West Side Story

[Abbie011]

Classic film plot or revolutionary idea??

[gutfish]

none of the above [x]

[vehelpfulguy]

Both of the above.

It was based on a classic story (Romeo and Juiliet) but also used advanced "jazz" dance techniques (for its time), so it was rather revolutionary.

It was also filmed down on the streets of New York to give it a gritty feel, rather than the "dreamy" look of many Hollywood musicals.

Also a very advanced musical score from Leonard Bernstein, mixing classical and jazz music.

[Abbie011]

Yeah I agree that for the time it was revolutionary. Most american musicals at the time ended happily, but this put a stop to the Voltaire philosphysaround in America post war - by only killing off one of the lovers, leaving the other to live. By doing so the gangs had to look at what they had done day to day.

I think that while west side story is based upon romeo and juliet it is the marked end of an era within american musicals and therefore is revolutionary. Stephen Sondheim went on to produce very good, yet different musicals after his work on west side story so I think it would be a wrong conclusion perhaps to say west side tory was neither.

It was one or the other, but shows a lack of knowledge to be indifferent...in my opinion!

[steve @ home]

Bernstein's musical influence on WSS came from a well known oprea; Carmen by Georges Bizet. It had a typically tragic ending (well it is opera as Bugs Bunny once said) Latin rhythms, contemporary (for then) dance music and was set in a time and place the audience would recognise. That he and Sondheim also used RnJ for the story just gave them a vehicle to do a 1950s version of Carmen.