Something’s coming
Steven Spielberg remakes the classic ‘West Side Story’
When Steven Spielberg decided to acquire the rights to remake “West Side Story,” the first person he met was Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim, the man who famously changed the scope, form and definition of the Broadway musical with shows like “Company,” “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Into the Woods,” died last month at 91. He was just 24 when he joined the “West Side Story” creative team in 1957 as lyricist and he proved to be a very involved collaborator in what turned out to be his final bow.
A boundary-breaking hit on the stage, the show, director-choreographer Jerome Robbins’ reworking of Shakespeare’s tragic “Romeo and Juliet,” became an instant classic when made into an Oscar-winning 1961 film.
Spielberg, who turns 75 Dec. 18, had never directed a musical but he knew Sondheim, “Because before my company had made (Sondheim’s musical about ‘The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’) ‘Sweeney Todd’ with Johnny Depp.
“Then,” Spielberg continued in a virtual press conference, “we bumped into each other at the White House for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. We both were there along with Barbra Streisand.”
Once this new “West Side Story” was in the works, Spielberg’s “Lincoln” collaborator Tony Kushner began researching a new script. Sondheim, the director noted, “was involved, commenting about Tony’s script and continuing an open dialogue with Tony as he did revisions.”
When it came time for the cast to record the vocals, a standard practice before actual filming began, Sondheim once again “got involved in the pre-recording. For three weeks, five days a week he was in the recording studio.”
Spielberg recalled when he was 11 years old and his parents brought home the original cast recording of the Broadway “West Side Story.” He soon learned all the lyrics and scandalized his parents when he began singing “Officer Krupke” with lyrics about “Our mothers are all junkies, our fathers are all drunks.”
For the Oscar-winning helmer, “This was the most delightful filmmaking ‘family’ affair since ‘ET.’ On ‘ET.’ I felt like a dad to my kid actors.”
Ansel Elgort (“Baby Driver”), the film’s love-struck hero Tony, praised Spielberg’s elaborate process. For “West Side Story” there were, literally, not day or weeks but months of dance rehearsals.
“I came into that rehearsal room months in advance — and I was the weakest dancer,” he insisted. “And you have incredible dancers who were supporting me.”
The choreographer Justin Peck “had a team trying to improve me. The whole process was an incubator of singing, dancing and acting. They lifted me up to be the best I could be.”