Perhaps if studios made more major movie musicals these days I would be more concerned with the “why bother?” question when it comes to Steven Spielberg’s remake of 1961’s West Side Story. But as the situation stands, I’ll take as many confidently staged, exuberantly performed musical extravaganzas as I can get.
Not that Spielberg’s West Side Story is one for the ages. Neither, it should be noted, was the original film, adapted from the Broadway hit (a contemporary riff on Romeo and Juliet) by co-directors Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, featuring Robbins’ choreography and music by Leonard Berstein. In fact, the ’61 version and this take—featuring a screenplay by Tony Kushner and additional choreography by Tony winner Justin Peck—share some of the same limitations. But let’s start with that exuberance.
Spielberg may not be a musical veteran (the opening number of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the scale of 1941 might be the closest he’s come to the genre before), but he’s a cinematic genius. So part of the thrill of West Side Story is the way he employs camera movement and editing to make this, distinctly, a movie. An elaborate, unbroken opening shot in which the camera drifts over the crumbling tenement buildings being demolished in 1950s New York City to make way for Lincoln Center—thereby establishing the film’s theme of cultural disenfranchisement—would be impossible to recreate on the stage. As a visual bookend, the mournful final moment (which I won’t spoil) is captured from afar, looking between the steps of a fire escape.
During the production numbers, Spielberg’s camera is almost always on the move, but not in a distracting way. Usually it’s trying to keep up with the dancers and give them as much of the frame as they need; at other times it winds its way among them, increasing our sense of exhilaration and intimacy. Then there are the moments that employ point of view, as when the two main characters—star-crossed lovers Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler)—lock eyes across a dance floor, a rushing blur of teenagers passing between them like colorful trains on a track.
It’s not just the camerawork, but also the editing. (Janusz Kaminski handles the former; Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn the latter. All are longtime Spielberg collaborators.) Early on, Tony’s friend Riff (Mike Faist) throws a brick in the direction of the camera and there’s a cut to Tony catching a can, tossed by Riff, in the basement of the bodega where he works. No stage production can elide space and time like that.
There’s another hard cut involving Tony that isn’t as successful, however, arriving at the end of “America”—transferred here from the rooftop in the original film to the sprawling neighborhood streets, where Anita (Ariana DeBose) and Bernardo (David Alvarez) playfully debate the pros and cons of being Puerto Rican in a land of limited, racialized opportunity. The movie cuts from the vivacious cheers of the ensemble, triumphant in the effervescence of completing their performance, to a close-up of Elgort’s face as he’s learning how to say “I’m happy to see you again” in Spanish. If you weren’t already aware that Elgort (Baby Driver) was weighing the movie down, this edit literalizes the experience.
To be fair, Elgort has a lovely, delicate singing voice, which is more than you can say for the bland Richard Beymer, whose singing as Tony was dubbed in the ’61 film. But Elgort also has a lurching, heavy presence that contrasts unflatteringly with the lithe movements of the rest of the cast. And when he’s not singing, he’s mumbling in a way that comes across as dim, if not diffident. Hardly the charismatic, conflicted romantic lead the story needs.
And that’s especially in comparison to others in the cast. Faist, as Riff, steals the show—capturing the violence that underlines the acrobatics of Robbins’ choreography, carrying the subtle emotional weight of the many close-ups Spielberg employs, and overall evoking the desperation of this time and place in a way that makes Elgort’s Tony seem naive. “Who cares who I am? Nobody, not even me,” he spits out at one point, and we believe him.
As Anita, DeBose equally excels at the full-body performance required in the production numbers and the intimacy of the close-ups. She had the biggest shoes to fill—legend Rita Moreno, who stole the ’61 film as Anita, has a supporting part here—and does it more than capably. Once again, as a couple, Anita and Bernardo have the far more compelling narrative than the two leads (if I haven’t said much about Zegler’s Maria yet, it’s because she’s a welcome improvement over Natalie Wood, but otherwise something of a nonentity.)
Of course, it’s long been a complaint about Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that the title characters are a bit thin—more symbolic stand-ins for the universal experience of romantic infatuation than individualized human beings. Kushner and Spielberg may not solve that here, but they offer enough inventiveness to justify another run at the material. When I first heard about this West Side Story, I’ll admit I raised an eyebrow. Now, I’m eager to hear what movie musical Spielberg might make next.
(12/3/2021)
