Of the many inspirations that can be taken from the 2021 adaptation of West Side Story, one ought to be to start with a bang. So here’s an endorsement from Guillermo del Toro. “WSS is intoxicating, Heisenberg-level pure, uncut cinema.”from the director of Nightmare Alley on why his rival for best picture is so compelling, please do. Watching an artist genuinely rhapsodise about art is always worth the admission.
You could effectively rest your case there, but let’s indulge just a little longer. Indulgence, glory and spectacle being intrinsic to the movie after all – and those first moments a case in point.
That’s another thing that makes this movie a marvel: the light and the colour. While much of the movie was shot on location in New York, the city feels more like California, with the kind of rich and warming light that nurtures dreams . When the Puerto Rican ensemble perform America and the light bounces off the colourful costumery – in particular the skirts – a carnival ensues. It’s difficult to think of a moment more joyous in recent cinema, and in a song that is centred on conflict.
So there’s the film-making craft, and the sensory joy. Then there’s the performances, especially Ariana DeBose and’s, and the punched-up choreography of Justin Peck that doesn’t imitate sex and violence but carries them within its every movement. There’s all that and lots more besides, without touching on the Bernstein/Sondheim genius that makes everything else possible.
Those are the most direct ways in which West Side Story engages with the racial context of its story . Instead, the politics of the film are more about sex and class: the men seek to exert control over women, just as they are unable to exert any influence on the world around them. West Side Story does not seek to exonerate them for this behaviour but it does point to the systemic constraints – namely poverty – which perpetuate the pain.