Realities of West Side Story
Filmed in 1961, West Side Story is a modern-day telling of Romeo and Juliet. Two youths struggle with their forbidden love as two gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, duel. At the end of the film, Maria says, “You all killed him […] with hate!” This is a universally acknowledged theme that hate can kill. West Side Story is said to be a “morality play about “our” everyday problems: racism, poverty, and the destructiveness of violence” .
Shortly after 1949 had been rung in, Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins were already hard at work. Robbins had called with an idea of “a modern version of Romeo and Juliet set in slums […].” The original idea called for dissention between Jews and Catholics during Easter-Passover celebrations. The Capulets, i.e. Juliet, are Jewish; the Montagues, i.e. Romeo, are Catholics. Friar Lawrence will become the neighborhood druggist. The general idea was to create a successful musical that tells a tragic story in a musical comedy. With the suggestion of Arthur Laurents writing the book by Robbins, the idea becomes more of a reality . The New York Times printed an article in later that month with the headline of ‘Romeo to receive musical styling.’ An obstacle they faced was the family versus religion oriented story they were now creating – which would stray from the original Romeo and Juliet theme. The musical was put on the back burner of all but Robbins’ mind
New York circa 1950 to 1960, when the film would take place, was full of gang violence and juvenile delinquents. Arthur Laurents, and Leonard Bernstein had been meeting up, trying to collaborate on a work which would end up falling through. Spying a Los Angeles Times headline on gang violence in 1955 be...
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...r, Chino takes it upon himself to kill Tony .
Bibliography
Bernstein, Leonard, and Arthur Laurents. West Side story: a musical. New York: Random House, 1958.
Berson, Misha. Something's Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination. Milwaukee, WI: Applause Theatre & Cinema, 2011. Print.
Negron-Muntaner, F. "Feeling Pretty: WEST SIDE STORY AND PUERTO RICAN IDENTITY DISCOURSES." Social Text 18.2 63 (2000): 83-106. Print.
Sandoval Sanchez, Alberto. ""West Side Story" by Alberto Sandoval Sanchez." JUMP CUT: A REVIEW OF CONTEMPORARY MEDIA. Jump Cut, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Simeone, Nigel. Leonard Berstein, West Side Story. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009. Print.
Wells, Elizabeth Anne. West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2011. Print.
West Side Story. Film. : Metro Golden Mayer, 1961.
This film, directed by former gang- member Cle Sloan, shows how racism between whites and blacks during the civil rights movement played a significant role in the formation of many Los Angeles gangs that we would see today. T...
In conclusion, from my perspective, the movie is presented in the middle 70’s, showing a portrayal of a City of New York overcrowded. The violence presented is the primary ingredient, drugs, betrayals and murderers are also included in this film that shows the city from a perspective of the streets and the world of the mafia, probably something that happened in those days and remains part of an unseen
West Side Story is the story of two lovers from rival gangs who cannot be together. This musical was heavily inspired by William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The music was a combination of jazz, pop, and classical which was influenced by Aaron Copland, which was Leonard Bernstein's friend. This
West Side Story tells the tale of a battle between two street gangs in New York, both competing to be the best, while also incorporating the impossible love between two people destined to hate each other, which ends in tragedy. The streets of New York are ran by an American gang
Romeo and Juliet is a timeless, classic love story written by the incomparable William Shakespeare. Many of Shakespeare’s works are considered literary classics, but none are more loved than Romeo and Juliet. This play masterfully tells the love story of two teenagers in Elizabethan England. The title characters Romeo and Juliet are members of two feuding families, Romeo is a Montague and Juliet is a Capulet. There are different stylistic ways of portraying Romeo and Juliet, and the two most popular film versions portray two very different styles of this one play. Zeferelli's Romeo and Juliet was made in the 1970s, and is the film version most commonly shown in high school classrooms. The newest film version of this play is Baz Luhrmanns Romeo and Juliet. This version sets the classic story in a modern day setting. Both versions, while different stylistically, hold true to the basic story line of the play.
Gallman, J. Matthew. "Gangs Of New York (Film)." Journal Of American History 90.3 (2003): 1124-1126. America: History and Life with Full Text. Web. 2 May 2014.
The play Romeo and Juliet is a widely known tragedy written by Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet features two rival families and their children. When a daughter of Capulet and son of Montague meet at a party, sparks immediately fly. However, because of their families rivalry, they marry in secret, and were happy. That is until things took a turn for the worst. After an unexpected accident, Romeo is forced to leave the city, and he may never return. Juliet’s not sure she’ll ever see him again and tries to plan a way to be with Romeo, but ends up making things worse. It is an extremely tragic story. Or that’s what everyone is led to believe. However, the play Romeo and Juliet is in actuality a comedy. Between the overabundance of hyperbole, Paris’
Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic love story about two young lovers who are forced to be estranged as a result of their feuding families. The play is about their struggle to contravene fate and create a future together. As such, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood would try and emulate Shakespeare’s masterpiece. This had been done before in many films. Prominent among them were, Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 “Romeo and Juliet” and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 “William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.” Both films stay true to the themes of Shakespeare’s original play. However, the modernised Luhrmann film not only maintains the essence of Shakespeare’s writings, Luhrmann makes it relevant to a teenage audience. This is done through the renewal of props and costumes, the reconstruction of the prologue and the upgrading of the setting, whilst preserving the original Shakespearean language. Out of the two, it is Luhrmann who targets Romeo & Juliet to a younger audience to a much larger extent than Zeffirelli.
In West Side Story, as the camera swings grandly down out of the sky, the audience discovers the Jets, a gang of tough kids, twitching restlessly in a playground park. As the camera continues to descend it captures bodies moving gracefully and fiercely in frequent spontaneous bursts of dance. As the strong blend of drama, dance, and music unfolds, the story of the Sharks and the Jets and their endless fighting begins to unfold as West Side Story. The film tells the story of two of New York City’s rival gangs, the Sharks (a Puerto Rican gang) and the Jets (a white European Immigrant gang), and their endless feuding. Both gangs are continu...
A main theme in West Side Story is racism. The Jets' sole reason for not liking the Sharks is simply based on the fact that they are Puerto Rican. Even as little kids, we have this natural instinct to fear things we don’t understand. The Jets were intimidated by the Sharks mostly because they didn’t act like them, look the same, or have the same beliefs as them. The same can be said for the Sharks, and it’s because of these differences that these two groups of people were willing to physically hurt each other, even to the point of death. These types of things still happen all the time. People still don’t know how to put aside their differences to find the things they
Romeo and Juliet is a play about two lovers who have to risk their lives in order to demonstrate their love and will to stay together, regardless the feud between their families. By the end, the death of Romeo and Juliet finally bring the reconciliation to these two families. It is fate that the two most shall-not meet people fall in love and it love that eventually won against hatred. Since then, there have been many different versions of Romeo and Juliet, whether it was for film, stage, musicals. These different recontextualised adaptions change the original play by many ways, some modernise the language, environment, props as well as changing the original characteristics of some characters. Out of all the different adaptions of Romeo and Juliet, two stood out the most. One was the Romeo and Juliet (1996) and directed by Baz Luhrmann and the other one was Romeo and Juliet Broadway (2013) play version,
The play West Side Story, by Arthur Laurents, is based upon the play Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare. Despite a few differences, both works, in essence, have the same plot. The source of violence in Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story is the ever-present hatred between families and between gangs, although, because of the "star-cross’d lovers" motif in Romeo and Juliet, the hatred plays a larger role in producing the ending of West Side Story than it does the ending of Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story share many similar themes. Romeo and Juliet both chronicle a story of overcoming prejudice and hatred, forbidden love, and defying stereotypes that nobody thought could be broken. The two stories are similar in a multitude of ways, even though their settings are centuries apart- Romeo and Juliet set in the 1500’s, and West Side Story set in the 1950’s. Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story both teach a lesson of how prejudice can teach you how to hate, and how one of your rivals may be the one who helps you remember how to love.
Romeo and Juliet’s love story was miserable but captivating in Shakespeare’s play, while in West Side Story it was musical and lively. In shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet fall in love, but their families hate each other because of bad history. In West Side Story Tony and Maria fall in love but they are in different groups. Jets are American’s, and the Sharks are Puerto Ricans, both of the groups hate each other because they are of different cultures and they can 't accept each other. Also because they are fighting over the territory. I 'm going to be proving how the play and musical are different, even though they are based on each other.
Love is a beautiful thing, it always works out in the end. Everyone is always happy and no problems occur. West Side Story, a musical by Leonard Bornstein based on Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet parallels a love story of two star-crossed lovers. The play takes place in 1961 in New York City. This musical displays importance because it shows that nothing can overcome the power of love. This play is based on a love story between the main characters of Maria and Tony. Theses two are from different gangs that trouble to get along. They are from different gangs that do not get along at all. Roughly two hundred blocks make up Manhattan’s West Side, which stretches from Central Park West to the Hudson River. For the most part, the street youths