Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet vs. West Side Story Essay

Although Juliet seems more serious and mature at the beginning, Maria grows up during the course of the movie. Tony and Romeo are just the opposite. Tony knows whom he loves, and that's Maria, while Romeo had a very idealistic view of love in the beginning of the play, maturing as the end neared and he had to deal with Juliet's death. Tony and Maria are also less preoccupied with the bonds of marriage and love in their society, while it's almost like a sin for Romeo and Juliet to be together before being married. This is further emphasized by the fact that religion plays a substantially lesser role in West Side Story than it does in Romeo and Juliet.

     There are many similarities and differences between the sixties version of Romeo and Juliet and the modern version of Romeo and Juliet. It is very easy to spot these differences considering the time period each movie was set in. There are some things in the play that totally got cut from both movies. There are also some things that they added to the movies that weren’t in the play. Let us get on to the similarities and differences.

The film and play Romeo and Juliet has a similar story line to West Side Story. However this story is based in Verona, Italy and the rivals are not gangs but families, the Capilates

Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story share many similar themes. Romeo and Juliet both chronicle a story of overcoming prejudice and hatred, forbidden love, and defying stereotypes that nobody thought could be broken. The two stories are similar in a multitude of ways, even though their settings are centuries apart- Romeo and Juliet set in the 1500’s, and West Side Story set in the 1950’s. Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story both teach a lesson of how prejudice can teach you how to hate, and how one of your rivals may be the one who helps you remember how to love.

Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story are both iconic, enjoyable stories that most people have heard of. Romeo and Juliet was written much earlier than West Side Story was, however it was still based on older Italian stories. These stories can teach us a lot about our daily lives and how we live them. In order to do this though, we have to make other comparisons throughout the story first. So, let’s dive in and analyze the differences between the stories, their origins, and their authors.

The time period of the play and the time period of the movie are very different. In the movie, the prologue was on a T.V. screen and it was not in the play. Also in the movie, they used cars instead of horses to get around. In the movie, Romeo and his friends always smoked and would take drugs and they did not do that in the play. In the play, the different families owned castles and in the movie they own different businesses and buildings. They also had guns instead of swords in the movie. Also in the movie, they dressed more modern than they would have in the play.

The meshing of characters between Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Bernstein’s West Side Story formulate significant similarities between the two. In Romeo and Juliet the story of “Two households both alike in dignity,” (Montagues and Capulets) who have been feuding is parallel to the two gangs in West Side Story (Jets and Sharks). This grouping of loyalties keeps the segregation of the two groups at a dead lock, thus producing the tension that keeps the two lovers in each play (Romeo and Juliet, Tony and Maria) in the unattainable, intangible realm of their idealistic love. It is these two groupings that cause the star-crossed

Since the beginning of time people have been intrigued by the story of “two star-crossed lovers”, those who long to be together but never can. Such is the case of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the collaboration work, West Side Story. The purpose of this paper is to show the similarities and differences between these two tragic love stories.

West Side Story maintains Romeo and Juliet’s intricate and exciting plot using appropriate adaptations to accommodate mid-twentieth-century pop culture. For instance, both artistic forms portray mutual disrespect between the parties. At the dawn of Romeo and Juliet, Capulet’s cohorts harass Montague’s. "I will bite my thumb at them; which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it," boasts Sampson (1.1.42-43). In the opening scene of West Side Story, several members of a Puerto Rican gang insult A-rab, a member of the opposing gang. It is here where Lieutenant Schrank becomes aware of the potential rumble.

was the first film of Romeo and Juliet. It was produced in 1968 and it

West Side Story is the iconic American musical that is a 1957 Broadway production choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Arthur Laurents is the author of the original book with the setting taking place in the upper west side New York city in a blue-collar neighborhood during the mid-1950s. (The Broadway) Because West Side Story is a movie musical, it will be a lot of narrative conveyed through the song. The movie West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet have many similarities and differences consider their plot, their character and their setting. The major plot of the musical is about a rivalry between two different ethnic group gangs, the Sharks and Jets. The Sharks are Puerto Rican and the Jets are white. Leonard Bernstein composed the dynamic and influential music. In the mix of the conflict between the two gangs, a former member of the Jets, Tony, falls in love with the leader of the Sharks sister, Maria. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet clearly influenced this movie, and there are parallel characteristics. For instance, Romeo and Tony, Juliet and Maria, Mercutio and Riff, Tybalt and Bernardo all have similar characteristics. As for the specific film, I decided to watch the 1961 version.

Although the discrepancies between Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story are too frequent to categorize in such limited space, it is impossible for anyone familiar with both texts to not notice the obvious similarities between the two works ("Theme").  From the opening scenes in both, up through the rumble in West Side Story/death of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, the plays mirror each other (Poelstra).  It isn't until the last part of West Side Story, where Tony (our modern-day Romeo) dies and Maria (Tony's Juliet) doesn't (unlike the two star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare's work, both of whom perish), that the major difference between the two works becomes apparent.

Although both classics have to do with love, Romeo and Juliet show that sometimes love doesn’t overcome everything. Romeo and Juliet both died in the end, along with four other people throughout the story while trying to overcome their feud with love. As the song, “All you need is love” is a message that has carried throughout history for years. A dying message isn’t the only thing that differs from the two. Some might say that Romeo and Juliet weren’t all that in love, perhaps it was the adrenaline of doing what they weren’t supposed to. They used their “love” to rebel, as the Beatles used their love message to try and add piece to the world. Perhaps the only thing Romeo and Juliet changed was the look of love, as John Lennon once said “I’m a revolutionary artist. My art is dedicated to change.” Change as is adding peace to the world, and love to the war. The Beatles added courage to those who had very little and brightened the days of those who didn’t want to roll out of

Comparing the movie to the film, it follows the same concept although there is a ton of differences. First off, they have a fake wedding inside of a dress shop in the movie and in the play the couple gets secretly married, but it’s still the real deal. A big thing that I noticed is the death situation compared to the play, in the play Romeo kills Juliet’s cousin, which leads Romeo to drink poison because he doesn’t think Juliet loves him, which causes Juliet to commit suicide using his

The scene that was most different between the play and the movie of Romeo and Juliet was how the two crossed lovers first met each other. In the play Romeo and the Montague boys find out about the Capulet party through a poor peasant who could not read the invitations. While in the movie the Capulet party is announced through a newscast over T.V. I think the director changed this so the invite can go more along with the time period of the movie. This could change how the viewers see it by making the invite less secret. Over a newscast anyone who was paying attention to the T.V. could of heard the invite. Another main difference in this scene would be Romeo and Juliet first seeing each other in the bathroom across a fish tank rather than across the ballroom in the play. This could take away from the romantic side of the two first seeing each other. In the play it seems Romeo and Juliet have more privacy when they first speak to each other. In the movie the two are getting on and off an elevator just not to be seen. This could add more suspense to the scene and make the viewers see the movie from a lofty viewpoint.