West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, 2021)

[aox]

It is

"['West Side Story'] was largely a victim of timing and an inability to attract younger moviegoers," said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. "Women over 35 are the drivers of most musicals. Not only has that audience been the most cautious to return to public social spaces like the movie theater during the pandemic, but renewed concern created by omicron headlines seems to have played a major role in doubling down on that hesitance for the time being."

Box-office analysts said "West Side Story" also likely suffered from not having a big Hollywood star attached and because its release was so close to that of "Spider-Man: No Way Home." The latest Marvel Cinematic Universe Film has dominated at the box office over the last two weeks.

And that answers my follow-up question. Thanks. I thought marketing firms and their analysts made a lot of money so that this doesn't happen. Especially at Spielberg level.

[BirdLives]

Just my two cents, but I think they would have been better off releasing this streaming. The natural audience for it would rather watch at home, I'd guess.

I would guess that the talk in the studio about the movie now is that they are hoping that Spielberg's name and reputation -- and the quality of the movie, of course -- means the movie will get a bunch of Oscar nominations. Then we'll see if THAT makes any difference at the box office. (I myself am skeptical that it would; I think the studios have thoroughly scared off any audience from the theaters other than teenagers going to see the latest comic book movie.)

The whole thing is an interesting test of the Oscar voter pool. 20 years ago I would have said this version of WSS was a shoe-in to get a bunch of nominations. Then the Academy got stung by criticism it was out of touch and it extended membership to a lot of new members. The net result was more diversity, yes, but also a change in the Academy membership to be younger on average. There are still oldsters out there though, and they may vote in big numbers for Spielberg. We shall see.

[therewillbeblus]

This will still be nominated for Oscars, and your two cents go against Spielberg's passionately-expressed ethos so it's kind of a moot point. If the natural audience for this film is anxious about omicron, yes, they'd probably rather watch at home, but I fail to see how "studios" have scared off audiences... from giving them money? Unless you meant to write "studies" finding covid numbers rising

[pistolwink]

I teach undergrads and spent the last week of the fall semester teaching the classical Hollywood musical, which most of them adored. But when I asked how many people were planning to see West Side Story in the theater (it was opening a week later), only one person raised their hand. Turns out this was prophetic....

[The Pachyderminator]

Well, this was fantastic. It's brilliantly sung, danced, and choreographed. Some of the rewriting takes away a little of the individuality of the minor gang members - Ice's character suffers from this the most - but in compensation we get some very smart reflections on the social and class tensions of the cultural setting which weren't brought out in the original. The scene near the beginning where Schrank berates the Jets, saying that their families are the dregs that are left after the high achievers got out of the slum, was a good way to introduce this take on the story.

The placement of all the songs, even where it differs from both the stage show and the original film, makes sense. I was skeptical about "Cool" being done the way it was, but Spielberg absolutely made it work. Reassigning one of Tony and Maria's duets to Valentina is the boldest change, but it also comes off. The film changes and rearranges certain things while the avoiding the pitfalls of Into the Woods (omitting crucial songs and hopelessly scrambling up various character arcs) and Les Miserables (executing the music poorly while adding a forgettable new song just because we can). Despite some clear homages to the staging and filming of certain scenes in the original, this one never fails to pursue its own identity.

Elgort is indeed the weak link. I would have been interested to see Mike Faist play Tony instead of Riff, though I don't know if he has the voice for it. Rachel Zegler is perfect. Meanwhile, I can't believe how much was made of the Spanish dialogue being unsubbed. There wasn't that much of it, and it was always interleaved with English that made the meaning of all the important information very clear. If anything, I wish Spielberg had trusted the audience more to understand things from context, looks, or tone of voice.

One thing I'm doubtful of: to my eyes, the Jets all looked like kids, while the Sharks looked older, bigger, and hairier. The effect was almost to make the Sharks look like a gang of hardened criminals in contrast to a group of white boys in over their heads, and I'm sure that's not what was intended.

Very, very good overall, almost everything I could have hoped for from a new West Side Story. It doesn't replace the original film as the definitive version in my mind, but it's worthy to stand alongside it.

[Brian C]

One thing I'm doubtful of: to my eyes, the Jets all looked like kids, while the Sharks looked older, bigger, and hairier. The effect was almost to make the Sharks look like a gang of hardened criminals in contrast to a group of white boys in over their heads, and I'm sure that's not what was intended.

This is not something I noticed, so I agree that it certainly was not intended. It does make for a fun episode of "Guy on Internet Projects His Own Racial Biases Onto the Movie He Just Watched", however.

[The Pachyderminator]

One thing I'm doubtful of: to my eyes, the Jets all looked like kids, while the Sharks looked older, bigger, and hairier. The effect was almost to make the Sharks look like a gang of hardened criminals in contrast to a group of white boys in over their heads, and I'm sure that's not what was intended.

This is not something I noticed, so I agree that it certainly was not intended. It does make for a fun episode of "Guy on Internet Projects His Own Racial Biases Onto the Movie He Just Watched", however.

You're free to call me a racist if that makes you feel better about dismissing my point, but it's objectively true that the Jets were gangly and clean-shaven, while the Sharks were bigger and had a lot more facial hair. I really don't think it's a stretch to say that the Jets looked younger.

[Brian C]

Is this really a point you want to double down on?

Again, this is not something I noticed, and I'm quite sure you're the first person that I've seen bring it up. Are you really super confident that this is "objectively true"?

And you're literally saying "bigger and had a lot more facial hair" = "look like hardened criminals", so I'm not sure what leg you think you have to stand on here.

Imagine someone like Trump coming out of the movie and saying, "what's the deal with all the Sharks looking like criminals?" and then ask yourself why it sounds any different when you say it.

[The Pachyderminator]

All I meant was that the white gang looks younger than the Puerto Rican gang, and looking younger gives them a certain innocence and vulnerability that a group of guys who are clearly adults don't have. Their size and lack of facial hair is mainly what makes them look younger. It's handling weapons and committing violence that makes people look like criminals, and obviously both gangs do plenty of that. But it comes off differently when one side looks like a bunch of kids and the other side doesn't. It's a rather trivial point, and I wouldn't have mentioned it at all if I anticipated it starting a fight, but I don't accept that it's such an unreasonable question to raise. If you refuse to read me in good faith, I can't force you to.

[Brian C]

Maybe instead of whining about bad faith, you should interrogate yourself for just a moment about why you read young white guys as "innocent and vulnerable" while reading hairy Latinos as "hardened criminals". What you wrote here is extremely straightforward, and your attempts to defend yourself find you digging into this sad little construct of yours.

Seriously, think about it for just a bit. Try to imagine if someone else - like maybe, say, Jeff Wells instead of Trump - had written it and how it would look to you then.

[Mr Sausage]

I think you're being unfair to his argument, BrianC. He's arguing one side displays common signifiers of youth and innocence, whereas the other displays signifiers of age and experience. The problem, if you think it is one, is that this happens in a context of criminality and is divided strictly along racial lines, such that the film can be read as inadvertently sympathetic towards the white criminals but not towards the Puerto Rican ones. You seem to be reading him as saying the racial element is specifically what made him think of the groups as having what qualities they do, whereas I gather he thinks the racial divide here is precisely the problem and that these age signifiers would confer the same thing were the groups swapped. You're confusing what he feels the film is communicating by its images with some personal opinion of racial groups.

I don't feel one way or the other on this. That's just how I read the argument, and it's a fair one. Having one group be clean cut and innocent looking and another not says something, whether intended or no. (And beards have been an historical symbol for age and manhood since at least ancient greece).

[Brian C]

Have you seen the film, Sausage?

I'm also disputing the basic fact of what he said - I don't think the characters on one side or the other are even all that much beardier. For example, here's a still that shows more or less the full roster of both sides. How much of a difference do you see? Would you immediately say that one side looks innocent and vulnerable, and the other side looks like hardened criminals? Would you even say that one side looks younger than the other? There's not even one fucking beard there!

[HJackson]

Maybe instead of whining about bad faith, you should interrogate yourself for just a moment about why you read young white guys as "innocent and vulnerable" while reading hairy Latinos as "hardened criminals". What you wrote here is extremely straightforward, and your attempts to defend yourself find you digging into this sad little construct of yours.

Seriously, think about it for just a bit. Try to imagine if someone else - like maybe, say, Jeff Wells instead of Trump - had written it and how it would look to you then.

He doesn’t read young white guys as “innocent and vulnerable” and hairy Latinos as “hardened criminals” though. He reads, quite naturally, young people who look like children as “innocent and vulnerable” and big, strong, hairy adults who get into wild street brawls with children as “criminals”. The racial coding of these roles as white/Latino is exactly what he was flagging up as potentially problematic in this rendition because of the uneven casting.


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[The Pachyderminator]

Maybe instead of whining about bad faith, you should interrogate yourself for just a moment about why you read young white guys as "innocent and vulnerable" while reading hairy Latinos as "hardened criminals". What you wrote here is extremely straightforward, and your attempts to defend yourself find you digging into this sad little construct of yours.

I'm not the first person ever to associate a feeling of innocence and vulnerability with youth. Being big and hairy does indeed make a person look more like an adult and less like a kid. It really is that simple. That's not a claim that white guys in general look more innocent. There's no shortage of big hairy white guys or slim smooth Latinos out there. Casting a few of those would have made the juxtaposition of the two gangs look very different.

I think you're being unfair to his argument, BrianC. He's arguing one side displays common signifiers of youth and innocence, whereas the other displays signifiers of age and experience. The problem, if you think it is one, is that this happens in a context of criminality and is divided strictly along racial lines, such that the film can be read as inadvertently sympathetic towards the white criminals but not towards the Puerto Rican ones. You seem to be reading him as saying the racial element is specifically what made him think of the groups as having what qualities they do, whereas I gather he thinks the racial divide here is precisely the problem and that these age signifiers would confer the same thing were the groups swapped. You're confusing what he feels the film is communicating by its images with some personal opinion of racial groups.

I don't feel one way or the other on this. That's just how I read the argument, and it's a fair one. Having one group be clean cut and innocent looking and another not says something, whether intended or no. (And beards have been an historical symbol for age and manhood since at least ancient greece).

Yes, this is well put, thanks for articulating my point better than I did.

[Maltic]

Maybe Spielberg wanted to make associations a la the alt-right kid in Knives Out

I haven't seen WSS, though. Do the Jets wear Hawaiian shirts and/or frat jackets?

[Mr Sausage]

Have you seen the film, Sausage?

I'm also disputing the basic fact of what he said - I don't think the characters on one side or the other are even all that much beardier than the other. For example, here's a still that shows more or less the full roster of both sides. How much of a difference do you see? Would you immediately say that one side looks innocent and vulnerable, and the other side looks like hardened criminals? Would you even say that one side looks younger than the other? There's not even one fucking beard there!

You know I'm not advancing the argument myself, right? Plus, you know, claiming an argument isn't sound because its propositions aren't the case isn't exactly going to get my hackles up considering it's how you're supposed to argue.

[The Pachyderminator]

Have you seen the film, Sausage?

I'm also disputing the basic fact of what he said - I don't think the characters on one side or the other are even all that much beardier. For example, here's a still that shows more or less the full roster of both sides. How much of a difference do you see? Would you immediately say that one side looks innocent and vulnerable, and the other side looks like hardened criminals? Would you even say that one side looks younger than the other? There's not even one fucking beard there!

Here's Bernardo and Riff as they appear in the film. These aren't cherry picked; they're the first closeups that came up in a Google Image search. (In fact, Mike Faist is actually older than David Alvarez, but I submit that you wouldn't think it from these images.)




Edit: I'd like to add that in all sincerity I regret bringing this up. I regard this as a very minor point, even if true. I loved this film to pieces and would much rather be talking about that.

[Brian C]

Here's Bernardo and Riff as they appear in the film. These aren't cherry picked; they're the first closeups that came up in a Google Image search. (In fact, Mike Faist is actually older than David Alvarez, but I submit that you wouldn't think it from these images.)

That's maybe not cherry-picked but it is arbitrary - there are a million other images from the film on Google that show him from other parts of the movie, and there's no real reason why the "first" one you found is any more meaningful than any other.

For what it's worth, I don't see any discernible age difference in those two photos at any rate. I fail to see why I'm supposed to automatically read one of those as obviously older than the other. Because one has a couple days' stubble (which just a couple of posts ago was exaggerated to be a "a lot of facial hair")? Come on, that's not a serious proposition, and I will say again that this is simply a case of you projecting your own biases onto what you are seeing.

Put another way - are you quite sure that Latin audiences will read the signifiers you're seeing the same way you are? As an example, I'll offer the unfortunate trope of Arab terrorists in movies. Obviously those films are portraying those characters' Arab-ness in a way to signify their villiany, but this is as obvious - certainly even more so - to Arab audiences than it is to the non-Arab audiences who see it.

Do you think that is the case here? And if so, do you have any commentary from elsewhere to back this up?

[The Pachyderminator]

Put another way - are you quite sure that Latin audiences will read the signifiers you're seeing the same way you are? As an example, I'll offer the unfortunate trope of Arab terrorists in movies. Obviously those films are portraying those characters' Arab-ness in a way to signify their villiany, but this is as obvious - certainly even more so - to Arab audiences than it is to the non-Arab audiences who see it.

Do you think that is the case here? And if so, do you have any commentary from elsewhere to back this up?

I don't know. I honestly wouldn't be surprised, but I'm not aware of any other commentary on this. At this point I think I've made my case as well as I can, so I'll let it go. Anyone who has seen the movie can judge for themselves whether my argument is plausible. (Or, if you really want to, we can take this up again when the blu-ray is available and I can make a more detailed case with screenshots.)

[Brian C]

Well, I will not be acquiring the blu to make screenshots, so hard pass on that.

What I will say, though, as a last word of my own: I did not care for the movie overall, but I thought its most redeeming quality was its treatments of both sets of characters, to portray their motives fairly and try to present audiences with opportunities to relate to those on both sides of the story’s divide.

So it’s genuinely shocking to me to have you present these associations that you made, because I think they are fundamentally at odds with the movie I saw. I saw a movie that encouraged understanding across racial divides, and you seem to see one that rigged one side against the other in terms of audience sympathy, even if you feel it’s a trivial point (which in itself I don’t understand, but whatever).

I don’t see how screenshots will get us past that. But like you, I think it’s up to others who have seen the movie to decide for themselves.

[swo17]

here's a still that shows more or less the full roster of both sides

Isn't the tall white guy in the middle an actual real-life criminal?

[The Curious Sofa]

here's a still that shows more or less the full roster of both sides

Isn't the tall white guy in the middle an actual real-life criminal?

They tried to digitally replace him with Tig Notaro but she was busy on Army of the Dead.

[Red Screamer]

Spielberg gets points in my book for attempting to make a classical musical and half succeeding. Inevitably the seams of his recreation effort show, in everything from sets to choreography to musical arrangements. Hollywood just isn’t set up anymore for the kind of craftsmanship and physicality the musical genre traditionally requires. Only in the film’s most energetic moments, like the stylistically daring opening, does it stop feeling like a well-studied imitation. The movie has some traces of embarrassment about being a musical including a few of those irritating, bemused looks where one character seems to ask another “Why are you singing?” Some of these self-aware touches point to a darker, more ironic film—a song ends in extreme long shot as the dancers striking a pose are dwarfed by the mass of grey, steaming rubble around them, reminding you that this is the guy who directed War of the Worlds and AI: Artificial Intelligence—but I’m not sure how these moments fit into the movie’s overall earnestness.

Kushner and Spielberg’s update of the material is smart though obvious, as when the movie’s politics are quickly outlined in nuance during the boys’ first encounter with the lieutenant. Soon they’re forgotten as the movie’s sentimental side takes over. Really, it’s fine. There are some undeniably stunning images. But the hyperbolic praise for this movie in some circles speaks to how starved audiences are for formal competence in American studio filmmaking. I’d take revitalizations of the musical like Magic Mike XXL and La La Land over an academic throwback like this any day.

[DarkImbecile]

Deadline has published Kushner’s script in its entirety

[therewillbeblus]

Okay, so I’ll concede that this is an extremely well-directed reimagining that is in many ways an upgrade over the original film. The choreography is inspired, the supporting acting has surprising shades of intricacy, the technical precision exceeded my unfairly low expectations for an auteur on autopilot, and the musical melodrama works incredibly well with Spielberg’s light touch, imbuing artificial humor into the artifice of the genre. This is unabashedly a capital-M Movie, never trying to be anything more than a refined ode to entertainment. Sure it’s splicing in updated sociopolitical ideas, but Spielberg is just as focused on fleshing out the details of the gang members’ personalities, or their costumes and makeup, the lavish set designs, etc. as the aspects getting the most notice- though for good reason.

I can understand why some people would prefer this film to the Wise, but I’m a huge fan of the original, and all the ethereal celebrations of a movie magic from the past enthusiastically retained here doesn’t elevate the remake into a better or more interesting movie. The vibe of the 1961 film is harnessed by a beautiful tragedy that Spielberg can’t and doesn’t try to replicate; the latter humble positioning is a smart and admirable move, yet the freshness on display doesn’t relay the same edge or tonal groundedness. Ansel Elgort is also a sad replacement for Beymer, and while he fits within the Spielbergian wheelhouse of casual one-liners and a wooden puppet unlocking emotions to become a real boy, it still feels like a lazy acting job and Elgort just doesn’t have the natural chops of inherent character to evoke some earned change in affect-signifying-development the film clearly wants us to witness but never provides.

Spoiler

Also, when he kills Bernando the camera doesn’t engage us intimately with the character like Wise’s film did to elicit the feeling of an impulsive emotional reaction- and instead it plays out in a strange way- as Spielberg’s camera zooms in from a long shot demonstrating the distance between Elgort and Bernando, as he glides across the setpiece to “impulsively” stab this man. It’s so ill-fitting with the prior philosophical meditations on his shame around almost killing a person and doesn’t do his character any favors around cultivating audience empathy around external barriers to reform when there are clearly some internal issues that need to be worked out. This undercuts the entire personality we've been led to identify and sympathize with, and would actually be a really interesting and more appropriate twist on the character if properly fleshed out- but nobody seems interested in making him into a ‘character’ at all, so it’s all for naught.

Still, there are a few key blissful moments that cannot be ignored- my favorite being the interwoven scoring of “Tonight” during the pre-fight montage, which takes a tired musical theater intervention of blending different tones within a song over a multi-narrative climax and does something new and exciting with its range, swiftly with confidence.