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      Five Sci-Fi Classics, One Summer: How 1982 Shaped Our Present

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      Five Sci-Fi Classics, One Summer: How 1982 Shaped Our Present“Blade Runner,” “E.T.,” “Tron,” “The Wrath of Khan” and “The Thing” all arrived that one season 40 years ago to become indelible and influential.The future is now: The photographer Sinna Nasseri captured images of present-day New York City as it might have been predicted by science fiction films of the 1980s. Above, a replica of the DeLorean from “Back to the Future” was on display in Times Square. Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.At the end of Christian Nyby’s 1951 sci-fi chiller “The Thing from Another World” — about an Arctic expedition whose members are stealthily decimated by an accidentally defrosted alien monster — a traumatized journalist takes to the airwaves to deliver an urgent warning. “Watch the skies,” he insists breathlessly, hinting at the possibility of a full-on invasion in the final lines. “Keep looking. Keep watching the skies.”This plea for eagle-eyed vigilance suited the postwar era of Pax Americana, in which economic prosperity was leveraged against a creeping paranoia — of threats coming from above or within. The final lines of movie were prescient about the rise of the American science-fiction film, out of the B-movie trenches in the 1950s and into the firmament of the industry’s A-list several decades later.The peak of this trajectory came in the summer of 1982, in which five authentic genre classics premiered within a one-month span. After its June 4, 1982, opening, “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” set an unexpected record by grossing about $14 million on its first weekend. Seven days later, Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” debuted to $11 million but proved to have stubby, little box office legs, eventually grossing more than half a billion dollars worldwide. June 25 brought the competing releases of Ridley Scott’s ambitious tech-noir thriller “Blade Runner” and John Carpenter’s R-rated remake of “The Thing,” visions several shades darker than “E.T.”; both flopped as a prelude to their future cult devotion. On July 9, Disney’s technologically groundbreaking “Tron,” set in a virtual universe of video-game software, completed the quintet.Not all of these movies were created equal artistically, but taken together, they made a compelling case for the increasing thematic flexibility of their genre. The range of tones and styles on display was remarkable, from family-friendly fantasy to gory horror. Whether giving a dated prime-time space opera new panache or recasting 1940s noir in postmodernist monochrome, the filmmakers (and special-effects technicians) of the summer of ’82 created a sublime season of sci-fi that looks, 40 years later, like the primal scene for many Hollywood blockbusters being made — or remade and remodeled — today. How could five such indelible movies arrive at the same time?Whether the summer of ’82 represented the gentrification of cinematic sci-fi or its artistic apex, the genre’s synthesis of spectacle and sociology had been underway for some time. Following the pulp fictions of the ’50s, if there was one movie that represented a great leap forward for cinematic science fiction, it was Stanley Kubrick’s epically scaled, narratively opaque 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which not only featured a massive, mysterious monolith but also came to resemble one in the eyes of critics and audiences alike.The film’s grandeur was undeniable, and so was its gravitas: It was an epic punctuated with a question mark. Almost a decade later, “Star Wars” used a similar array of special effects to cultivate more weightless sensations. In lieu of Kubrick’s anxious allegory about humans outsmarted and destroyed by their own technology, George Lucas put escapism on the table — “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away” — and staged a reassuringly Manichaean battle between good and evil, with very fine aliens on both sides.The same year as “Star Wars,” Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” rekindled the paranoid alien-invasion vibes of the ’50s with an optimistic twist. The film had originally been titled “Watch the Skies” in homage to Nyby’s classic, but it was an invitation to a more benevolent form of stargazing: Its climactic light show was as patriotic as Fourth of July fireworks, with a distinctly countercultural message worthy of Woodstock: Make love, not war (of the worlds).What united “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters,” beyond their makers’ shared sense of genre history (and mechanics), were their direct appeals to both children and the inner children of grown-ups everywhere. In The New Yorker, the influential and acerbic critic Pauline Kael carped that George Lucas was “in the toy business.” Like the scientist at the end of “The Thing From Another World,” she was raising the alarm about what she saw as a powerful, pernicious influence: the infantilization of the mass audience by special-effects spectacle.Yet even Kael submitted to the shamelessly populist charms of “E.T.,” which she described as being “bathed in warmth.” She wrote that the film, about the intimate friendship between a 10-year-old boy and a benign, petlike thing from another world, “reminds you of the goofiest dreams you had as a kid.”What The Times Said About These Five Movies in 1982Card 1 of 5Blade Runner. More

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      Streaming Has Won the Hollywood Debate. Is Best Picture Next?

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      A few years ago, the entertainment industry was arguing over whether movies on streaming services even counted as a film. Now, one is poised to win the Oscars’ top prize.Three years ago, Hollywood was engaged in a knock-down, drag-out fight over the future of cinema — what, exactly, constitutes a film — with the Oscars as the boxing ring.Netflix and other streaming insurgents insisted that the delivery route was irrelevant, that a film could be primarily viewed on an iPhone and still be a film. Theaters? Ticket sales? It didn’t matter.The Hollywood establishment, or at least most of it, was incensed: Big screens, they argued, are part of the very definition of cinema. “Once you commit to a television format, you’re a TV movie,” Steven Spielberg told a reporter at a European press junket at the time. “You certainly, if it’s a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar.”And now?Unless the predictions are wrong and something unexpected awaits inside those gold leaf-embossed envelopes at the 94th Academy Awards on Sunday, a streaming service film — in a first — will win the Oscar for best picture. “CODA,” a dramedy from Apple TV+ about the only hearing member of a deaf family, is favored to receive the prize, having already won top honors at the predictive Producers Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Writers Guild Awards.A Netflix film, “The Power of the Dog,” could nudge past “CODA” to win the best picture trophy, awards handicappers say. But most are not predicting a win for nominees from traditional studios, including “Belfast” and “West Side Story.” Apple TV+ and Netflix have both campaigned aggressively, with Apple spending an estimated $20 million to $25 million to promote “CODA” and Netflix’s push for “The Power of the Dog” costing even more.“CODA,” which stars Troy Kostur and Marlee Matlin, has already won top honors from the Screen Actors Guild.Apple TV+For an industry in turmoil, with tech giants like Apple and Amazon upending entertainment-industry business practices and threatening Hollywood power hierarchies, the welcoming of a streaming service into the best picture club would amount to a seismic moment. Television and film have been merging for years, but lines of demarcation remain, with the Oscars as one. (Last year’s winner, “Nomadland,” from Searchlight Pictures, a traditional studio, was mostly seen on Hulu, but only because a lot of theaters were closed; it played in roughly 1,200 theaters in the United States and had an exclusive IMAX run.)Explore the 2022 Academy AwardsThe 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27 in Los Angeles.The Hosts: Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes plan to keep the show moving and make it funny, though they will acknowledge the war in Ukraine.‘Seen That Before?’: Four of the best picture nominees this year are remakes or reboots of earlier films.Best Actress Race: Who will win? There are cases to be made for and against each contender, and no one has an obvious advantage. Hollywood Legend: Danny Glover will receive an honorary Oscar for his activism. He spoke to The Times about his life in movies and social justice.Return to the Playground: For his Oscar-nominated short film “When We Were Bullies,” Jay Rosenblatt tracked down his fifth-grade classmates.Among this year’s best picture nominees, “I think there’s a lot of the academy that might not even know what is a streaming movie and what isn’t a streaming movie,” said the producer Jason Blum, whose Oscar-nominated films have included “Get Out,” “Whiplash” and “BlacKkKlansman.”The digital forces that have reshaped music and television have been chipping away at cinema for a long time. “If ‘CODA’ and Apple win, which seems pretty likely, it will be in part because of Netflix, which has been banging on the academy door for years, and fighting the good fight — or the bad fight, depending on who you ask — to get streaming movies considered,” Mr. Blum said.The pandemic accelerated the disruption. Traditional studios like Paramount, Universal, Sony, Warner Bros. and Disney rerouted dozens of theatrical films to streaming services or released them simultaneously in theaters and online. For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, citing the coronavirus threat, allowed films to skip a theatrical release entirely and still be eligible for Oscars. The academy had previously required at least a perfunctory theatrical release of at least a week in Los Angeles.This is about more than Hollywood egotism. The worry is that, as streaming services proliferate — more than 300 now operate in the United States, according to the consulting firm Parks Associates — theaters could become exclusively the land of superheroes, sequels and remakes. The venerable Warner Bros. has slashed annual theatrical output by almost half and built a direct-to-streaming film assembly line. Last week, Amazon boosted its Prime Video service by acquiring Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the old-line studio behind “Licorice Pizza,” which is nominated for three Academy Awards, including best picture.In a year when Hollywood largely failed to jump-start theatrical moviegoing, streaming services solidified their hold on viewers. Global ticket sales totaled $21.3 billion in 2021, down from $42.3 billion in 2019, according to the Motion Picture Association. (Theaters were closed for much of 2020.) Some theater companies have gone out of business, others have merged; the world’s biggest theater chain, AMC Entertainment, racked up $6 billion in losses over the past two years and its stock has dropped 66 percent since June. At the same time, the number of subscriptions to online video services around the world grew to 1.3 billion, up from 864 million in 2019, the group said.One film that struggled at the box office was Mr. Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” which received an exclusive run in theaters (per his wishes) of about three months. It collected about $75 million worldwide (against a production budget of $100 million and global marketing costs of roughly $50 million). “West Side Story” is now available on not one but two streaming services, Disney+ and HBO Max, where it has almost assuredly been viewed more widely than in theaters. But the film was never able to recover — among Oscar voters — from being branded a box office misfire. It received seven nominations, and is poised to win in one category, for Ariana DeBose as best supporting actress.Mr. Spielberg’s also-ran presence in the current Oscar race makes the ascendance of streaming contenders all the more striking: a lion in the fight to keep the Academy Awards focused on theatrical films is pushed aside. However unlikely, it is possible that “West Side Story” could come from behind and win the best picture trophy. So could Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast,” for that matter. Such an outcome would be a bit like 2019, when academy voters, turned off by an over-the-top campaign by Netflix to push “Roma” to best picture glory, instead gave the prize to “Green Book,” a traditional film from Universal Pictures.“The Power of the Dog,” from Netflix, is seen as another strong contender for best picture.Kirsty Griffin/NetflixIn 2019, the Oscars-centered clash between Old Hollywood and New was so heated, particularly on Twitter, that the Justice Department sent an unusual letter to the academy warning that changes to its eligibility rules could raise antitrust concerns. At the time, there was a push inside the 10,000-member academy to come up with a reasonable way to ensure that only films with robust theatrical releases were eligible for Oscars.Flickers of resistance remain.“There are many great companies that are streamers that like to loosely throw around the word ‘cinema’ without supporting it as cinema,” said Tom Quinn, chief executive of Neon, the indie studio behind “Parasite,” which won the 2021 Oscar for best picture, and “The Worst Person in the World,” a screenplay and international film nominee this year. He was referring to the tendency by the majority of the streaming companies to limit a film’s theatrical release, opting instead to release it on their apps.Our Reviews of the 10 Best-Picture Oscar NomineesCard 1 of 10“Belfast.” More

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      Rachel Zegler, ‘West Side Story’ Star, Is Invited to the Oscars After All

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      On Sunday she revealed on Instagram that she had not been invited to the ceremony, prompting an outcry. She has since been added as a presenter.It looks as if Rachel Zegler, who plays Maria in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” is going to the Oscars.She has been invited to be a presenter at the Oscars, and Disney is working to rearrange the production schedule on her current project, a live-action version of “Snow White,” to make it happen, according to two people briefed on the matter. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid a conflict with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hosts the Oscars.How the arrangement came together provides a glimpse into how the Hollywood gears can sometimes grind.It started on Sunday, when Zegler, 20, posted a photo of herself in a blue gown on Instagram. A follower commented, “Can’t wait to see what you’ll be wearing on Oscar night.”Zegler replied that she had not received an invitation to the ceremony, during which “West Side Story” is up for seven awards. The ceremony will be broadcast this Sunday on ABC from Los Angeles. ABC is owned by Disney, which released the film last year.“I’m not invited,” she wrote, “so sweatpants and my boyfriend’s flannel.”She added that she would support the film from her couch. “I hope some last minute miracle occurs and I can celebrate our film in person,” she wrote, “but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes, I guess.”The challenge involves much more than invitations. Zegler is filming “Snow White” in London, and getting her to the Oscars and back will require Disney to rework schedules for hundreds of cast and crew members. The film, already on a tight schedule because of delays related to the coronavirus pandemic, is a $200 million production.A spokeswoman for the academy, which confirmed Zegler’s addition to the presenter lineup in a statement later on Wednesday, declined to comment. A representative for Zegler did not respond to a request for comment.Word that Zegler had not been invited to the ceremony drew a swift backlash from her followers and others on social media, including Russ Tamblyn, who played Riff, the leader of the Jets street gang, in the original “West Side Story” in 1961. They wondered why a lead actress in a film that had received a best picture nomination would not be invited to the ceremony.The film’s Oscar nominations include best picture, best director for Spielberg and best supporting actress for Ariana DeBose. Zegler, who is not nominated for an Oscar, won a Golden Globe for her role.Vimal Patel More

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      Directors Guild Nominations Focus on Veterans Like Jane Campion and Steven Spielberg

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      The Directors Guild of America announced its feature-film nominees on Thursday, recognizing Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”) and Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”). Branagh is the category’s sole first-time nominee; the others have each been nominated by the guild before and Spielberg holds the record for most DGA wins with three.All five of the nominated directors also saw their films recognized earlier Thursday by the Producers Guild of America, which suggests they comprise the upper tier of this Oscar season’s best-picture contenders. The Directors Guild’s nominees also tend to match four out of five when it comes to the Oscars’ best-director category. Last year, only DGA pick Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) fell out; he was replaced in the Oscar nominations by Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”). The year before, the Oscars went for Todd Phillips (“Joker”) instead of Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”).Campion’s inclusion marks the first time in DGA history that women were nominated in back-to-back years: Last season, both Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) and eventual winner Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) made the cut. And in the DGA category recognizing first-time filmmakers, four of the six nominees were women this year.Here is a rundown of the nominees in the major film and television categories. For the complete list, including commercials, reality shows and children’s programming, go to dga.org.FilmFeaturePaul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”Denis Villeneuve, “Dune”First-Time FeatureMaggie Gyllenhaal, “The Lost Daughter”Rebecca Hall, “Passing”Tatiana Huezo, “Prayers for the Stolen”Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”Michael Sarnoski, “Pig”Emma Seligman, “Shiva Baby”DocumentaryJessica Kingdon, “Ascension”Stanley Nelson, “Attica”Raoul Peck, “Exterminate All the Brutes”Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, “Summer of Soul”Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “The Rescue”TelevisionDrama series“Succession,” Kevin Bray (for the episode “Retired Janitors of Idaho”)“Succession,” Mark Mylod (“All the Bells Say”)“Succession,” Andrij Parekh (“What It Takes”)“Succession,” Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman (“Lion in the Meadow”)“Succession,” Lorene Scafaria (“Too Much Birthday”)Comedy series“Hacks,” Lucia Aniello (“There Is No Line”)“Ted Lasso,” MJ Delaney (“No Weddings and a Funeral”)“Ted Lasso,” Erica Dunton (“Rainbow”)“Ted Lasso,” Sam Jones (“Beard After Hours”)“The White Lotus,” Mike White (“Mysterious Monkeys”)Television Movies and Limited Series“The Underground Railroad,” Barry Jenkins“Dopesick,” Barry Levinson (“First Bottle”)“Station Eleven,” Hiro Murai (“Wheel of Fire”)“Dopesick,” Danny Strong (“The People vs. Purdue Pharma”)“Mare of Easttown,” Craig Zobel More

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      What Is ‘West Side Story’ Without Jerome Robbins? Chatty.

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      Justin Peck takes over choreographic duties in the Steven Spielberg adaptation of the 1957 musical in which words, not bodies, rule the screen.It’s been days since I watched the Steven Spielberg reboot of “West Side Story,” and I still can’t get a scene out of my head: The fateful meeting of Tony and Maria at the gym.In the 1961 film, the pair lock eyes and move closer and closer as bodies spin around them, and the background, a rich red, envelops them. When they stop, they’re face to face swaying softly. Suddenly, their arms lift to either side and they begin to dance. In the new movie, they spot each other in the gym and meet behind the bleachers. Tony (Ansel Elgort), staring hard at Maria (Rachel Zegler), casually drapes an arm on the metal structure. But before he can speak, Maria stretches her arms out and gives a little snap.This dance — Justin Peck’s reframing of the original choreography by Jerome Robbins — may not be as luminous, but it is a surprise: a slice of unexpected loveliness that speaks to the subtle power of movement. Tony raises an eyebrow, but joins Maria fluidly without questioning the strangeness of it all.“You don’t like dancing?” Maria (Rachel Zegler, center) asks Tony (Ansel Elgort, left). “I like it,” he says. “I like it a lot.”20th Century StudiosHere, in a rare instance, they communicate without words. Yet throughout this film, when there is a right turn, a wrong one tends to follow. More than movement, words are the dominant language of this “West Side Story.” So, brace yourself. Something’s coming — a conversation.“I wasn’t planning on showing up tonight,” Tony says.“You don’t like dancing?” Maria asks.“No, I mean, yeah,” he says. “I like it. I like it a lot. Dancing with you. It’s just you’re— —”Maria interrupts his thought with an observation. Staring up at him wistfully, she says, “You’re tall.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}You’re tall? It’s as if “Riverdale” met “The Bachelor” — or “The Bachelorette” — and you know there’s plenty more drama to come. “West Side Story,” an updated “Romeo and Juliet,” used to be a musical told through movement. Now it is a musical, full of back stories, told through words. So many, many words.For this “West Side Story,” the screenplay, originally by the playwright Arthur Laurents, is by Tony Kushner. Leonard Bernstein’s music and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics are still here to guide the Sharks and the Jets along as they war it out in the streets of New York City. And then there are Peck’s dances, which have their own life, yet can come off as breezy excursions from the story — and sometimes as reminiscent of numbers from “In the Heights” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” — instead of being authoritatively knitted into the whole.The dance at the gym.20th Century StudiosWith so much emphasis on dialogue and character development, the tension — the very glue of “West Side Story” — seeps away. Tony, we learn, is on parole for almost killing a kid. Who cares? He talks about how he first saw the Cloisters, where he takes Maria on a date, while being carted off to prison. It’s hard to imagine how that could have happened, yet again, who cares? It’s like watching dancers with lead in their shoes.It’s not as if back stories weren’t important to Robbins, who conceived, directed and choreographed the stage musical. (He choreographed the 1961 film and directed it, with Robert Wise.) He wanted his actors and dancers to flesh out their characters’ pasts in order to give them greater dimension. But in the new version, there’s another war raging as action and sensation battle a continual need for context.In a 1985 symposium with the four collaborators — Robbins, Laurents, Bernstein and Sondheim — the subject of Cheryl Crawford came up. She was a producer who ultimately dropped out of the original stage production because, Sondheim said, “She wanted us to explain more why these kids were the way they were, and the more we tried to explain to her that this was not a sociological treatise,” but rather “a poetic interpretation of a social situation, the less she understood what we were saying.”She wanted, he said, for “West Side Story” to be more realistically grounded. “If we had gone that way,” Sondheim added, “we would’ve killed the piece.”The new movie hasn’t killed “West Side Story,” but it has muted it considerably — and packed it full of starts and stops. Now when the dances come, they’re less a part of the show’s fabric than an escape.At least they’re there. But how could they not be? Robbins has always been an influence on Peck, the resident choreographer and artistic adviser of New York City Ballet, where, as a dancer, he performed Robbins’s works — including the role of Bernardo in “West Side Story Suite.” In an interview Peck said the experience of working on the film made him realize “how much dance is built into the DNA and the structure of this musical.”Peck, photographed in New York, said working on the film he realized “how much dance is built into the DNA and the structure of this musical.”Lia Clay Miller for The New York Times“You can’t really derail that,” he added. “It’s like dance has to be a part of it. And I think that really speaks to his belief in it and his innovation with it.”But in Spielberg’s film the choreography doesn’t drive the action with the same force. So where does the dancing fit in? Certainly, there are moments of beauty and energy in Peck’s contributions, yet often the impetus behind the dances seem to be more about camerawork than choreography. It’s out of his control.One of the biggest changes is confusing. It was critical to Robbins that the Jets had a different dance language than the Sharks. He even enlisted the choreographer Peter Gennaro — he was credited as co-choreographer — to help create the Latin numbers. In the new film, it’s hard to put a finger on just how the Sharks move differently than the Jets. Peck brought on Patricia Delgado, his wife and a former principal at Miami City Ballet, and Craig Salstein, a former soloist at American Ballet Theater, as associate choreographers. Delgado helped with the Latin influence, but as the groups dance together, what’s clear is that they are dancing together — it’s one language, not two.Peck said he was more interested in creating a cohesive company of dancers, to build camaraderie among them. And if you know Peck’s work that makes sense. The group aesthetic of “West Side Story” reflects the dance communities that Peck builds onstage, too, at City Ballet and beyond. (Peck is an in-demand choreographer who makes works for many ballet companies and won a Tony for “Carousel.”) This is “West Side Story” as seen through the eyes of a choreographer who started out making dances on his friends.They want to be in America: Ariana DeBose, center, as Anita.Niko Tavernise/20th Century StudiosThat brings a different kind of velocity to “West Side Story.” Sometimes the dancing is so joyful, so light, that the performers seem to forget who they are. As the brooding Bernardo, David Alvarez is spectacular. Yet when he is dancing, should his expression be so full of bliss? He is the leader of a gang — and, sigh, here reimagined as a boxer.Watching the back stories unfold — and, later, trying to keep track of them — made me think of the way this movie could really have leaned into dance. What if the dream ballet, part of the original musical, had been included? In it, Tony and Maria sing “Somewhere” in her bedroom until the walls open up and the room disappears; now members of both gangs unite, dancing together in harmony “in a world,” as the script reads, “of space and air and sun.”The dream ballet probably never stood a chance. To most, the language of dance can be trusted only to a point. But what if it had been included — and updated? Now that would have been a thrill, a progressive act.That sense of harmony echoes how many of Peck’s dances look on the stage. When they work — the two I love are “Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes” and “The Times Are Racing” — they rise beyond steps and structure to land in a place of feeling, sweep and scope. That is what you think of when you think of the poetic, elusive “Somewhere.”But there’s another scene that follows in the stage musical, which is even more rarely performed: The dream turns into a nightmare. Riff and Bernardo appear, their deaths are re-enacted and Maria and Tony are separated amid chaos and violence. They end up back in the bedroom, where they sing together: “Hold my hand and we’re halfway there. Some day, Somehow, Somewhere!” I would have voted for the dream ballet — all the way to the nightmare. It had so much more to say. Maria and Tony, after all, are desperate. They’re holding onto air, and that calls for a dance. More

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      in Theater

      ‘West Side Story’ Review: In Love and War, 1957 Might Be Tonight

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      Steven Spielberg rediscovers the breathing, troubling essence of a classic, building a bold and current screen musical with no pretense to perfection.“West Side Story” sits near the pinnacle of post-World War II American middlebrow culture. First performed on Broadway in 1957 and brought to the screen four years later, it survives as both a time capsule and a reservoir of imperishable songs. What its creators attempted — a swirling fusion of literary sophistication and contemporary social concern, of playfulness and solemnity, of realism and fantasy, of street fighting and ballet — hadn’t quite been attempted before, and hasn’t been matched since.The idea of harnessing the durable tragedy of “Romeo and Juliet” to the newsy issues of juvenile delinquency and ethnic intolerance must have seemed, to Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim, both audacious and obvious. In the years since, “West Side Story” has proved irresistible — to countless high-school musical theater programs and now to Steven Spielberg, whose film version reaffirms its indelible appeal while making it feel bold, surprising and new.This isn’t to say that the show has ever been perfect. Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics (and who died just after Thanksgiving at 91), frequently disdained his own contributions, including the charming “I Feel Pretty.” The depiction of Puerto Rican and Anglo (or “gringo”) youth gangs has been faulted for sociological imprecision and cultural insensitivity. Shakespeare’s Verona might not translate so easily into the slums of mid-20th-century Manhattan.But perfection has never been a relevant standard for musicals. The genre has always been a glorious, messy mash-up of aesthetic transcendence and commercial ambition, a grab-bag of styles and sources held together by the energy, ingenuity and sheer chutzpah of scrappy and resourceful artists. This may be especially true at the movies, where the technology of cinema can enhance and also complicate the artistry..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Spielberg’s version, with a screenplay by Tony Kushner that substantially revises Laurents’s book and new choreography by Justin Peck that pays shrewd tribute to Robbins’s genius, can’t be called flawless. The performances are uneven. The swooning romanticism of the central love story doesn’t always align with the roughness of the setting. The images occasionally swerve too bumpily from street-level naturalism to theatrical spectacle. The seams — joining past to present, comedy to tragedy, America to dreamland — sometimes show.But those seams are part of what makes the movie so exciting. It’s a dazzling display of filmmaking craft that also feels raw, unsettled and alive. Rather than embalming a classic with homage or aggressively reinventing it, Spielberg, Kushner, Peck and their collaborators (including the cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, the production designer Adam Stockhausen, the editors Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn and the composers Jeanine Tesori and David Newman) have rediscovered its breathing, thrilling essence.The 1961 movie, directed by Robbins and Robert Wise, was partly filmed on location in a neighborhood that was already vanishing. In Spielberg’s 1957, the destruction is well underway. Wrecking balls and cranes tower over piles of smashed masonry that were once tenement buildings. A sign posted at one of the demolition sites shows a rendering of the shiny Lincoln Center arts complex that will rise where the slums once stood.This “West Side Story” is explicitly historical, grounded in a specific moment in New York City’s past. Kushner (whom I profiled in a recent issue of T, The New York Times Style Magazine) has brought a level of scholarly care to the screenplay far beyond what Laurents and the others were able or willing to muster.Shakespeare’s play supposes “two households, both alike in dignity”; in Act III, Mercutio famously calls down “a plague” on both of them. But such symmetry, while structurally necessary to the source material — who were the Montagues and Capulets, anyway, and who really cares? — doesn’t map easily onto the West Side as Kushner and Spielberg understand it.David Alvarez at center as Bernardo, leader of the Sharks, in the film.Niko Tavernise/20th Century StudiosThe Jets and the Sharks, a white teenage gang and their Puerto Rican antagonists, aren’t mirror images of each other. Ostensibly contending for control over a few battered blocks in the West 60s, they collide like taxis speeding toward each other on a one-way street.The Sharks are children of an upwardly striving, migrant working class, a generation (or less) removed from mostly rural poverty in the Caribbean and determined to find a foothold in the imperial metropolis, where they are greeted with prejudice and suspicion. Bernardo (David Alvarez), their leader, is a boxer. His girlfriend, Anita (Ariana DeBose), works as a seamstress, while his younger sister, Maria (Rachel Zegler), toils on the night shift as a cleaner at Gimbels department store. Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), who Bernardo and Anita believe would be a good match for Maria, is a bespectacled future accountant. (But of course Maria falls for Tony, a reluctant Jet played by the heartthrobby Ansel Elgort.) All of them have plans, aspirations, dreams. The violence of the streets is, for Bernardo, a necessary and temporary evil, something to be overcome through hard work and communal cohesion on the way to something better.The Jets, by contrast, are the bitter remnant of an immigrant cohort that has, for the most part, moved on — to the Long Island suburbs and the bungalows of Queens, to a share of postwar prosperity. As the policemen Officer Krupke (Brian D’Arcy James) and Lieutenant Schrank (Corey Stoll) are on hand to explain — and as the Jets themselves testify — these kids are the product of family dysfunction and societal neglect. Without aspirations for the future, they are held together by clannish loyalty and racist resentment — an empty sense of white entitlement and a perpetually expanding catalog of grievances. Their nihilism is embodied by Riff (the rangy Mike Faist), the kind of brawler who would rather fight than win.As the song says: “Life can be bright in America/If you can fight in America.” But what lingers after this “West Side Story” is a darkness that seems to belong more to our own angry, tribal moment than to the (relatively) optimistic ’50s or early ’60s. The heartbreak lands so heavily because the eruptions of joy are so heady. The big comic and romantic numbers — “Tonight,” “America” and, yes, “I Feel Pretty” — burst with color and feeling, and the silliness of “Officer Krupke” cuts like an internal satire of some of the show’s avowed liberal pieties.The cast members — notably including Rita Moreno, who was Anita in 1961 and who returns as a weary, wise pharmacist named Valentina — bring exactly the sincerity and commitment that a movie like this requires. There’s a reason “West Side Story” is a staple of the performing arts curriculum, and for all the Hollywood bells and whistles, the essence of Spielberg’s version is a bunch of kids snapping their fingers and singing their hearts out.The voices are, all in all, pretty strong. Zegler sings some of the most challenging numbers with full-throated authority, but she and Elgort don’t fully inhabit the grand, life-altering (and -ending) passion that their roles require. Tony and Maria are sweet and likable, but also a bit bland, and their whirlwind progress from infatuation to eternal devotion, which unfolds over a scant two days, feels shallow against the big, complicated forces moving around them.This is partly a consequence of Kushner and Spielberg’s commitment to realism and historical nuance, and in some ways it works to the movie’s advantage. The center of tragic gravity shifts away from Tony and Maria to Bernardo and Anita, and also to Riff. It helps that Alvarez, Faist and — supremely — DeBose are such magnetic performers. When DeBose is onscreen, nothing else matters but what Anita is feeling. But the characters also have a deeper, more complicated stake in the story. They aren’t just foils or catalysts for the action, as their counterparts are in Shakespeare. They are the ones for whom the question of what it is to be in America becomes a matter of life and death.West Side StoryRated PG-13. Never was a story of more woe. Running time: 2 hours 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      in Theater

      The Great ‘West Side Story’ Debate

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      With the Steven Spielberg film coming soon, three critics, a playwright and a theater historian weigh in on whether the musical deserves a new hearing — and how.Since its Broadway premiere in 1957, “West Side Story” — a musical based on “Romeo and Juliet” and created by four white men — has been at once beloved and vexing.The score, featuring such Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim classics as “Somewhere” and “Maria,” is considered one of the best in Broadway history. The cast album was a No. 1 smash. The 1961 movie won best picture and nine other Oscars. The show has been regularly revived, most recently on Broadway last year in a short-lived radical rethinking by the Belgian director Ivo van Hove. And now, this month, a movie remake by none other than Steven Spielberg.And yet, from the beginning, the show (directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, with a book by Arthur Laurents) has discomfited some audience members and critics — for its violence, its mix of tones and, especially, for the way it underscores stereotypes of Puerto Ricans as gang members. Not to mention that the 1961 movie featured the white actress Natalie Wood playing the Latina role of Maria.Why does “West Side Story” continue to have such a large cultural footprint? Should it? Is it possible to be true to such richly emotional material and still be responsive to our moment?The dance-at-the-gym sequence in the new “West Side Story” film.20th Century StudiosWe asked five experts to weigh in: Jesse Green, the chief theater critic at The New York Times; Isabelia Herrera, a Times critic fellow; Carina del Valle Schorske, a contributing writer at the Times Magazine and the author of a 2020 Times Opinion piece challenging the show’s place in the culture; the Tony Award-winning playwright Matthew López (“The Inheritance”); and Misha Berson, the author of “Something’s Coming, Something Good: ‘West Side Story’ and the American Imagination.”They gathered before seeing the new film and just before news broke that Sondheim, the show’s lyricist and the last survivor from its creative team, had died at 91. Scott Heller, the interim editor of Arts & Leisure, kicked off the conversation, and it got going quickly from there.SCOTT HELLER What stays with you about the first time you saw “West Side Story”? Or the most memorable time?JESSE GREEN The first time I saw it was in a high school production featuring extremely clumsy dancing, warbly singing and an all-white (non-Latinx) cast. Memorable, but not in a good way. Luckily, I had already gotten to know it by then — from the music.MATTHEW LÓPEZ My relationship to “West Side Story” is a bit unusual in that my father was in the film as an extra. He’s clearly visible in the opening scene on the playground, just after the prologue. When I was perhaps 7, my parents showed it to me, and it was incredibly exciting to see my father at 14 years old. And it was the first time I’d ever seen any kind of popular entertainment with Puerto Rican characters. It was not until later that my relationship to the show changed. I saw the revival in 2009 (my first time seeing it onstage), and I was shocked at how thinly the Puerto Rican characters were drawn.MISHA BERSON I’m probably the one person here who saw the original — actually a Broadway tour that came through Detroit when I was 9 years old. I went with my dance class, and though it was something of a blur and I didn’t understand it much, I was captivated by the dancing, the music, the energy and excitement of the show. I became obsessed with it, but as an adult didn’t see another vibrant, fully realized production until the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle did an excellent revival in 2007.ISABELIA HERRERA Unfortunately, my memories are wrapped up in a microaggression that has stayed with me since high school. My family is Dominican, from the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, and I am likely one of the only kids of Dominican descent who attended my high school. I remember when, in English class, a white classmate reprimanded me for not having seen “West Side Story” at the time, saying, “But aren’t you Puerto Rican?!”A scene from “West Side Story” on Broadway, starring Chita Rivera, foreground, as Anita.John Springer Collection/Corbis, via Getty ImagesCARINA DEL VALLE SCHORSKE Ugh, Isabelia, that’s such a familiar story! In a messed-up way, your classmate’s confusion makes sense, because the musical itself might just as well be about Dominicans — it’s that general. I first saw “West Side Story” on a VHS tape my mom and I rented from the public library when I was maybe 9 or 10. I grew up in California, away from my Puerto Rican family in Washington Heights, so I thought I might find something out about my culture that I didn’t know before. But nothing onscreen — beyond the latticework of fire escapes — reminded me of the people or neighborhood I knew from frequent visits to New York. I finished the movie feeling even more confused than I was before about what being Puerto Rican was supposed to mean — to me, and to the “average” American.“I finished the movie feeling even more confused than I was before about what being Puerto Rican was supposed to mean — to me, and to the ‘average’ American.”GREEN I’ve never seen musicals as documentaries. They often rely on stereotypes to make larger points than they could if they focused on specific, actual characteristics. Without the stereotypes, you probably couldn’t have ensembles. The question is whether the stereotypes are vile, destructive. As a white, non-Latinx person, I’m not the right person to judge that. But I would just say that the Jets are stereotyped, too, and, in the source material, so are the Veronese.BERSON Do you trust that everyone knows the source material is Shakespeare’s R&J? I wish I did!DEL VALLE SCHORSKE “The Jets are stereotyped, too,” but white teens are not harmed by such stereotypes because there have always been such a wealth of representations to choose from. And at the time of the musical’s debut, there wasn’t a general suspicion in the air that any white teen might be a gangster, so “West Side Story” wasn’t, for them, reinforcing an expectation of criminality that was already violently shaping the politics of the period.GREEN Would you say the Puerto Rican characters are less well characterized than the white ones: the Poles, Italians and others? My sense is that most characters in most musicals are poorly characterized in terms of their ethnic or racial or other identity because that’s not what those shows are really about. Don’t get me started on gay and Jewish stereotypes in musicals, which I guess I’m especially aware of as a gay Jew.BERSON The creators of the show, though they were all white men, were not simply oblivious to what actual Puerto Ricans were like in New York at the time. For instance, Jerome Robbins visited Puerto Rican youth dances and social gatherings, and tried to incorporate some of the popular dance movements he saw in his choreography. He also tried to recruit as many Latinx performers as possible, which was difficult because there were so few opportunities for them to get the Broadway experience and training the show demanded. Also, Bernstein had always loved and admired Latin music and tried to meld some of the rhythms into his score.“The creators of the show, though they were all white men, were not simply oblivious to what actual Puerto Ricans were like in New York at the time.”DEL VALLE SCHORSKE That’s interesting, about Robbins. I’m quite familiar with a broad range of Latin rhythms, and I don’t hear or see the influence — unless you’re counting the Spanish paso doble on the rooftop. I do love some of the choreography, especially the anxious, tightly coiled “Cool,” performed by the Jets. It’s good to know that someone was at least trying to do their homework after Sondheim confessed he’d “never even met a Puerto Rican.” In this conversation, I really hope we can move beyond the false binary: “documentary” versus “work of imagination.” Does a work of imagination really have to be so “superficial and sentimental,” which is how the Black Puerto Rican journalist Jesús Colón described West Side Story when it debuted?GREEN In musical theater, that isn’t a false binary. Some shows operate at a granular level, risking larger insignificance, and others work more broadly, risking stereotype. “West Side Story,” as Misha can tell us more definitively, was an idea looking for an ethnicity. And it does seem to me that in landing on Puerto Ricans vs. whites (instead of Jews vs. Catholics as originally imagined), it was taking advantage of a news hook of the time without any deep engagement in Puerto Rican-ness. I guess the question is whether it’s possible for a work to rise above that when it is primarily looking at the eternal paradigm of outsiders and insiders, and the tragedy of love that tries to cross those boundaries.Richard Beymer as Tony and Natalie Wood as Maria in the 1961 film, which won 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture.MGMBERSON That is “Romeo and Juliet,” Jesse, which one could say (as you indicated) had little to do with the actual Verona (which Shakespeare never visited) but still is a potent portrayal of love in the crossfire of hate. I also want to add that though characters in musicals tend not to be deeply complex and contoured, Bernardo and Anita are not portrayed simply as bad kids spoiling for a fight. They are more sympathetic than that, as leaders and lovers, at least to my understanding — in some ways more so than Jets members.And a moment of historical context may be helpful here: At the time of the show’s creation, there was national alarm about the growing “threat” of youth violence during the postwar malaise, and that was true of Black, Irish and other groups of kids. And there was also, among these liberal artists, a real concern about racial/ethnic prejudice and the rising backlash against immigrants of color. These things are still meaningful, and one of the reasons I think young people especially are still very much drawn to the material despite its flaws.DEL VALLE SCHORSKE I would be more sympathetic to the possibility of “West Side Story” rising above that fault if its creators, or re-creators, were not taking advantage of Puerto Ricans as the “news hook” for liberal street cred. If it’s supposed to be some universal and culturally interchangeable narrative, then it doesn’t get to count as a serious exploration of Puerto Rican or so-called Latinx life.GREEN I agree that “West Side Story” is not a serious exploration of those things. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a serious exploration of something else. I say this even though I don’t actually think it’s the greatest musical ever written; it has plenty of aesthetic flaws beyond the political ones we’re discussing. My love for it comes mostly from the way the songs tell the story — though I know that too is a point of contention. For me, Sondheim’s lyrics get at the twitchy excitement (and anger) of youth like nothing else in musical theater ever has — as do Bernstein’s polyrhythms and percussion, whatever their actual sonic origin.HELLER Matthew, I’m going to circle back to you, as a theater artist whose response to the material has changed over time. Among other things, you wrote a play about the play and its impact on a Puerto Rican family. Tell us about it — and was it informed by your new insights into where the original fell short?LÓPEZ The movie did spark my nascent creative brain as a piece of drama — the music, the dancing — and as cinema. Seeing the revival, though, I realized how much the Puerto Rican characters — and thereby the performers playing them — were not invited to the party, so to speak. A meal had been laid out and half the cast seemed left to go hungry. My family loved “West Side Story,” but as I thought about it, I realized their love for the show wasn’t reciprocated by it.All of this led me to begin writing “Somewhere,” which is set in the neighborhood that was ultimately destroyed to build Lincoln Center. A Puerto Rican family of dancers and performers who dream of being cast in “West Side Story” (or anything Jerome Robbins created) but who, by the realities of their situation, are only left dreaming. I think in some ways, I was attempting to tell the offstage story that you don’t see.DEL VALLE SCHORSKE Matthew, it seems like “Somewhere” shows us how to engage with a “canonical” work without reproducing its limitations. I’m interested in the way Puerto Rican artists have creatively navigated the musical’s constraints, but I’m also hungry for … anything else! In her memoir, Rita Moreno wrote about how difficult it was to find substantial roles after “West Side Story”: I’m kind of depressed by the fact that she’s still defined by the show in 2021. I mean, Moreno performed in plays by Lorraine Hansberry, she spent decades in psychoanalysis — doesn’t she deserve to grow?LÓPEZ I do have to cop to a bifurcated mind on this. There’s a part of me that really loves “West Side Story” and a part of me that really hates that I love “West Side Story.” I think Lin-Manuel Miranda once called it “a blessing and a curse,” which is a sentiment I understand.BERSON It makes total sense to have a conflicted opinion of the show, especially if it speaks to you so personally. It’s not equivalent, but as a Jewish woman, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” drives me up the wall! Meanwhile, I can readily imagine Latinx performers might both love and resent “West Side Story” — love the way it has given many employment and its exhilarating use of dancer-actor-singers, but resent it for all the reasons you, Carina and others have stated. Popular culture is often a double-edged sword that way.GREEN New work from new artists is the lifeblood of the theater. Yet engaging with the old ones, which were new once, can also be pleasurable and valuable — unless they have become the equivalent of Confederate statues that need to come down. Is “West Side Story” a Confederate statue? I don’t think so.“Is ‘West Side Story’ a Confederate statue? I don’t think so.”BERSON If we are now designating imperfect musicals as Confederate statues, I think that’s scary. “West Side Story” gets produced a lot because it can accommodate a teenage cast (there have been thousands of high school productions) and because it is a kind of cultural touchstone that still excites people. Confederate statues glorify bigotry and apartheid. There’s a difference.DEL VALLE SCHORSKE Audiences are taught what should resonate with them — nothing becomes a “cultural touchstone” by accident — and the more a certain narrative gets repeated, the more sentimental associations it accrues. “West Side Story” might not be a Confederate monument, but it is a monument to the authority of white Americans to dominate the conversation about who Puerto Ricans are. And each revival renews that authority and co-signs the narrative for a new generation.GREEN All art is political, yes, and deserves to be judged as such. But art is not just political, and deserves to be judged on other grounds, too. If there is no pleasure to be had in “West Side Story” then it cannot possibly overcome the problems we’re discussing. But if it does offer pleasure, then we, as individuals, are free to weigh it against those problems. The balance will be different for different people, not necessarily corresponding with identity.The most recent Broadway revival, directed by Ivo van Hove, featured video projections. It was critically divisive and had a short run, in part because of the pandemic.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHELLER Matthew, you and I had some provocative back-and-forths about critical responses to “The Inheritance” and its depictions of the gay community, and you were good enough to write a piece for us, in which you made this point: “No one piece of writing about our complex, sprawling community will ever tell the entire story, and I believe that is a good thing: It creates an unquenchable thirst for more and more narratives.” Does that hold for “West Side Story” as well?LÓPEZ I don’t think it’s an apt comparison. “The Inheritance” is a gay play written by a gay man whereas “West Side Story” is purported to be about Puerto Ricans and was written by white men. And while there are heterosexual characters in “The Inheritance,” they aren’t serving the same dramatic function in my play that the Puerto Rican characters do in “West Side Story.” And I used the word “function” purposefully, for that is what they feel in the story. I’d love to see a “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”-style rethinking one day.DEL VALLE SCHORSKE I agree that any future engagement with “West Side Story” that actually deepens the material would have to abandon all loyalty to the show as written, the way “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” completely reimagines “Hamlet.” It’s an independent work of art that deconstructs the canonical play. I doubt the creators of “West Side Story” gave a single thought to “new narratives” that might emerge from their musical, let alone new Puerto Rican narratives. And it doesn’t seem like the power brokers of Broadway or Hollywood are really thirsting for them, otherwise the same material wouldn’t get recycled over and over.HELLER So we are getting to the Spielberg movie.HERRERA I’m also skeptical of how much the thirst for new narratives comes from a genuine place, rather than a response to an industry that is clearly grappling with questions of racism and struggling to navigate critiques about representation. Honestly, I think there is something sinister about capitalizing on the nostalgia of a Hollywood artifact, casting an all-Latinx Sharks cast, while still using the liberal language of “inclusion” and “diversity” as armor against critique. The fact that “West Side Story” is being remade with these issues in mind doesn’t necessarily absolve it of its original missteps.BERSON So is there no place for “West Side Story,” even with the best of intentions? Does that mean there’s no place for “Othello” or “Merchant of Venice,” which are problematic but still dramatically vital works? Can we still see the show, or not see it, and have fruitful debate about it?DEL VALLE SCHORSKE I’m not advocating the wholesale erasure of “West Side Story.” I’m saying, let’s stop pouring literally hundreds of millions of dollars into propping up its relevance, and let’s stop minimizing its flaws.HERRERA Misha, I think we can certainly still have a fruitful debate about it! When discussions around colorism mushroomed online surrounding the film adaptation of “In the Heights,” I mentioned in our roundtable that criticism emerges from a place of love — a desire to make art, life and politics better. I don’t see these critiques as mutually exclusive.BERSON That is very well said. And just my awareness of the politics of librettist Arthur Laurents and composer Leonard Bernstein especially — who were both blacklisted in the ’50s for their civil rights and other activism — makes me think they would probably share some of these concerns and find them meaningful. But the show has intrinsic artistic power, and I think will survive. It is encouraging to me that someone with the skill and sensitivity of Tony Kushner is the screenwriter/adapter. I hope it’s great, and I hope it’s the last!HELLER Do others hope the remake is great?HERRERA I don’t know if there is such a thing as a great remake, but I’m certainly hoping this version releases its grip on stereotypes, offers its more underdeveloped characters a bit of autonomy and perhaps provides more texture about the actual life and experiences of Puerto Rican migration at the time. And please, give us at least a few songs with actual Afro-Caribbean rhythms! A plena take on “I Feel Pretty”?GREEN Authenticity isn’t the goal; if “Hamilton” were authentic, it would be mostly minuets. I want the new movie of “West Side Story” to succeed if it’s good, if it manages to move people. But if only white people are moved, it will be a failure.LÓPEZ I’m excited to see what Spielberg, Kushner and [the choreographer Justin] Peck do with the material for a 21st-century audience. It’s a perfect opportunity to honor what’s glorious about the show, and address what is flawed.DEL VALLE SCHORSKE I want it to flop so we can move on. More

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      in Movies

      ‘West Side Story’ Star Ariana DeBose Is Always Ready for Her Next Role

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      After dancing in ‘Hamilton’ and playing Anita in Steven Spielberg’s new musical adaptation, the actress has her sights on a part entirely her own.On a recent fall evening, the actress Ariana DeBose was ordering soup at a cafe near her apartment in New York’s Upper East Side, the lower half of her face covered by a commemorative mask from the reopening of the Broadway show “Six.” DeBose, 30, has no professional relationship to the musical — a poppy reimagining of the lives of Henry VIII’s wives with an emphasis on female empowerment — but her boldly displayed endorsement of the production set a perfect tone for our conversation that night about the women, artists and opportunities that have contributed to making her one of the most sought-after musical theater actresses of her generation. Few performers are shy when it comes to discussing their influences and obsessions, but in DeBose’s telling, it’s impossible to separate any step of her career from the people who helped her get there.She has indeed been in good company. Growing up in Raleigh, N.C., DeBose began dancing competitively at age 7 — she says she “started with the whole ‘ballet, tap, jazz’ of it all” — and dreamed of becoming a backup dancer for Madonna. Soon after finishing high school, she was a finalist on the reality TV show “So You Think You Can Dance.” And over the past decade, she has starred in six back-to-back Broadway musicals and booked two stage-to-screen adaptations, the most recent of which, Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” comes out next month. But while her list of collaborators includes greats like Lin-Manuel Miranda — she played a supporting role in the original production of “Bring It On: The Musical” in 2011 and the Bullet in “Hamilton” from 2015 to 2016 — as well as Robert De Niro (“A Bronx Tale”), Adrienne Warren (“Bring It On”), Diane Paulus (“Pippin”), LaChanze (“Summer: The Donna Summer Musical”) and the entire starry cast of Ryan Murphy’s “The Prom” (2020), it’s her offstage relationships especially that would make any up-and-comer swoon.While still in high school, she joined the actors Charlotte d’Amboise and Terrence Mann’s musical theater summer intensive, Triple Arts, at Western Carolina University, and the legendary stage couple took DeBose under their wing, coaching her for auditions and encouraging her to skip college and go straight to Broadway. Following that advice paid off — “I had the benefit of learning in real time,” DeBose says — and she was soon cast in “Bring It On.” When the cheerleading acrobatics that that show required began to take a toll, DeBose’s mother suggested she rush a different show to cheer herself up, and she caught a performance of the 2011 revival of “Follies.” She was so mesmerized by the veteran actress Jan Maxwell’s turn as former showgirl Phyllis Rogers Stone that she left a note for her at the stage door afterward. Months later, DeBose received a call from a friend who was starring alongside Maxwell; apparently, Maxwell, having related to the professional doubts DeBose had expressed in her note, had taped it to her dressing room mirror for inspiration. The two women struck up a friendship that lasted until the older actress’s death in 2018.Proenza Schouler coat, $7,500, proenzaschouler.com; and Panconesi earrings.Photograph by Cheril Sanchez. Styled by Yohana LebasiSuch a charmed arrival onto the New York theater scene is almost unheard of and, aware that her current wealth of opportunities is rare, DeBose is determined to prove herself worthy of them. “I don’t ever want anybody to look at my work and think, ‘Why does she have that when they could’ve hired someone else?’” she says. “I don’t ever want to ask myself, ‘Did I do enough?’” It’s not impostor syndrome, she assures me, but rather a perfectionist impulse — one that led her, for example, to brush up on her little-used tap skills last year for her role as an old-timey schoolmarm in Apple TV’s musical series “Schmigadoon!” (2021); in between shooting in Vancouver she would take Zoom classes and watch YouTube tutorials in her hotel room.In other ways, too, there is something distinctly 21st century about DeBose’s career. Besides being an openly queer woman of Afro Latinx descent, she has bounced from role to role — often with little time to prepare — in a way that is reflective of our current gig economy. In the 1960s and ’70s, a performer with her skill set might have been cast in a single musical and ridden the wave of its success for years, touring with the production around the world and resting on the laureled association. But DeBose’s ability to move quickly through roles has reaped its own rewards: She has earned a Tony nomination and won a Chita Rivera Award — both for her most recent Broadway appearance, as Disco Donna, one of the leads in “Summer” — among other accolades. Her dancing in that show, as in each of her performances, had the precision and dynamism of a lifelong performing arts kid who stopped formal training just before conservatory programs could overwrite her natural inclination toward wild abandon. And so she can put her mark on choreographic work whether it is more exacting, as in “Hamilton,” or looser, as in “Bring It On.” She credits her versatility, too, to her knack for meeting directors and choreographers where they are. “Most creators are very intense, and each has their own brand of intensity, their own language,” she explains. “I think part of the reason I’ve been able to continue to book jobs is because I chose to learn how to speak other people’s artistic languages quickly.”Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More