How Is West Side Story Similar To Romeo And Juliet
Steven Spielberg's W Side Story isn't a mere remake of the 1961 flick or a filmic version of the 1957 stage musical in which a love affair between two teenagers divided by rival New York gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, ends in tragedy. Instead, information technology is a layering of theatrical devices, a Hollywood riff on both a famous musical and a Shakespearean story for xx-first century audiences. The much-predictable re-imagining of West Side Story garnered responses from critics and moviegoers even before its release, simply as the original film did in 1961. Critiques ranged from issues of casting, language and accents, cultural mores, and for some, the question if the movie should even be remade, and if then past whom. Just as an ethnicized movie musical accommodation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it complicates and enhances an already familiar story. [Editor'due south Note: Spoilers Ahead]
The fully bilingual Puerto Rican Sharks
In a deviation from the original, the Puerto Rican national anthem, "La Borinqueña", joins Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's soundtrack and becomes the first vocal afterwards the opening instrumental Prologue. The Sharks sing, acapella and in Spanish, before we hear the Jets sing their famous "Jet Song." Equally their leader, Bernardo, begins to sing "La Borinqueña" and the other Sharks join in, the Jets express joy and mock them, only they quickly become awed past the sincerity and solidarity. The power of the canticle makes clear the power of the Puerto Rican community, as the people watching the scene applaud the vocal.
The Sharks often speak Castilian to each other, and atypical of big-budget U.S. films, the film does non provide subtitles. Emphasizing the linguistic barrier betwixt the lovers, Tony (the Romeo figure and a former member of the Jets) asks his employer, Valentina, to teach him plenty Castilian to communicate with Maria (his Juliet), even though he has previously mocked Val's emphasis. Likewise, Anita yells at the band leader, "Ponle fuego, vamos," and information technology is at her control that they play the mambo. But information technology is the unlikely characters, such equally the police officers, who communicate across languages and generations that reveal a different kind of linguistic dexterity. Lieutenant Shrenk joins the Jets in mocking the Sharks equally they sing the Puerto Rican canticle. However, he can understand enough Spanish to know the give-and-take for "migraine" when Maria says information technology. When trying to appeal to the Jets' leader, Riff, he says, "Paw to centre", echoing Riff's style of speaking to the Jets ("tomb to womb" and "friend or foe"). This type of cultural and linguistic code-switching demonstrates that people can notice means to communicate, if they take the desire.
The female perspective
The female person gaze shapes Spielberg'due south version and the audition experience of the film. Tony's mentor, the shopkeeper Doc, is replaced by Valentina (Rita Moreno), a new grapheme who is Physician'due south widow and now the possessor of the shop. Val gazes at Tony as he sings, "Who Knows," and his soliloquy becomes a monologue showing that he trusts her, that she has promise for him. Later on, when the Jets sing "We are sick, we are sick" inside the constabulary station, a woman (who has locked herself into a property muzzle to protect herself, having been left alone with the gang) stares at them with her mouth afraid. Both she and Val model for the audience how to view these male characters. Furthermore, Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner give women the last words past reordering the songs; afterward the rumble, all of the songs are those sung by women.
The tragedy that overwhelms the dear story
In the motion picture, Bernardo clearly states the threat of white American men toward his sister and warns Maria before the dance with, "The first gringo male child who smiles at yous." Only she kisses Tony and dances with him anyway, even though she has confirmed that he is not Puerto Rican. The lovers know the stakes. Tony confesses to Maria that he spent a year in jail for nearly beating some other male child to expiry, and it is immediately following this that they exchange vows. Tony and Maria know that the Sharks and Jets will "rumble" (fight) because of them.
Afterward Bernardo orders the gate to exist shut for the rumble, Tony arrives, merely he cannot lift the gate to enter. The photographic camera moves behind him to show who has arrived and can aid, and it is the Puerto Rican Chino, Bernardo's intended partner for Maria. Together, they lift the gate and together they close it. Like Romeo and Paris at the Capulet tomb, the location where they both die, this moment of raising the gate and closing it downwards together is the metaphorical sealing of fate for both Tony and Chino; Tony will die at Chino's hand, and Chino volition suffer the metaphorical decease of incarceration equally a consequence. Considering Chino believed in the possibility and virtue of assimilation, it is his subsequent loss of all hope for a amend life that distinguishes his tragedy in this film.
Shakespeare in W Side Story
Spielberg shows us that there'due south however a place for Shakespeare in West Side Story. After the Jets perform "Office Krupke" within the constabulary station, Krupke returns, breathless from chasing Anybodys (who is trans and an aspiring fellow member of the Jets) in the streets. In that same moment, the camera provides close-ups of the Jets who are breathless from singing. Krupke is out of breath as a character who has just been running whereas the Jets are breathless equally actors from performing a musical number. Much like Shakespeare's characters who directly address the audition, or comic relief performed "in character" but at the audition, in moments similar these, the audience views the action every bit simultaneously inside the story and exterior of information technology.
For the 1957 musical, Arthur Laurents wrote original dialogue to cohere with Jerome Robbins' choreography as a reinterpretation of Shakespeare's poesy. In the layers of adaptation that Spielberg's film includes, some of Shakespeare's lines fabricated it into the dialogue. When Tony reacts to Maria's kiss, he says, "Y'all only caught me by surprise is all. I'1000 a past the book type, so," to which Maria responds, "By the book?" (Romeo and Juliet, ane.5.122) And when they role on the fire escape, she calls him back. Maria says, "I forgot why I call yous," and Tony replies, "I'll wait till yous recall." (Romeo and Juliet, 2.ii.184-five) These slightly-adjusted famous lines are included in the picture show's soundtrack also. Shakespeare'south poesy and Sondheim's lyrics are united at last.
⇒ Related: Carla Della Gatta writes nearly the original West Side Story film—and how it became the de facto representation of US Latinx in musicals for decades.
Source: https://shakespeareandbeyond.folger.edu/2022/01/04/west-side-story-2021-film-romeo-and-juliet/
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