CRITIQUE

Let’s begin with the fact I am not as gigantic a fan of Robert Wise’s 1961 Oscar-winning classic as so many others are. Yes, I understand how groundbreaking many elements of this musical are. I agree that the opening 20 minutes or so are borderline stunning just from purely visual, editing, production design and dance perspectives. This movie rewrote the rulebook in a way like almost no other musical had done before or since, and for that Wise’s film deserves a great deal of the plaudits that have come its way over these past five decades.

With that out of the way, I kind of don’t get the enduring popularity this gigantic musical behemoth has generated during its lifetime. I find this adaptation of the Broadway staple (screenplay by Ernest Lehman of North by Northwest fame) by Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins and obviously taken from the play Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare to be a bit wet behind the ears. Sure Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics are quite good and Leonard Bernstein’s score is justifiably iconic, but that doesn’t make the central romance between Maria and Tony any less maudlin and soapy. No matter how many times I’ve watched the film, and I’ve seen it plenty, I’ve never believed in their love affair, something about the chemistry between Wood and Beymer not lighting my fire in any discernable way.

Not that the two of them are bad, per se, Wood in particular has a show-stopping moment at the end with her final soliloquy that brings me to tears every single time. I just don’t get the connection between them, their characters far too sketchily written for me to find them worth my time to invest emotionally in. I don’t care if they make it, don’t care if they can stop the feud between the Jets and the Sharks and seriously don’t care if their romance ends in tragedy. In short, I don’t care about them; not one single lick.

On the flip side, I certainly do care about siblings Anita and Bernardo, and the a great deal of the reasons for that are the performances of Rita Moreno and George Chakiris, both of whom more than deserved their supporting actor Oscars. They leap off the screen, burn right through the celluloid, the pair of them crafting indelible portraits that have justifiably stood the test of time. Every time they’re on screen West Side Story comes alive for me and I can’t take my eyes off the screen, the supporting players the signature stars while the love-struck pair of protagonists are sadly nothing more than an afterthought.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty about West Side Story to love and I certainly understand and appreciate its place in cinematic history. I just don’t find the darn thing as enjoyable as many other do, that’s all, and personally I don’t find anything wrong with that.

THE VIDEO

West Side Story is presented on a dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray MPEG-4 AVC Video with 2.20:1/1080p transfer. I don’t know what to say here, I really don’t. Overall, this hi-def presentation borders on extraordinary. There are minor problems here and there (problems which restoration expert Robert Harris has duly noted), but overall colors are strong, blacks are rich and wonderful, depth is fantastic and resonance is superlative. You can’t help but look at this restoration and not be stunned; it’s that good.

There is a major ‘but’ coming, however, and for purists and fans of the movie it is going to be gigantic one. MGM and Fox made a major boo-boo during the restoration and high-definition mastering process and, to put it mildly, destroyed the main credits. Saul Bass’ legendary title design is truly one-of-a-kind, so inserting a ludicrous fade to black where there has never been one before is kind of mind-blowing.

Fox has stated this error will be corrected. Hopefully said correction will happen sooner rather than later.

THE AUDIO

This Oscar-winning musical dances onto Blu-ray with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 audio track along with several other audio options and includes English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Mandarin, Norwegian and Swedish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There are a lot of extras here, some of them ported over from previous releases while others are brand new created especially just for this release. These special features include:

·         Song-Specific Commentary by Stephen Sondheim

·         Pow! The Dances of West Side Story (19:12)

·         Music Machine (1:25:07)

·         A Place for Us: West Side Story's Legacy (29:28)

·         West Side Memories (55:55)

·         Storyboard to Film Comparison Montage (4:50)

·         Trailers (11:50)

It’s fun listening to Sondheim, especially when he comments on aspects of the songs he’s still not entirely satisfied with. The musical jukebox Music Machine is for fans only, but the rest of the featurettes (both the two new ones and the archival West Side Memories) are pretty much must-sees whether you’re a fan of the movie or not.

FINAL THOUGHTS

For fans of West Side Story, this Blu-ray is close to a must-have. At the same time, thanks to the BIG mistake during the opening credits it might be best to wait until Fox and MGM fix the problem before making the purchase, as purists and fanatics will be highly disappointed to discover just how massive this screw-up is even though the rest of the presentation comes close to bordering on Blu-ray perfection.