# West Side Story: How Music Creates Racial Tension



## NapMcDonald

Hi guys - I made a video essay which I wanted to share with you, and I thought you might like. I'm starting to focus more on 'serious' classical music, but I made a couple of movie score essays first, and this one is definitely the one I'm most proud of - I hope you enjoy it


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## Pugg

NapMcDonald said:


> Hi guys - I made a video essay which I wanted to share with you, and I thought you might like. I'm starting to focus more on 'serious' classical music, but I made a couple of movie score essays first, and this one is definitely the one I'm most proud of - I hope you enjoy it


Always good to see someone making a good effort, well done.


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## Nate Miller

you don't understand America at all

the Jets were also an immigrant group.


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## SixFootScowl

Nate Miller said:


> you don't understand America at all
> 
> the Jets were also an immigrant group.


Well, ultimately everyone here but for the Native Americans was an immigrant group at one time. In fact, even the Native Americans once upon a time were an immigrant group.

Yikes! We are all aliens!


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## Nate Miller

Fritz Kobus said:


> Well, ultimately everyone here but for the Native Americans was an immigrant group at one time. In fact, even the Native Americans once upon a time were an immigrant group.
> 
> Yikes! We are all aliens!


what I mean is the Jets are an Irish gang. In NYC, all the immigrant groups fought each other because they were in competition

but talking like Americans are just a bunch of racists is patently offensive to any American who loves their country.

and full disclosure... I grew up in an industrial part of Houston and I used to get my head kicked in over my white skin all the time. My people are Irish and you should hear what kind of things my granddad had to put up with when he came here

so if you are one of these elites that is full of white guilt, that's nice, but don't try and tell me all white people are the same here in America because that is not true.


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## DavidA

Enjoyed this. Really informative - well done!

I was a just bit worried about the title to your OP 'music creates racial tension'. I'd rename it 'music illustrates racial tension'


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## Nate Miller

DavidA said:


> Enjoyed this. Really informative - well done!
> 
> I was a just bit worried about the title to your OP 'music creates racial tension'. ...


when I saw that title, I was thinking more like Ice Cube's record "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted". West Side story is pretty tame, really. If you want some racially charged music, hip hop from around the time of the Rodney King riots is sort of the "go to" stuff


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## Guest

Apparently the film is to be re-made by Steven Spielberg. God help us.


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## Harrowby Hall

Christabel said:


> Apparently the film is to be re-made by Steven Spielberg. God help us.


Why does everyone seem to believe that West Side Story exists only as a film? The film is ONLY an adaptation of a stage play.

I would recommend anyone who wants to know what West Side Story is really about to see a theatrical production. What they will find is a chamber work, an intimate, constrained theatre piece. For most of the play there is only a small number of people on the stage - for a considerable time, just two. And the pit orchestra is very small.

Many people, seeing the film, are justifiably impressed by the way Natalie Wood gives an inner strength to Maria. There are other ways of playing Maria - Sofia Escobar gave her a vulnerabilty, a fragility, which is just as appropriate. The film, by opening up the canvas on which the drama is painted, fails to portray the drama for what it is - a minor tragedy which will go unnoticed a couple of streets away.

If this apparent project does go ahead, Steven Spielberg will not "re-make" the film. He will make his own film, which may well be different from the Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins version. The play is sufficiently robust to withstand many interpretations.


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## jegreenwood

Harrowby Hall said:


> Why does everyone seem to believe that West Side Story exists only as a film? The film is ONLY an adaptation of a stage play.
> 
> I would recommend anyone who wants to know what West Side Story is really about to see a theatrical production. What they will find is a chamber work, an intimate, constrained theatre piece. For most of the play there is only a small number of people on the stage - for a considerable time, just two. And the pit orchestra is very small.
> 
> Many people, seeing the film, are justifiably impressed by the way Natalie Wood gives an inner strength to Maria. There are other ways of playing Maria - Sofia Escobar gave her a vulnerabilty, a fragility, which is just as appropriate. The film, by opening up the canvas on which the drama is painted, fails to portray the drama for what it is - a minor tragedy which will go unnoticed a couple of streets away.
> 
> If this apparent project does go ahead, Steven Spielberg will not "re-make" the film. He will make his own film, which may well be different from the Robert Wise/Jerome Robbins version. The play is sufficiently robust to withstand many interpretations.


I was a bit too young to see the original Broadway production of West Side Story, although I knew the album, which my father bought on its release, and I saw the film at age 9. Since then I have seen it on stage in New York and London. I agree it is different from the film - different song sequencing to begin with. However it was a pretty large show for its time. The original orchestra had 31 musicians, many playing more than one instrument. The cast album had an enhanced string section. And while there were certainly many quiet moments, Jerome Robbins' choreography of the dances, small and large were as important and at least as groundbreaking as Bernstein's score. Certainly, they were critical in establishing the racial tension. Maintaining Robbins' choreography is, I believe, a condition to licensing the show at least for a major professional production. And there is a relatively short list of choreographers approved to recreate it.

One of the "Coolest" things pointed out to me recently about the score is that the dance interlude in that song is twelve tone jazz.

Edit - and this of course was the main difference between Broadway and Hollywood:


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