West Side Story (2021)

Rita Moreno

Director Steven Spielberg

Spielberg surrounded by his lead cast

WEST SIDE STORY             C+                                                                                                USA  (156 mi)  2021 ‘Scope  d: Steven Spielberg

Most of the white guys who grew up in this slum climbed their way out of it.  Irish, Italian, Jews: nowadays their descendants live in nice houses and drive nice cars and date nice girls you’d want to marry.  Your dads or your granddads stayed put, drinking and knocking up some local piece who gave birth to you: The last of the Can’t-Make-It Caucasians.

What’s a gang without its terrain, its turf?   You’re a month or two away from finding out, one step ahead of the wrecking ball.  And in this uncertain world, the only thing you can count on is me.  I’m here to keep the civil peace until the last building falls.  And if you boys make more trouble on my turf, Riff, hand to heart, you’re headed to an upstate prison cell for a very long time.  By the time you get out, this will be a shiny new neighborhood of rich people in beautiful apartments, with Puerto Rican doormen to chase trash like you away.                                          —Lieutenant Schrank (Corey Stoll)   

With the rise of white supremacy and xenophobia that exploded during the Trump administration, what better time to dust off an old American standard which is ripe for an updated revision?  While the familiar music and songs are the same, created in the mid 50’s by an extraordinary musical team of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, dance choreographer Jerome Robbins, and writer of the 1957 Broadway play, Arthur Laurents, four gay Jewish leftist artists, three of whom, Bernstein, Laurents, and Robbins, were hounded and persecuted by the FBI during the communist witch hunt era of McCarthyism, yet made history with this production, as it’s not only a classic musical, it is also one of only a handful of landmark shows that fundamentally changed the form of musicals.  Its greatest influence was in the theatricality of its presentation, the seamlessness and cinematic flow of its staging, and the integration of script, song, and dance movement, revived by high schools, universities, community and regional theaters, with more than 250 productions annually in the United States alone, translated into more than 26 languages and six separate Spanish translations based on countries and local dialect.  Stephen Spielberg has attempted to right the wrongs of the earlier version, and by doing so, may have taken the heart out of the film.  Perhaps the artist missing most was Jerome Robbins, the choreographer responsible for those masterful dancing creations in the earlier version, as some of that frenzied energy is missing here, clearly not as captivating, as Robbins designed his choreography around the actual human beings who were performing the play, individually designed for each of the lead performers, maximizing their strengths, minimizing their weaknesses, developed through extensive rehearsal dancing sessions, all in an attempt to maximize the effort seen onscreen, while this version, choreographed by Justin Peck, has its moments, but overall doesn’t convey the same excitement, seemingly showcasing the colorful costumes, while often cutting short the actual dances, with an overreliance on film editing, which instead makes it look far too choppy.  While this revision keeps the songs, it lacks the vitality of the original, as there is noticeably less of a focus on dancing, to its detriment, as the real originality of the earlier version was the centrality of dance to its storytelling, elevating movement to the primary theatrical concern, with Jerome Robbins serving as a co-director.  The local dance sequence at the gym, for instance, never feels that special, shot from a vantage point that cuts off the dancer’s feet, and it was over after about ten minutes, not really much of a dance, and most of that time was spent with lovers making eyes with each other, finally having a tender moment alone behind the bleachers, where falling in love really can happen just that instantaneously.  Perhaps the biggest flaw is in the casting itself, as this group doesn’t feel as young and vibrant as the original cast, which placed an accent on youth, nor are they as likeable, as there’s no character development happening here, none, from the introductory shot on, as audiences are not going to sympathize with the Jets led by Riff (Mike Faist), as Spielberg has turned them into white supremacists who act like thugs, openly demonstrating racist hostility toward non-white immigrants who they believe are taking over the city.  More than anything, this is a nauseating turn-off and may be what’s responsible for audiences turning away in droves.  In the original version, the movie sent an entire generation of kids jumping and dancing down the street due to the likeability factor with Riff and his riffraff gang of misfits, who were a kind of lovable group of outsiders, as were the wise-cracking Sharks with their suave dance moves.  That’s not going to happen here, as these guys have no appeal factor whatsoever, not just rootless and disconnected, but more of a toxic influence with criminal tendencies, offering a downbeat, overly repulsive feel of nihilism, where these kids would feel more at home in Sam Peckinpah’s glorious death epic The Wild Bunch (1969).  The same could be said for Bernardo (David Alvarez), the leader of the Sharks, who feels older, as he’s already developing a boxing career, a change that adds nothing at all to his character, with the Sharks viewing their neighborhood as an unwelcoming place where they must put up with relentless racism and exclusion, with the Jets their racist oppressors, while the film spends no time getting to know any of his members either, who feel anonymous, seemingly thrown together only for the dance numbers, as we never get to know them.  Bernardo, however, is guilty of his own racist misogyny, implying (in Spanish) that his girlfriend is not a member of the family because she is black, so the Sharks are equally repulsive and just as unsympathetic to viewers, but there is a new twist, as they all have jobs.  Not sure you can even be in a gang if you have a job, but that’s the new Spielberg sanitized version of a street gang, ridiculously trying to be politically correct.  These changes alone are the downfall of Spielberg’s film, all but guaranteeing it will not have the generational influence of the original.  Maria is played by Rachel Zegler, a marked improvement in the singing, but the casting of Tony by Ansel Elgort comes with major baggage, as sexual assault allegations were made against him in June 2020 (9-months after shooting ended, so it was too late to replace him) by two different women (Ansel Elgort Sexual Assault Allegations—A Timeline Of Events).  The only likeable characters in the entire film are Maria and Anita, Ariana DeBose, the real discovery of this film, winning the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress, where her speech was one of the few highpoints of the Oscar telecast, along with 89-year old Rita Moreno as Valentina in a newly created role as Doc’s widow, assuming ownership of the corner store.  No one else really stands out, feeling rather pale in comparison.  In the opening shot, a thrilling aerial shot in the earlier version introduced viewers to the island of Manhattan, while this uses all of its resources to do a spectacular shot of a garbage dump, with concrete, cable wire, and broken glass dumped into a massive heap, the effect of buildings being razed to the ground, bulldozed into piles, leaving only rubble, where the setting is more reminiscent of Rossellini’s GERMANY YEAR ZERO (1948), which was shot in the rubble of postwar Berlin.  This is the scrap of land that the Upper West Side neighborhood has been reduced to, where these final holdouts are the only residents left making way for a massive transformation project that’s more upscale and completely out of their price range, with land already set aside, which makes this version look unnecessary, as they’ll soon have to move anyway, like all the others.  Yet the vacuousness and utter annihilation of what we see is truly not worth dying for, making the entire premise of fighting over such a bleak landscape for just a month or so seem cruelly absurd, as none of them are going to be there much longer anyway because of the urban renewal evictions.  In the original version they still had a neighborhood, and a life within it that was worth living.  Here it’s an exercise in futility, more than anything a portrayal of a grim reality, both in terms of urban blight and the human condition, making this a difficult film to watch, feeling ghost-like in comparison.  This new film continues the age-old dilemma of projecting values through color schemes, with the supposed good guys (the Jets) wearing the lighter colors, while the supposed bad guys (the Sharks) are costumed in darker colors, a bias that has been projected onto audiences for nearly a century of cinema, as does anyone recall Westerns?  Originally, the movie was built around how the crushing forces of poverty, societal apathy and abandonment lead to prejudice and racial hatred, fueling the rival gangs into a rumble, provoking even the most innocent into an act of violence, suggesting anyone else in the same position might have acted the same way.  In this new version the racial animosity has turned into grotesque human behavior, where Tony already has a history of violence, which we attribute to the individual, not the social condition, primarily due to lack of character development.  Spielberg even spends more time with police, as if trying to give them a human face instead of being the subject of comic ridicule.  In a film about kids with no presence of adults, it’s no surprise they would mock and humiliate the police, as they’re ineffectively out of their element, not really knowing what they’re dealing with, having no ability to stop what takes place.          

It must be said, however, that this revision doesn’t do away with the racism inherent to the story, which was the original complaint, magnified by the racist elements in the actual production, with white actors playing the Spanish roles, while the original version was marred by a studio practice of brownfacing the Puerto Rican characters, while in this revised version Latino actors are hired for all the Spanish parts, with characters who speak Spanish, deleting the most offensive lyrics, especially the introductory language in the song “America,” which began on Broadway as a playful debate between Rosalia, who longs to return to Puerto Rico, which she describes as an “island of tropical breezes,” and Anita, who mocks Rosalia’s sentiment with “Puerto Rico, you ugly island, island of tropic diseases,” America - West Side Story, which was also deleted in the original film version.  The Broadway number also excluded the men, which the earlier film thankfully corrected, as humor is derived from the back and forth banter between the men and the women.  However, fully buying into the American Dream, Anita does say “Let it sink back in the ocean,” pitting her disdain for Puerto Rico against Bernardo’s experience of American racism.  Part of the drama in the original was pitting the dream of American assimilation, expressed by Anita, against those who continued to assert life was better in Puerto Rico, where the song actually expresses her contempt of the old world juxtaposed against the promise of a new world.  Puerto Ricans found this racist element in the original writing of the song not only distasteful, but something of a betrayal of their heritage and culture.  And they would be right, but that’s what the song is about.  It was meant to be highly provocative and inflammatory.  Remove that incendiary aspect and it’s just a nice song, void of the real heart of the original, which actually tried to deal with the generational dilemma of Puerto Ricans coming to America, much like all the other immigrant groups. Compare the exuberant energy of the original, which beautifully sets up the dilemma with preceding dialogue and plenty of character, becoming a battle of the sexes, extending into the fiery performance of Rita Moreno as Anita, West Side Story(1961) - America - YouTube (7:54), and the Spielberg version, expanding into the streets onto a broader stage, becoming more of a spectacle, where adding children into the mix is a nice touch, with the men having less of a forceful presence, while it lacks the humorous in-your-face sarcasm of the original, America (From "West Side Story") - Cast 2021 - YouTube (5:29).   Both excel in extraordinary choreography, arguably the best number in the entire show, but one erupts naturally out of an argument between two lead characters, extending the argument into dance and song, while the revision feels more like a filmed sequence, set up and pre-planned well in advance with meticulous blocking, lacking the organic connection to the overall storyline.  While the original Broadway and film versions were instant crowd-pleasers, listed by the American Film Institute as the second-greatest musical ever made, Greatest Movie Musicals of All Time - AFI - Filmsite.org, they nonetheless exhibited a shameful representation of Puerto Ricans.  For that reason, Spielberg flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico to do a casting call, hiring eight of the twenty Puerto Rican cast members as a result of the visit, while also attempting to erase some of the negativity by hiring professors and history consultants, also language and accent experts, where Spanish is not subtitled in the film, but often repeated in English, yet the most personalized dialogue is strictly in Spanish.  Puerto Ricans were not happy with the choice of Rachel Zegler as Maria, who is still not Puerto Rican, as her mother is Colombian, yet neither is David Alvarez, who is Cuban-Canadian.  While there is less of a pervasive use of Latin stereotypes in the new version, it still retains the original storyline which was based upon prejudice and bigotry, as that provides the essential dramatic tension between the two rival gangs, who are not meant to be friendly, reiterating the Romeo and Juliet themes of the play, where the Montague and Capulet families are sworn enemies that hate each other, with their venomous animosity the cause of civil strife, leading to unfortunate deaths, tragedies that might otherwise have been prevented.  While the original had no black presence, this updated version does, but not in a positive way, as we see an elderly black man sweeping the playgrounds for a few seconds, while Curtiss Cook makes his presence as an older black gun dealer selling the murder weapon to Riff, with blacks once again stigmatized as either second class citizens or associated with the criminal element, as this gun purchase is hardly a legal transaction.  Yet Spielberg does the unthinkable, as he interminably elongates this sequence, basically doing a public service announcement on the dangers of gun violence, while it’s reduced to a single line in the original. This new version also gives more of a presence to a transsexual character, Iris Menas as Anybody, a tomboy in the original, updated to a transmasculine character who receives his fair share of abuse from the Jets, wanting to be one of them, but he is viewed as an outcast, which is saying something, since all of the Jets themselves are similarly viewed as outcasts.  Spielberg actually returns the order of some of the songs to the original Broadway version, which was painstakingly corrected in the earlier film, believing it makes more dramatic sense, so reverting back creates some major problems.  Both “Officer Kruptke” and “Cool” are placed much earlier, with the latter especially feeling out of place, coming before the rumble, used during an altercation between Riff and Tony over control of the recently purchased gun, lacking the obvious need to be “Cool” with the police rounding them up for questioning after double murders, with everyone needing to keep cooler heads afterwards.  Maria’s “I Feel Pretty” actually comes after the rumble, again feeling totally out of place, even changing the setting to the Gimbel’s department store where she works, making little sense, feeling more like artificial fluff following the effects of two murders, while “Somewhere,” initially sung by Tony and Maria, is sung by Valentina after the attempted rape of Anita (given much greater poignancy here), yet completely changing the tone, undermining the song’s original intent depicting the idealism and optimism of young love, a love thwarted by prejudice, sustained by the hope that “there’s a place for us,” suddenly hijacked to reflect Valentina’s projections, broadened to the surrounding immigrant community, hoping to “find a way of forgiving,” so when more tragedy occurs afterwards, it defies Valentina’s dream, instead of the rapturous dreams of the young lovers, one of whom gets murdered, feeling much less intimate or personal, literally taking the heart out of the message.  This was a heartbreaker when Tony and Maria sang it, emotionally wrenching and sure to generate tears, reprised at the end, sung by Maria when Tony is dying in her arms.  You simply can’t change a moment like that which is seared in cinematic history. While it’s obviously a gesture for Rita Moreno, the only living connection to the original, it weakens the dramatic effect.   

Shot and edited in 2019, the opening was delayed a year by the pandemic, with Spielberg adding the screenwriting expertise of Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, who also wrote MUNICH (2005) and Lincoln (2012) for him, sounding like a superlative choice, perhaps making it clearer that these homes are on the chopping block, destined for demolition, where the playground mural of the Puerto Rican flag is an imposing presence, not only a reflection of heritage, but art, as graffiti mural art in Latino neighborhoods is elevated to an artform, Latino Murals - Google Arts & Culture, something of an international phenomenon.  Perhaps it was Kushner’s push to generate more slum-hardened, repellant characters in both Riff and Bernardo, who both lack not just the personal magnetism and appeal of the originals, but appear downright repulsive.  In the first gang confrontation, with the police clearly siding with the Jets, the Sharks have a delightfully provocative response, rebelliously singing the Puerto Rican anthem before their exit, West Side Story (2021) La Borinqueña Sharks Version YouTube (1:03), a sure sign that better things lay ahead, as this is a uniquely compelling addition.  What happens instead is that racism has become a component of the overall society, something to contend with every day, which loses a bit of the individuality, like rival gangs spewing racist venom back and forth at each other.  Since both whites and Puerto Ricans are facing similar social and economic circumstances, there’s less of an understanding for what their rivalry is based upon.  Additionally, this film is shot with a more muted color palette, which comes as a surprise, as the glorious color schemes were one of the highlights of the original, so it seems a shame, since this film was shot by Janusz Kamiński on 35mm, which should only enhance the colors.  In the case of Tony, he’s given a darker background story, which includes a stint in prison, the result of almost killing another kid in a rumble, viewing it as an opportunity to not only change but transform his life.  Whether intentional or incidental, this updated version seems to accentuate the positivity of the prison system, turning people out as better persons than they were when they entered, which is rarely the case, only in the Hollywood universe.  The characters of Tony and Maria are not similarly transformed, initially confined to their block, stuck with the suffocating feeling that they may never get out, happily play-acting a marriage inside the bridal shop down the street where Maria and Anita work, which Tony visits after hours, while now they lose the claustrophobic setting and freely travel out of the neighborhood to visit Manhattan’s Cloisters, complete with stained glass and statues of angels, which is actually more of a solemn church setting inside a museum.  Instead of dreaming about getting out of their confined lives, where the neighborhood becomes an inescapable pressure cooker, they’re already out, as Maria works at Gimbels as well, which is also outside the neighborhood.  Yet the original had more personality and fun, where the lightheartedness of the bridal marriage expresses what young lovers actually feel.  What young couple would want their first date to be inside a church?  Both characters are blank canvases in need of a shape and form, where Maria feels more like a fairy princess in a Disney movie, her distinct individuality erased by Spielberg’s vision of a more sanitized version, where there’s little emotional chemistry between the characters at all, as whatever feeling that might exist comes from the songs, not from any passion generated on the screen.  Now something needs to be said about Natalie Wood’s iconic performance, as she was first and foremost an actress, with beauty and charisma that could light up a screen, and while Zegler’s singing is her own, she lacks the depth and emotional resonance of a trained actress with the qualities of Wood, who started her career as a child actress and was positively enchanting in the role, even if she didn’t do her own singing.  So in the update, Tony and Maria’s initial meeting at the dance is a major disappointment, blocking out all else but them in the original, yet Spielberg makes it more straightforward, while the accompanying dance sequences are more tepid as well, lacking the erotic chemistry of Rita Moreno.  And therein lies the problem, as this new version, other than the obvious rectifying of whites playing Puerto Rican roles, who are allowed to speak Spanish not initially written into the play, there is little else added to make this version feel essential.  Spielberg apparently had a mad desire to direct a musical, but he made the wrong choice, as this particular musical has an abrasive and daringly provocative social conscience that this director simply does not share or understand, making a hermetically safer version that is meant to offend fewer, but it dazzles far fewer as well, as he lacks a personalized vision to, as some no-name singing group once said, “Take a sad song and make it better,” becoming a box office bomb, lacking the personal intensity of the original.  There’s still no hint that the San Juan Hill setting where the film takes place was originally a black neighborhood that formed around the turn of the 20th century, comprising one of the largest black neighborhoods anywhere in the city during the 1920’s, an area where jazz and art once thrived, reputedly the place where the Charleston dance step and jazz bebop were born, also the home of jazz icon Thelonious Monk, but eventually blacks moved uptown to Harlem, displaced by a postwar influx of Puerto Rican families moving in during the late 40’s and early 50’s, designated “the worst slum district of New York City” by the New York City Housing Authority.  By declaring the area a slum, it hastened the city’s plans to demolish the neighborhood, affecting 7000 families overall, but the first families evicted were black families, along with black businesses, an early example of neighborhood redevelopment.  The Spielberg version situates the last remaining families in a sea of emptiness, with barely anything left standing.  With so much already destroyed, there’s no compelling reason for any of these families to stay unless it’s to receive financial compensation, and that’s only to home owners, not apartment dwellers, a subject given a single line in the “I Feel Pretty” song, ironic to say the least.  While there are awkward pacing issues that cause occasional sluggishness, like most all Spielberg films, it gets a little drawn-out and preachy by the end, something of a change from the abrupt ending of the original, feeling pretty grim and dismal by comparison, not likely to take the place of the original in terms of cultural legacy anytime soon.  Today the Lincoln Center, built where the film takes place, is the multi-venue complex home to the New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Metropolitan Opera, Chamber Music Society, Julliard School of Music, and the Film and Jazz at Lincoln Center, among the eleven constituents of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.