Director: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins
Screenplay: Ernest Lehman
Cast: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
Country: United States
Running Time: 153 mins
Year: 1961
I don’t like musicals. I never have. And that might lead you to question why I am reviewing this musical release in a very impressive media book format in 4K UHD with a 32-page book and a ton of extras. I mean, it’s a very pretty release.
It’s mainly because West Side Story addresses many of the issues that I’ve always had with musicals. Before 1957, musicals were typically actors doing a scene, stopping to sing a song, and then back to acting, which I’ve never been able to get my head around. It’s technically diegetic versus non-diegetic based on western narrative, typically romantic mode, not being able to handle the transition. West Side Story is what cinema was designed to be, fully integrated, everything flowing together. It was created by Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and a young Stephen Sondheim.
Robbins originated the project, envisioning it as East Side Story, focusing on Jewish and Catholic conflicts in the Lower East Side, before shifting focus to tensions between white ethnic youths, the Jets, and newly arrived Puerto Rican immigrants, the Sharks. Leonard Bernstein’s complex jazz score was combined with Sondheim’s Broadway revolutionary lyric writing.
Part of the reason is that it takes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, pares it down to the tragic romance, and over two incredible hours, the drama doesn’t stop for musical numbers. The music, the acting and choreography is the storytelling. When the rival gangs fight, they don’t just stand there singing at one another, they express violence through dance.
Would I prefer a proper scrap? Probably. But this approach at least is the key to pure cinema, an approach that you see in non-musicals ranging from Terence Davies’s films to Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. They kind of make musicals without songs. Steven Spielberg remade West Side Story a few years ago, and when you think about it, it makes sense because there’s no one quite like Spielberg for using the screen in such a big way and joining everything within a scene together as one cohesive whole.
So I suppose what I’m saying is, I don’t like the typical showtune musicals. And I know that this sounds like a backhanded comment, almost like I’m in therapy, and by the end I’m going to break down, burst into a song and dance number and declare a love of all things musical. I really am not. West Side Story just seems so unique.
And the production history is fascinatingly tangled. Marni Nixon ghost-sang Maria after the studio dropped Natalie Wood’s tracks (Nixon also did the same for Audrey Hepburn on My Fair Lady). Meanwhile, Colonel Tom Parker blocked Elvis Presley from playing Tony, protecting his post-Army poster-boy brand from being associated with street violence. Beymer lacked menace, but Elvis’s star power would have probably unbalanced the ensemble. Still, it’s another Elvis “what if” moment.
The film also demonstrates Robert Wise’s underrated brilliance. Wise rarely gets mentioned because auteur theory was the backbone of film criticism, and there’s no thread to his work. Meanwhile, this former editor of Citizen Kane always let story dictate style and his filmography is a list of genre-defining classics. Not only West Side Story, but also The Sound of Music, a very different Maria. Plus, The Haunting remains a benchmark of ghost stories.
I suppose if there was one film that was going to get through to me, it was always going to be West Side Story. A film that doesn’t seem to split critics and audiences the way almost every other famous musical does.
VIDEO
It’s a gorgeous looking film anyway, but in 4K it’s really quite spectacular. Capelight Pictures’ UK Mediabook presents the film on a BD-100 disc with Dolby Vision and HDR10, sourced from a 4K scan of the original 65mm Super Panavision. The transfer keeps organic grain and rich shadows.
The Saul Bass skyline overture is still wrong as it’s based on the 2011 transfer, though an alternate overture is included as an extra. A brief softness following Maria and Tony’s time-stopping moment in the gym is simply a native artifact from the original film. Improvements over previous DVD and Blu-ray releases, including the 50th Anniversary, are tangible. Colours during “America” are particularly vibrant.
It is a truly striking image, both as a 4K presentation, but also just as a piece of cinema.
EXTRA FEATURES
While pretty much all archival material, this is still a superb collection. The video is certainly worth an upgrade, but if you’re coming to this as a newbie, the highlights include Stephen Sondheim’s candid 20-minute audio commentary over the musical numbers and the rare un-dubbed vocal tracks of Natalie Wood and Russ Tamblyn.
3-Disc Limited Collector’s Edition Mediabook with 48-page Booklet
Song specific commentary by Stephen Sondheim
Music Machine
Alternative Overture
Original Theatrical Trailer
Original Issue Trailer
Reissue Trailer
Animated Trailer
POW! – The Dances of West Side Story
A Place for Us: West Side Story‘s Legacy
West Side Memories
Storyboard to Film Comparison Montage
West Side Story 4K
Screenplay: Ernest Lehman
Cast: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
Country: United States
Running Time: 153 mins
Year: 1961
I don’t like musicals. I never have. And that might lead you to question why I am reviewing this musical release in a very impressive media book format in 4K UHD with a 32-page book and a ton of extras. I mean, it’s a very pretty release.
It’s mainly because West Side Story addresses many of the issues that I’ve always had with musicals. Before 1957, musicals were typically actors doing a scene, stopping to sing a song, and then back to acting, which I’ve never been able to get my head around. It’s technically diegetic versus non-diegetic based on western narrative, typically romantic mode, not being able to handle the transition. West Side Story is what cinema was designed to be, fully integrated, everything flowing together. It was created by Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, and a young Stephen Sondheim.
Robbins originated the project, envisioning it as East Side Story, focusing on Jewish and Catholic conflicts in the Lower East Side, before shifting focus to tensions between white ethnic youths, the Jets, and newly arrived Puerto Rican immigrants, the Sharks. Leonard Bernstein’s complex jazz score was combined with Sondheim’s Broadway revolutionary lyric writing.
Part of the reason is that it takes Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, pares it down to the tragic romance, and over two incredible hours, the drama doesn’t stop for musical numbers. The music, the acting and choreography is the storytelling. When the rival gangs fight, they don’t just stand there singing at one another, they express violence through dance.
Would I prefer a proper scrap? Probably. But this approach at least is the key to pure cinema, an approach that you see in non-musicals ranging from Terence Davies’s films to Ryan Coogler’s Sinners. They kind of make musicals without songs. Steven Spielberg remade West Side Story a few years ago, and when you think about it, it makes sense because there’s no one quite like Spielberg for using the screen in such a big way and joining everything within a scene together as one cohesive whole.
So I suppose what I’m saying is, I don’t like the typical showtune musicals. And I know that this sounds like a backhanded comment, almost like I’m in therapy, and by the end I’m going to break down, burst into a song and dance number and declare a love of all things musical. I really am not. West Side Story just seems so unique.
And the production history is fascinatingly tangled. Marni Nixon ghost-sang Maria after the studio dropped Natalie Wood’s tracks (Nixon also did the same for Audrey Hepburn on My Fair Lady). Meanwhile, Colonel Tom Parker blocked Elvis Presley from playing Tony, protecting his post-Army poster-boy brand from being associated with street violence. Beymer lacked menace, but Elvis’s star power would have probably unbalanced the ensemble. Still, it’s another Elvis “what if” moment.
The film also demonstrates Robert Wise’s underrated brilliance. Wise rarely gets mentioned because auteur theory was the backbone of film criticism, and there’s no thread to his work. Meanwhile, this former editor of Citizen Kane always let story dictate style and his filmography is a list of genre-defining classics. Not only West Side Story, but also The Sound of Music, a very different Maria. Plus, The Haunting remains a benchmark of ghost stories.
I suppose if there was one film that was going to get through to me, it was always going to be West Side Story. A film that doesn’t seem to split critics and audiences the way almost every other famous musical does.
VIDEO
It’s a gorgeous looking film anyway, but in 4K it’s really quite spectacular. Capelight Pictures’ UK Mediabook presents the film on a BD-100 disc with Dolby Vision and HDR10, sourced from a 4K scan of the original 65mm Super Panavision. The transfer keeps organic grain and rich shadows.
The Saul Bass skyline overture is still wrong as it’s based on the 2011 transfer, though an alternate overture is included as an extra. A brief softness following Maria and Tony’s time-stopping moment in the gym is simply a native artifact from the original film. Improvements over previous DVD and Blu-ray releases, including the 50th Anniversary, are tangible. Colours during “America” are particularly vibrant.
It is a truly striking image, both as a 4K presentation, but also just as a piece of cinema.
EXTRA FEATURES
While pretty much all archival material, this is still a superb collection. The video is certainly worth an upgrade, but if you’re coming to this as a newbie, the highlights include Stephen Sondheim’s candid 20-minute audio commentary over the musical numbers and the rare un-dubbed vocal tracks of Natalie Wood and Russ Tamblyn.
3-Disc Limited Collector’s Edition Mediabook with 48-page Booklet
Song specific commentary by Stephen Sondheim
Music Machine
Alternative Overture
Original Theatrical Trailer
Original Issue Trailer
Reissue Trailer
Animated Trailer
POW! – The Dances of West Side Story
A Place for Us: West Side Story‘s Legacy
West Side Memories
Storyboard to Film Comparison Montage