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West Side Story (movie)
Feb. 13th, 2009 07:05 pmLast week I Netflixed West Side Story (crappy DVD, BTW, no extras whatsoever). It's been a LONG time since I've watched the movie--not all the way through since I was a little kid. But I grew up knowing it intimately nonetheless--my brother and I knew the soundtrack by heart and acted out the dances. Bart especially loved staging the Dance at the Gym in the living room, and when I would walk past he would reach out and yank me in, yelling "Mambo!" at me. We also loved "America"--the part during the dance break where the person yips like a puppy dog killed us. And my dad and bother would make jokes about ABLT: "A boy like that/who'd kill your brother!/I know him well/He mooned your mother!"
This is the sort of musically dorky family in which I grew up.
But I haven't actually sat down and watched the movie in a very long time, so I've been doing that this week, in honor of the upcoming revival. Man, I gotta say--Jerome Robbins' choreography and direction is amazing. The opening sequence is just incredible--what is it, ten minutes of nothing but choreography building to the fight? Only a few words of dialect, almost the entire sequence is told through the performers, the music and the dance. It's incredible. It's movie-making at its finest--I find I'm absorbing the movie viscerally, through my pores. And I love those birds' eye shots of the city, going over what looks like--the GW Bridge? Panning over upper Hell's Kitchen (which had been condemned and emptied out to make room for the about-to-be-built Lincoln Center) and narrowing in on those streets, where these young men strut and hunt and prey. My favorite shot in the Prologue is after we first meet Bernardo--he just smolders at the Jets in that shot--and then as the Jets leave, two other Sharks join him, and they stalk their way down the street in unison, doing that skipping step and then pirouetting right, and as they do so the music gets tenser and tenser. They really are sharks in that moment--predators on the prowl, who must move or die.
All the performers are great (Richard Beymer gets a bad rap but I think he's fine as Tony, a difficult role to make vivid) but George Chakiris absolutely owns this movie. He really deserved that Oscar. I love his scenes with the women--I love it when he lectures Natalie "when you are an old woman with five kids, you can tell ME what to do." They are both so cute there. And his exchange with Rita Moreno on the stairs and suh-mokin' hot! "First one...then the other" in that bedroom voice. Oh Anita, you foolish woman, don't walk away from him! *fans self*
And as a side note, how did I miss John Astin as Glad Hand? He is hilarious!
Other terrific sequences are the dance at the gym and the rumble. I LOVE the rumble--just unbearable tension, especially between Riff and Bernardo at the end there. And that agonizing end of the scene when you hear the siren as Tony is grieving.
A classic piece of moviemaking.
This is the sort of musically dorky family in which I grew up.
But I haven't actually sat down and watched the movie in a very long time, so I've been doing that this week, in honor of the upcoming revival. Man, I gotta say--Jerome Robbins' choreography and direction is amazing. The opening sequence is just incredible--what is it, ten minutes of nothing but choreography building to the fight? Only a few words of dialect, almost the entire sequence is told through the performers, the music and the dance. It's incredible. It's movie-making at its finest--I find I'm absorbing the movie viscerally, through my pores. And I love those birds' eye shots of the city, going over what looks like--the GW Bridge? Panning over upper Hell's Kitchen (which had been condemned and emptied out to make room for the about-to-be-built Lincoln Center) and narrowing in on those streets, where these young men strut and hunt and prey. My favorite shot in the Prologue is after we first meet Bernardo--he just smolders at the Jets in that shot--and then as the Jets leave, two other Sharks join him, and they stalk their way down the street in unison, doing that skipping step and then pirouetting right, and as they do so the music gets tenser and tenser. They really are sharks in that moment--predators on the prowl, who must move or die.
All the performers are great (Richard Beymer gets a bad rap but I think he's fine as Tony, a difficult role to make vivid) but George Chakiris absolutely owns this movie. He really deserved that Oscar. I love his scenes with the women--I love it when he lectures Natalie "when you are an old woman with five kids, you can tell ME what to do." They are both so cute there. And his exchange with Rita Moreno on the stairs and suh-mokin' hot! "First one...then the other" in that bedroom voice. Oh Anita, you foolish woman, don't walk away from him! *fans self*
And as a side note, how did I miss John Astin as Glad Hand? He is hilarious!
Other terrific sequences are the dance at the gym and the rumble. I LOVE the rumble--just unbearable tension, especially between Riff and Bernardo at the end there. And that agonizing end of the scene when you hear the siren as Tony is grieving.
A classic piece of moviemaking.
