#27: West Side Story
Oh, did it sound like the film would be The Omen? Sorry, guess it is a misleading lead in, huh. Well it's West Side Story.
And what can I say about it that people haven't already for 40 years? Everything about it is perfectly made. Every song is energetic and catchy, the characters are all well developed, it's strongly plotted, and it really mixes in the grittiness and bouncy lightheartedness well.
Actually, West Side leans much more on the lighthearted than the grittiness cause, you know, 1960s mainstream Robert Wise musical, but there's still something there, and that's the main reason I like this movie as much as I do. (And I know nothing about gang life, being like, the whitest kid in the world, so I'm completely generalizing here.)It may not physically show that much violence, drug use, or cursing, if shown at all, but there's still a feeling that these are gangs, when they could have so easily been just naive representations. There's just the dirty (well, Hollywood dirty) setting, the slurs in the singing, and the pure tension between the two gangs, the sharks and the jets, that's executed so well. The dialogue, the body language, everything comes together really well to show the hatred and grievances between the two. There's really not a lot of taboo material necessary, and not having any makes the fight at the climax even more dramatic.Really, the film does an excellent job focusing on what gangs are meant to be about, protection. The lovestruck main characters, since they're not really that well developed, really aren't the main draw to me. What compels me the most are the others involved with the gang. Each of their sides on this issue, the hispanic Sharks and white Jets, are developed, they're each 3 dimensional, with no clear protagonist or antagonist. It's an immaculate retelling of "Romeo and Juliet" because it's more about the two warring sides, driven by the good of wanting to protect their own, and the bad of hating each other out of something as blind and ignorant as racism. At the end, (and I swear to God, if anyone considers this a spoiler) when Romeo gets killed after the anger of both sides snowballs out of control, my gut wrenched even though I knew it was coming. Partially just because it's a very well executed, quiet scene with deft direction and excellent acting, but mostly because I knew how much this must have effected both gangs. The Jets in an instant lost someone who was really important to them, and the Sharks realized that through a rageful accident, without purpose, they just murdered someone innocent.
And yeah, it meets the requirements for a great musical It's frenetic, the music is all great to listen to, and the choreography is spot on. But it's that human element: the seamless handling of the well and ill of gangs, the developed sides of the race issue, and the way of displaying emotions and life of these people without having to actually show an excessive, desensitizing amount of uncomfortable material.
Tomorrow: One of the most obvious choices I could make for a favorite movie. Prepare to roll your eyes, film hipsters.
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