Backing up a Couple Weeks

I wanted to go back a couple of weeks and write about West Side Story because I was I was disappointed that I missed that class. When we watched Romeo and Juliet I had pretty strong feelings about my dislike for the movie, and how I felt like taking the play and moving it to a modern setting distorted the story too much for my liking.

West Side Story however, has always been one of my favorite musicals, and I really like the story. I think it has to do with the fact that the movie took the story of Romeo and Juliet and adapted it to fit a modern setting, not just by reciting the play over. I actually felt that I got more from the story watching the musical than I did from watching the movie.

There were certain parts of West Side Story that stuck out to me this time because it reflected ideas of the play more then I had noticed before.

The moment that stuck out to me was the song Officer Krupke. I think this scene shows the mockery that the young men have for authority, and the disrespect they have for the law even if they are a little foolish about it.

The second moment is the war meeting between the Sharks and the Jets at Docs. This is similar to the idea that they are making a mockery out of the law system shown by them pretending to get along, but what really is striking to me about this scene is how easy it looks for them all to get along. They are in this battle with each other, but in a strange way protective of each other against the law.

Lastly is the image after Bernardo kills Riff. The shock that he actually has taken his life is upsetting. He reminds me of Tybalt killing Mercutio. It looks like he never believes that their action would have gone that far, and everything before was just talk.

All the images were from West Side Story

West Side Story: On Stage and In Film

All right, Going back to the last class one thing that interested me was when Dr. Mitchell-Buck mentioned that the America scene was different in the play than it was in the movie. Specifically that in the play the America song was done only by women. I found that interesting so I looked it up on youtube. And to no surprise, Dr. Mitchell-Buck was right.

I find this interesting  because it creates a different mood and feeling than that of the movie's scene. In the movie the song is sung as an opposition between the male gangsters and the females. While both a united by a racial identity, they seem clearly divided over their feelings about America. This gives the gang more of a motive and makes them more sympathetic. However the theater version has the opposition and support for America singularly in the hands of the girls. By doing this it removes the gang dynamic but creates a more unified feeling for the Puerto Ricans as a whole. Instead of dividing the complainers and supporters along gender lines, it makes the it difficult to tell who supports and who opposes America. It makes the Puerto Ricans able to see both sides of America. To be fair it could be argued that the movie version does that as well, but by making it one group both singing for and against America this group seems more unified in their opinions of America as a whole.

The movie version though I feel is stronger though because the song gives the Sharks more of a motive and empathy, as well as allowing better banter, because of the gender dynamics.

West Side Story and Warm Bodies

I had seen West Side Story a long time ago so I had almost no memory of it so I went in mostly fresh. I had heard it was good and after watching it I have to agree. It was a really good movie. It was also amusing hearing songs that I had heard before and finding out they're from this movie. But it left me with two big thoughts. Firstly Baz Lurhmann's felt a bit inspired by West Side Story, especially the opening sequence of his movie.

The Other interesting aspect for me was the changes that were made. One specific change seemed so small, but on reflection, has such a large impact on the meaning of the story. And that change, was the removal of parents. In West Side Story (WSS) the only real parental figures we see are Doc, and the police. And none of them are treated with any respect by the gangs.. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, much of the blame lies on the adults who did nothing to actually prevent the violence between their households from taking place. There was a lot of responsibility placed on them to uphold the peace and their failure to do so, caused the deaths to occur. But by removing those authority figures the blame for the deaths shifts from them to the gangs. They made the choice to pick fights and while death was never actually intended, they are the only ones are responsible for it. They lose any opportunity to hide behind the fact that it was their house's or families feud and have to accept that they were responsible for the deaths. It creates a very different dynamic because in Romeo and Juliet, the blame was on their parents for not ending the feud, and much of the tragedy lies in the fact that if the parents had ended their feud the violence could have been avoided. But in WSS the blame lies, if on any outside force, society itself. It creates a dynamic where those responsible (the gangs) seemed to have no power over what actually occurred. This makes the violence seem more inevitable, and in that light, makes the deaths more tragic.




Now on to Warm Bodies. Honestly, went in to it extremely skeptical. It did not seem like the sort of movie I would like. By the end I... I.... I didn't hate it. For the most part, while finding corny I enjoyed it. The main character was interesting as his zombie friend had some hilarious lines. However the main female lead, while attractive, I hated. Alright to be honest, I had been listening to the unabridged audio recording of World War Z (which is completely amazing and I highly recommend) and that work is a lot more serious and more recognizes hard choices have to be made sometimes. Which is why I absolutely despised the girl. She whines about her dad killing zombies, things that had been willing to kill everyone. She whines about getting medicine and worrying about the safety of the community. She whines about having to be checked for infection after she was out in zombie infested territory. She comes off as an obnoxious bratty character and considering this is supposed to be based off Romeo and Juliet the fact she didn't die is extremely disappointing.

Speaking of it being based off of Romeo and Juliet, I can kind of see it. Honestly if it was not for the balcony scene I probably would disagree. Right now, I honestly stuck with whether the balcony scene (and some of the other events) make this movie based partly of Romeo and Juliet or whether just the balcony scene was an homage to Romeo and Juliet and the rest was just a romance.