Amazing movie. It shows the greatness of the music and lyrics that it can be done on Broadway 1957, a movie in '61, and then a remake in 2021. I get the sense that some people might dislike an update, they think the old one is good enough, and it is amazing. I think we can do a remake of this movie every 50 years, let alone 60.
Ariana DeBose (shown above) got a SAG award.
I didn't notice, but it was banned in f Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates because Anybodys being a transgender character, as played by non-binary actor iris menas. Wish I hadn't read about that, makes me despair for this world. I'm starting to think I'm in the worst timeline.
And then I read that Maria was played by a woman who only had a maternal grandmother who was hispanic (Columbian)... Anita (by the wonderful DeBose) had African-American and Italian heritage. I'm sorry but she killed it. No regrets on that casting. She's not even an actor, she's a dancer.
Tony didn't have Polish heritage, though he is a northern European mut like me, with Jewish Russian, Norwegian, German and English heritage. Close enough. I'm pretty sure a pure hispanic and pure polish actor would be good, but I also think that takes away the aesthetic vision of a director. I don't like the repost that you can make your own version like that, because it's not easy to make a movie. Maybe that's. way of saying people with power just didn't have exactly your concerns.
What to make of all that? I liked the movie, and I liked the acting. For me the music and dancing is the big thing, and that killed. I told my daughter how good it was. She told me she has her own moves. Cocky little tyke.
The whole backdrop of them tearing down the neighborhood was incorporated into the movie, that was cool.
Of course it's based on Romeo and Juliet, which adds a whole other layer of coolness.
So cool Rita Moreno was in it too.
A person commented that not translating some of the Spanish is virtue signaling. I think it was an aesthetic choice, and whatever, I don't always understand Spanish, though it's the closest I have to a second language. I wouldn't mind a translation. But whatever, if you don't speak Spanish you don't get the content. It gives you the feel of NYC, you don't always understand what people are saying. People speak in Polish, Albanian, Russian, Spanish, Sri Lankan, Gujarati, Chinese in the park where my daughter plays. I wish I was good or even average at foreign language instead of kind of not so good at languages. People always told me to keep trying. I fell on my head as a kid and I had a foreign language learning disability. I've taken a test and I'm no good at it. But I still love Spanish, and other languages. I was trying to say some things in Polish yesterday. I really wish I could learn Pali.
Turns out Spielberg wanted people who could speak Spanish and had hispanic ancestors. ""That was a mandate that I put down to Cindy Tolan who cast the movie, that I wasn’t going to entertain any auditions that aren't parents or grandparents or themselves from Latinx countries," Spielberg said. "Especially Puerto Rico, we looked a lot in Puerto Rico, we have 20 performers in our film from Puerto Rico or they’re Nuyorican." (source)
He feared giving English power by translating: "That was very important and that goes hand-in-hand with my reasoning for not subtitling the Spanish. If I subtitled the Spanish I’d simply be doubling down on the English and giving English the power over the Spanish. This was not going to happen in this film, I needed to respect the language enough not to subtitle it."
"Not everything works in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story — how could it, when the 1961 classic is nigh unimpeachable? — but his visual translation of some of the original’s latent ideas makes it a complementary piece. At once rougher and more dazzling, it has tremendous high points that seldom overlap with its predecessor, resulting in a remake that feels both hyper-charged and wholly justified. A true thing of beauty." (IGN Review)
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