West Side Story

In short, Stephen Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story” (with a new script by award-winning playwright Tony Kushner and a cast of young actors of all shades) is a work of art. The composition of every frame is masterful, beautiful, and sometimes breathtaking. I was struck by the use of colors: the icy-drab blues and browns of the Jets juxtaposed with the passionate-fiery reds and yellows of the Sharks, and then those three colors intermingled in a stained glass effect as Tony and Maria deliver the lovely love song, “One Hand, One Heart.” One could read Maria’s costuming alone as a visual metaphor for our great nation: we first see her innocent in white, adding a daring red belt and red lip, but she ends in cold blue, surrounded by rubble and destruction. And Spielberg employs light and shadow to create striking visual effects throughout, most memorably in the rumble scene. So many scenes are utterly spectacular: the dance at the gym; Anita (in a soon-to-be Oscar-winning performance by Ariana DeBose) and the other women in an absolutely scintillating “America”; Anita & Maria (performed beautifully by newcomer Rachel Zegler) in “A Boy Like That/I Have a Love,” a song that starts with a slap and ends with an embrace. What we forget about “West Side Story,” though, is that it’s no feel-good musical: it is a heavy, serious, angry, violent tragedy - of place, of color, of class, of inexplicable hate, of a human condition that has not evolved and - given the current state of our world - likely never will. Spielberg’s artistry transcends star-crossed romance to become an intellectual exercise: sing along while you ponder life in these United States. Do you want to live in America?