Yes i did it, West Side Story. Origionally a musical by Arthur Laurents(book), Leonard Bernstein(music), and Stephen Sondheim(lyrics), but was redone by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins in 1961 for an outstanding 10 academy awards. The Story of a "modern" Romeo and Juliet, Maria(Natalie Wood), a Puerto Rican Girl of 13 falls in love with Tony(Richard Beymer) a young ambitious boy of 18. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman, and chief of cinematography Daniel L. Fapp.
The Main plot, takes place in 1957 in New York. This is the uprising of gangs in the united states, the story follows mostly to Romeo and Juliet. Tony and Maria are two love birds dived by their social groups, the Sharks(Puerto Ricans) and the Jets(whites/non-Hispanic). the two fall in love and are struggling to be together by the gang violence and racial discrimination.
The thing i love about this movie is that Jerome robbins took what was looked down upon by nature(gang fights) and made it a beautiful art by dancing. I recently watched "the History of Gangs" on the history channel and saw that "rumbles" and knife fights were common gestures by hoodlums. Most musicals mainly focus on the music and singing, but this movie mostly pointed light at the dancing.
Richard Beymer(tony) plays a hard role in my opinion, he is a former jet and has moved on to become an adult. But his best friend Riff(George Chakiris) convinces him into going to a dance to help him with his gang business. Where as there he instantly falls in love with Beautifull Natalie Wood(WHO WOULDN'T!) It was a very convincing performance by Beymer because he captured what usually takes months if not years in about two minutes.
The only thing that took away from the film was the diologue probably because it was written in the 50's but also because these words seemed to distract me from the movie itself. Some of these words include (wop, coolie cool,wam bam,and dadie-o) if i ever hear someone say any of these words i will slap them in the face with a banana.
Some themes that i noticed were eternal love, as well as eternal rivalry, but the most important or should i say significant is that love conquers all. As cheesy as that is i have to say it because the whole film is built upon this structure.
As far as dramatic aspects, they didn't have to do much for costumes and settings, since this took place roughly the same time as it was filmed.
The most defining shot i thought in the whole movie to capture an element was the beginning shot. It was a high angle but instead of making the characters look insignificant it actually made them look more power full. this is because they seemed to all be looking at the camera with anger, almost if they were rebelling against the camera.
The most famous thing about the movie was without question the Music! Something that i picked up about it was that the famous motif we all have been taking about has shown up about 3 or 4 times with different songs. Including the most famous song "Maria" and the quintet (sung with all the main characters) "Tonight"
In my opinion the best movie to capture a real life event, especially because in the end...
