![]() Spielberg, in turn, stages the numbers to fully explore the space (when sparring in the salt warehouse or on the dance floor) or lack thereof (when melting hearts in Tony and Maria’s fire-escape rendezvous). Bright dress ruffles and beefy arms twirl in magical, powerful symmetry. ![]() Justin Peck, choreographer of the New York City Ballet, highlights this simmering physical threat and sexual power (not mutually exclusive among the charged dancers) by making the most of his performers’ long limbs and extravagant costumes. So in this desperate, frustrating, ultimately futile turf war over ruins and rubble, they’re gonna fight, kiss and (most of all) dance it out while they still can. They don’t got a lot and even what they got they don’t actually have. Everyone’s emotions are running hot-even hotter than you’d expect in a musical-because everyone’s living on the brink. Conspicuously placed inside a deteriorating New York, where buildings are demolished for the good of nebulous and unseen Richie Riches and corrupt civil servants, it’s as much a story about the various responses to capital-driven oppression (buying into the mystical promise of bootstrapping hard work, raging against various machines, saying “fuck it” and blaming another race) as it is about love or hate. And in America, in New York City, there’s always a rumble coming for their lot. They meet at a dance, but alas, a rumble is coming. You might know the story: The Romeo and Juliet affair between white Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Puerto Rican Maria (Rachel Zegler) drowning in the posturing power struggle between the Jets and Sharks-ethnic street gangs respectively led by their best friend and brother. It’s a stunning, loving spectacle that confidently scales the fence right to the top of the movie-musical pack. Spielberg’s been working up to a full-throated musical for decades and he comes at this movie like he’s got something to prove: If there was ever any doubt that he’s a cinematic peer to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story sets it firmly aside. And you won’t even need that level of familiarity to get swept up. ![]() ![]() Even if you don’t know the lyrics, you know the snaps. Its songs? As if “Maria” or “Tonight” needed another reason to stick in your head, they’re catchier than ever. Its dance? At its most invigorating and desperate. Shoot it loud and there’s music playing shoot it soft and it’s almost like praying: Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story pumps the classic for exactly that, classicism, by milking the musical’s dynamics for maximum expressiveness. ![]()
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January 2023
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