Reimagined Shakespeare Marathon Movie 6: West Side Story (1961)

Romantic stories are something that can work very well, or not work at all.  There isn’t too much in between.  Great romantic tales keep you invested in the characters and the blossoming of their love.  The bad tales try to invest you in the characters’ love for one another but fail due to many possible factors.  I think West Side Story, a musical reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, might fall into the second category.

Like I have already said, West Side Story is a musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.  The movie was made in 1961, based on a 1957 play of the same name.  Instead of being about two feuding families, it is about two feuding gangs.  There is a forbidden love story about a boy from one gang and a girl involved with the other.  That’s it.  Two feuding gangs and a love between people from each.

The gang feud was my favourite part of West Side Story.  It was the most satisfying part in terms of enjoyment.  The performances were good, if a little over the top, but enough to keep the audience entertained.  The songs were better for the gang feud part of the movie.  Watching the choreography, it was great to see the gang members doing all of the physical work that they did.  This whole portion of the movie kept me interested enough to sit through the rest of the movie.  Now onto the other part.

The Romeo and Juliet love story has never worked for me in any adaptation.  When I watched West Side Story I finally understood why.  There isn’t enough tension to the core of the relationship.  Sure, you could argue that there’s tension between their respective gangs or families or whatnot.  Yes.  That tension is there.  That isn’t what I mean.  The actual relationship has no tension to it.  They are in love from the first time they see each other.  They get together.  Nothing stopped them.  Then they plan to run away together.  Until the climax of the entire play there is absolutely nothing that hinders the relationship in any way.  I want some tension in a romantic story.  It gets me interested.  Romeo and Juliet never had that tension and thus the romance in it does not click for me.

Other than that big issue I had with West Side Story, the only other problems were very minor.  The Puerto Rican gang, The Sharks, were all in brown face.  It’s really distracting when you’re looking at them and you know they aren’t as brown as they seem in the movie.  The makeup did nothing to the actors and actresses but make them look fake.  The other issue was with watching Natalie Wood.  It’s not that she’s a bad actress.  She’s fine.  The problem was in knowing that she would die by drowning in the vicinity of a boat on which you could find Christopher Walken and Robert Wagner.  That shouldn’t be distracting, but I’m weird like that and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

One final thing that I just thought of.  The actors were clearly lip syncing the music.  Sometimes they were right on and it wasn’t a big issue, but at other times the sound was off from the mouth movements.  I know that some of it was due to different singers doing the music than the actors.  The rest of it was probably because of quality of sound.  I only say this all because it gets distracting every once in a while.

So...West Side Story.  The stuff I liked, I really liked.  The romantic story, I really didn’t like.  It might be a classic film to some people.  It isn’t going to be one of my favourite movies.  With the romance issues, I just can’t love it.  It was enjoyable enough though.

Next up, I’ll be watching My Own Private Idaho.  It’s based on a bunch of Shakespeare works and I’ve never seen it, nor do I really know what it’s about.  That’s going to make the watch interesting.  I’m nearing the end of the marathon.  But that’s for another entry.  So I’ll end this one now before I ramble on too much.