THE RUMBLE
‘THE RUMBLE’ IS the black heart of West Side Story, the Jets versus Sharks gang-fight that spins the story from finger-clicking skirmishes into full-blown tragedy. Traditionally, the confrontation takes place under the West Side highway. With Spielberg looking for a tougher take, Tony Kushner relocated the fight to a huge warehouse holding the city’s reserves of salt for winter — “There was something about these white salt mountains and the threat of bloodshed that made me feel like this was the right setting,” says Spielberg — the distinctive location giving Kaminski the chance to hang his huge Klieg lights, with carbon arc lamps, on super-sized cranes.
“I was able to create a bit of an interactive lighting from passing cars illuminating the glass windows and then, at one point, the lights go off and they have a knife fight,” says the cinematographer. “When the cops arrive, you are using all those elements of red and blue flashing lights from police vehicles. I think it’s the most impressionistic scene in the whole movie.”
If West Side Story pays tribute to the Hollywood musical, ‘The Rumble’ draws its power from seamier film genres, Kaminski citing
The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, Ulu Grosbard’s Last Exit To Brooklyn and the work of Orson Welles as visual touchstones. The sequence begins with a shot, seemingly ripped from the German Expressionism playbook, that became instantly iconic when the film’s first trailer dropped: a bird’s-eye view of the long shadows of the gangs approaching each other.
“I drew a couple of stick figures and added their shadows out ahead of them from a straight-down shot,” says Spielberg. “It looked really foreboding. It just seemed to signal what was about to happen.” As has been happening since Schindler’s List, it was up to Kaminski to turn the director’s daydreams into cinematic gold. “My idea was to shoot one gang at a time because if you have both groups simultaneously joining the frame, then there will be interruption of shadows from each gang,” he says. “So, with the camera stationary, we shot the right side of the Jets coming in with the shadows. Then we moved the lights around and the Sharks come in from the left simply to get a sharp dramatic feel.” The two shots were subsequently merged.
When it kicks off, Spielberg’s brawl differs from any previous production of West Side Story. “I didn’t want to express the fighting through dance,” says Spielberg. “I wanted it to be an authentic gang-fight.” While choreographer Justin Peck was present to “make sure it didn’t dip too far into a different style of film”, this is a down-and-dirty knife fight, intense and dangerous enough to flip the story-world on its head.
“It’s the point where the film turns from joy and entertainment to what I call ‘the tragic ending of the Titanic’,” says Spielberg. “I wanted to let the audience know that from this moment on nothing would ever be the same.” Now that Spielberg and co have mixed old-school pizzazz with compelling veracity, West Side Story will never be the same too. Young Steven would be thrilled.