“West Side Story” Was Never a “Light” Musical – The HuffPost

Niko Tavernise – © 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

CINEMA – Musicals, a gender light cinematic? Not necessarily. This Wednesday, December 8, Steven spielberg and his remake of West Side Story, the first version of which hit screens sixty years ago, have every intention of demystifying this misconception.

“The reason we made our film is because children are arrested and put in cages on the border between Mexico and the United States,” the 74-year-old director explained at the microphone of France Inter. It happened while we were filming. Every day we woke up to this bad news. We said to ourselves that our message was more and more relevant. ”

The tragic scenario is identical to that of 1961. It tells how, in New York of the 1950s, a young woman of Puerto Rican origin and a young man of Polish origin fell in love even though they were both born. of two rival gangs.

Check out the trailer for the new West Side Story:

“Xenophobia is a very important part of West Side Story, continues the American filmmaker. We believe the public is ready to discover the relevance of its original creators today. ”

A renewed cast

Unlike the first film, Steven Spielberg made a point of having Hispanic characters played by Hispanic actors and actresses. “Our times require of us to be much more honest with our own values. It was up to us to make sure that no one could play a Shark if they weren’t from Puerto Rico, ”he conceded.

Many lines between the Sharks are spoken in Spanish, with the assumed choice not to subtitle them, neither in English in the United States, nor in French in the tricolor rooms. “The Spanish language had to exist (on screen) in the same proportions as English,” said Steven Spielberg.

Another novelty has been brought to the character of Anybodys. In the original version, the one who dreams of joining the virile and brawling ranks of the Jets was presented in the guise of a young woman with a masculine look. Now it is “a man born in a woman’s body”, as confirmed to Insider the guarantor of the work of the screenwriter of the 1961 film.

No question of castering a cisgender actress again. It is the non-binary interpreter Iris Menas who took up the torch. Five Gulf countries have, for this reason, refused to distribute the film at home.

The musical, which premiered on Broadway in 1957 and has since performed countless times in the United States and elsewhere, gained fame with its first film adaptation by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. She had won ten Oscars, including two for interpretation, to George Chakiris (Bernardo) and Rita Moreno (Anita), the first Hispanic actress to receive the statuette. The latter, which is back on Wednesday in another role, believes that the new version is “more political” than the previous one.

A musical like no other

This being, West Side Story was already, in 1961, much less carefree than the other musicals of its time. In addition to the racial question, the question of gender, on which the film and entertainment industry is in the midst of introspection, was also, in a way, already present in the original work. Some strong female characters can attest to this. This is the case with Maria, who opposes the racism and conservatism of her own. Or Anita, the girlfriend of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, who is an independent woman.

With Robert Wise’s film, “we had the impression that the musical had taken to the streets”, informs AFP Patrick Brion, cinema specialist who has just published a Encyclopedia of Musicals published by Télémaque. According to him, “the people were used to pretty boys and girls dancing and leaving together at the end ”. ”There, continues the expert, it was quite surprising to see actors singing and then fighting with switchblades. ”

In the years 1940-1950, the musicals maintained “a will to enchant the world, without concern, which is also due to the post-war context”, with the need “to raise the morale of the population”, adds the ‘academic Fanny Beuré, whose thesis That’s Entertainment! Music, dance and performances in classic Hollywood musical was published in 2019.

Ten years later, that vein is on the verge of extinction, even though Hollywood still produces The melody of happiness (1965) or Mary poppins (1964). Nothing to do with the atmosphere of West Side Story, its clan struggles against a background of misery in New York. And its tragic end. A legacy that Spielberg was keen to extend.

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