West Side Story (1961) We do realize we're about 6 weeks late wishing WSS a Happy 60th Anniversary.......but at least we didn't miss it by an entire year, which we've done with a few other films......
We wanted to sit down and re-watch this film even if we've lost count of how many times we've done so over the years.........to savor it once again before it's due to be subjected to an onslaught of comparisons to Steven Spielberg's much anticipated remake opening on December 10th......
How's it hold up after all these years? Beautifully.
At 60 years old, "West Side Story", co-directed by Robert Wise and the Broadway show's creator and choreographer Jerome Robbins, remains now and always a brilliant display of music, dance and cinema. A perfect storm of creative talents coming together to produce timeless art.
After all these years, we didn't expect to find anything new to discuss about the film, other than our great love for it. Yet watching it this week, with a more cinema-attuned (and elderly) eye, we still found elements we never appreciated fully in all the viewings during our younger days.
The expertise of the camerawork and editing of the dance sequences struck us first as if watching them for the first time. In shot after shot, Wise and Robbins position the camera from either above the dancers or beneath them, adding more dramatic power to the imagery.
Of all the gifted, athletic dancer-actors on view, we especially stood in awe of George Chakiris, whose ultra precise, contained fury dared you to take your eyes off him. We'd like to think his well deserved Academy Award for best supporting actor was earned as much by his sheer spring-wired physicality as his acting.....a unique achievement.
And we smiled in agreement with Russ Tamblyn's own assessment of his performance in the film......that he deployed his unique talent for acrobatics to cover the fact that he actually doesn't do all that much dancing.
Another aspect that brought us all new appreciation......the expansive, eye-grabbing sets created by the film's production designer, Boris Levin. Once "West Side Story" finishes it spectacular opening sequence in broad daylight New York streets, the rest of the film exists completely on Levin's meticulously visualized display of the story's gritty universe......back alleys, rooftops, fire escapes, a world of poverty stricken streets ringed with chain link fences trapping the volatile gang members.
Everything that went into the film still dazzles today as it did in 1961.....Leonard Bernstein's breathtaking score, the virtually atomic energy of the dancers, the aching vulnerability of Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood as the star-crossed lovers......
.....and of course, the perfectly constructed lyrics of the late Stephen Sondheim.
As the ultimate theater composer-lyricist, Sondheim left us with a lifetime of superlative artistic genius........which is why it's little wonder that no one who writes, directs, acts or composes can imagine a world without him. He took drama, music and theater to heights that no one.could have imagined. We lost a true giant.
To paraphrase a line we heard in a film once.......you can wait around and hope, but you'll never see the the likes of him again.
For "West Side Story" and Stephen Sondheim, forever and always 5 stars (*****).
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