes a whole different take on it by making it in the 1960s in New York City while both have different takes of their approach to this story.

Through watching the film with my girlfriend, I could tell the similarities with Romeo and Juliet. Before watching the film, I told my girlfriend that I was watching the film and all the sudden she had gotten extremely excited. I did not understand why she was so excited until we watched the film as it was entertaining and put together well with a good balance between musical and monologue scenes.

When deciding roles for the movie Spielberg and the other producers Rita Monero, Kevin McCollum, and Kristie Macosko Krieger decided on Ansel Elgort as Tony and Rachel Zegler as Maria as the two main characters in West Side Story. Ansel Elgort has starred in films like been in Baby Driver, The Fault in Our Stars, and the Divergent Series. However, for Rachel this is really her kick-start to her career. West Side Story is her first big movie, but there will be more to come for her.

Picture of Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler)

Scene from the film West Side Story

The story West Side Story starts out by the Jets who were teenage white boys and the Sharks who were Puerto Rican people as these two street gangs were fighting for territory in the neighborhood. The Jets wanted the Sharks gone and the Sharks wanted the Jets gone; they hated each other. Throughout the whole movie they are fighting. Anytime these two groups were in the same place they would always get into an altercation. However, this is a problem for our two lovers in this film as Tony was a “retired” Jet and Maria’s brother Bernardo was the leader of the Sharks. These two were destined for trouble from the start.

Tony is called a “retired” Jet because he was sent to jail for almost killing someone in the Shark’s gang. Once he was put on probation after a year in jail, he realized that being a Jet was not his future, and he started to realize that the Hispanic people that the Jets made out to be these bad people were actually good people, but he did not see that at the time. This is easy to tell that Tony had changed because of how he fell in love at first sight with Maria at the dance with all the Jets and Sharks. The dance would be the turning point of the movie; once the Sharks saw Tony with Maria, they wanted a brawl with the Jets. They did not want Tony anywhere near Maria.

The characters through the film were able to portray the tale well. Characters like Chino played by Josh Andrés Rivera developed an extraordinary amount through the movie. When he was first introduced Chino is this innocent young man who was not even part of the Sharks and was Bernardo’s pick for who should be with Maria. Even with the fact that there was nothing wrong with Chino Maria picked Tony. Chino developed from this shy little puppy into this man out for vengeance against Tony. He hated how Tony took his date because Maria was supposed to be for him. Through the way he changed throughout the story you could feel his pain. You can feel what he was going through though because at some point in a person’s life they have felt a heartbreak and it never feels good. It stings even when you cannot control what happens to you. Chino changed throughout the story but not without cause. Through Chino, people see we need to care for some of these characters in the movie as most of the characters if not all of them experience a strong heartbreak. Chino is just one example in the film that portrayed a sad moment in a person’s life.

The Dance that the Jets and Sharks meet at.

Scene from the film West Side Story

Throughout the film were reminders of why all of this was happening. It was the 1960’s, where racism was more prevalent back then and represented well in West Side Story. Everything that was built up in this story happened all for the development of what the two groups were fighting for as they started to change why they were fighting throughout the movie. The school-dance was the turning point in the movie because of how it led to the rumble close to the end of the movie as that was the first time that Tony and Maria had met each other. Hypothetically, if Tony never went to that dance and listened to his probation rules, that rumble would have never happened. None of the deaths in that scene would have happened. That does not matter though, because this movie showed that love is something people are willing to fight for. Even if this love story was like Romeo and Juliet, it does not mean it did not make a statement to the world. People like Tony would put their life on the line for the love that he had.

In West Side Story, the story felt like it never stopped. The movie came to be two and a half hours long, but it felt a lot shorter than that. There was always something going on to where it felt like there was no dead-points. Stephen Spielberg knew that he must keep the audience interested; he knew his place in this movie was to help keep the story moving.

West Side Story proved that musicals are interesting and worth watching. It deserves a bigger audience than what it has now. People should start to try and find other musicals that are worth watching like La La Land or Mamma Mia, as these are not bad movies. For younger people like me they just do not get enough traction or respect that they deserve. Myself alone I will be giving some of these movies a lot more appreciation that they deserve and so should other people. If not West Side Story, people should go out and give more respect to musicals because they deserve it.