Production Year: 1961 - Music / Performing Arts - Director: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance
Considered one of the most popular musicals of all time, WEST SIDE STORY earned director Robert Wise an Oscar for Best Director as well as nine other Academy Awards, including Best... more
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director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile d...
director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile d...
with the abandon, genius, and intimate knowledge of every detail he, as composer, imagined. The crisp orchestra and slower tempos maximize the colours of the orchestral landscape and create magic. This recording falls just one tenor's diction short of perfection. Te Kanawa's scrumptious soprano deliciously graces Maria's music, realizing the virtuosity often unattainable in theatre singers' renditions. Troyanos combines a ferocious chestiness with classically trained savvy. The only weakness is Carreras's diction, which he so obviously works hard to Americanise, but falls distractingly short. Still, the overall recording is brilliant. --Barbara Eisner Bayer
Bernstein: West Side Story
Controversial as an essential Carreras recording, West Side Story isn't an opera, and
... more
neither is the tenor, operatic star José Carreras, an American-born Broadway singer. But the music is operatic in quality--let's say in durability. It is Bernstein's most established masterpiece, his surest claim to be remembered as a composer a century from now; the source is Shakespeare and the music has a seriousness, color, and intensity worthy of its subject. And this recording represents the way the composer wanted it to sound, with his choice of the best available voices. Carreras sounds like he was born to sing "Something's Coming," "Maria," and "Tonight." Perhaps he was born to sing them in Spanish, but opera lovers regularly take bigger language problems than that in stride for the sake of vocal quality. --Joe McLellan
Advantages: great singing and dancing, plenty of extras! Disadvantages: depending on viewer, could be too long.
West Side Story is without doubt one of the finest musicals ever!
A bold statment you might think but let me convince you. From the beginning of the film you are pulled further and further in to the 1950's inner city of New York. Greeted by a gang of all singing, all dancing, disinfected youth. The 'Jets' are a local gang fed up with the increase in immigrants to the neighbourhood and they aren't afraid to voice their opinion.
Natalie Wood (star ... ...young girl newly relocated from Puerto Rico with her family. Innocent to the racial divides in the community, Maria embarks on a whirlwind romance with Tony a youthful shop worker who has close links with the 'Jets'.
Maria also has a brother who is the leader of a rival gang, the 'Sharks'. The 'Sharks' are led by Bernado, who has been hardened by the circumstances he has found himself in. Supported by his loving but feisty girlfriend Anita, Bernado ...
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Advantages: An excellent adaptation of Shakespeare's timeless classic: Romeo and Julliet Disadvantages: you know what's going to happen, but that's the fun isn't it?!
A fantastic story of love, desire and hate. This electrifying musical sets the timeles tragedy of Romeo and Julliet against a back drop of gang warfare in the slums of 1950's New York. It shows the conflict between two groups of different ethnicity and how the American's fight to keep their territory whereas the Puerto Ricans fight to fit in. Not only does this film portray important issues but also refreshes the memory of the spectacular love story ... ...everything that could, stops them. I won't say anymore becuase i don't want to give away the ending. But this triumphant musical will have you tapping along to it as the opening is so brilliantly coreographed and the music is simply stunning. Not only did this film win 10 academy awards, it won the heart of millions.
Musical lovers from all over the globe have experienced this breath - taking fusion of realism and fantasy that will forever be a ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Actor(s): Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, Russ Tamblyn, George Chakiris
Director(s): Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise
Genre: Musicals & Music Films - Musicals & Other Music Films
Classification: Parental Guidance
Production Year: 1961
Running Time: 2 hours 25 minutes
Video Category: Feature Film
Country Of Origin: United States of America
Plot: A Romeo and Juliet story set to music and dance in the heart of New York's dockland. Songs include: 'America', 'Tonight', 'I Feel Pretty', 'Somewhere' and 'Maria'.
Release details
DVD Region: Region 2 (Europe)
Studio(s): MGM ENTERTAINMENT; CINRAM LOGISTICS
Release date: 10/11/2003
No of Discs: 1
Catalogue No: 15930 CDVD
Editor: Thomas Stanford, Robert Wise
Barcode: 5050070010657
Production Designer: Boris Leven
Music Director: Johnny Green
Screenwriter: Ernest Lehman
Cinematographer: Daniel Fapp
Composer: Leonard Bernstein, Johnny Green
Subject: Leonard Bernstein
Featured: Leonard Bernstein
Director of Photography: Daniel Fapp
Conductor: Leonard Bernstein
Producer: Robert Wise, Boris Leven
Author: Ernest Lehman
Languages
Main Language: English
DVD Description
Considered one of the most popular musicals of all time, WEST SIDE STORY earned director Robert Wise an Oscar for Best Director as well as nine other Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Realistically portrayed characters and their surroundings and expert editing complementing innovative dance sequences mark this highly stylised modern-day Romeo and Juliet tale. The stage is set in New York's Upper West Side in the 1950s, where the area's slums are plagued by racial tensions acted on by two rival gangs: the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Caucasian Jets. In the middle of this mess is young, innocent Maria (Natalie Wood), a Puerto Rican seamstress whose brother, Bernardo (George Chakiris), is the leader of the Sharks. Despite the warnings of Anita (Rita Moreno), Bernardo's fiery girlfriend, Maria falls in love with a young, hopeful Polish boy, Tony (Richard Beymer), who used to belong to the Jets, now headed by Riff (Russ Tamblyn). When Tony, on Maria's urging, tries to stop a rumble between the gangs, tragedy ensues, marking their dedicated love affair with violence and desperation. The infectious, lyrical landmark score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim help round out one of the greatest musical experiences ever captured on film.
Award information
OSCAR: Best Director 1962 (Robert Wise)
OSCAR: Best Actor In A Supporting Role 1962 (George Chakiris)
OSCAR: Best Actress In A Supporting Role 1962 (Rita Moreno)
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Listed on Ciao since : 25/11/2005
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