I’ve never
seen West Side Story before. I’d heard of it before, of course, and I kind of knew
the plot, but, to bet honest, I didn’t even know it was supposed to be an
adaption of Romeo and Juliet. I expected to like it more than I liked Romeo and
Juliet, but I didn’t. The only musical I’m a fan of is Avenue Q. I generally
find them long and boring, and I usually find the musical numbers unnecessary. West
Side Story was OK. I’ll probably never watch it again, but I didn’t hate it.
I appreciate the adaption as a more modern
take on Romeo and Juliet. Last week, when we talked about what needs to be kept
from Romeo and Juliet to make it a Romeo and Juliet adaption, I thought that we
only needed forbidden love, and the Romeo character to die to make the wheel
still the wheel. One thing I liked more about West Side Story than Romeo and
Juliet is that we actually know what the Jets and the Sharks are fighting over,
and that makes me like the characters a little more, because at least they know
the reason they’re fighting.
A lot of the characters are still in the
story. Obviously, Tony was Romeo- they both were in love with Maria/Juliet and
then they both died, except Tony wasn’t in love with someone else in the
beginning of the story, like Romeo was. Riff was like Mercutio, Maria was
obviously Juliet, except she got to live. Tybalt was Bernardo, except Tybalt
was Juliet’s cousin, and Bernardo is Maria’s brother. Tony killed Bernardo,
while Romeo killed Tybalt. I think the Lieutenant is like the Prince. The
Prince warned the two families that if there was another riot the leaders of
each family would be killed, and the Lieutenant said that if the two gangs got
into another fight they would all go to jail. I think the Lieutenant is not
nearly as neutral as the Prince, since he’s a racist and favors the Americans.
Both
stories begin with a fight between the two opposing groups, both stories have two teenagers who meet and aren’t supposed to fall in love, but they do.
Both Juliet and Maria are engaged, except in West Side Story, it isn’t as
important as it is in Romeo and Juliet. I think West Side Story was a good
adaption of Romeo and Juliet that captured the basics, and I can see why it’s
so popular.
I never thought about the fact that we actually do know the reason why they're fighting in the movie. It really does give the story a bit more substance, and not like it was just thrown in to get the story moving along.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your post. I liked how you mentioned that in this adaptation, we know why the groups are feuding. However, since this adaptation served the purpose of exposing the racial tensions between people of color and whites, it would have been nice for the directors to include a bit more footage on the lives of at least one member from each gang. In one of the songs, the boys mentioned how their parents were drunks and did not pay them any regard. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your post. I also had never watched West Side Story until now. It actually took me until midway through the move to realize it is an adaptation to R and J. I did like the fact that we actually knew why the two gangs were fighting and it caused me to side with one of the groups over the other. Great post!
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