West Side Story Essay

the audiences were excited to see, one of those being Oklahoma! by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

     The West Side Story portrays the lives of two different gangs living in America, as well as their beliefs and examples of living a good life. The expectations of what people consider the good life to be may vary on a person’s morals and their dreams of what life is truly about. In this movie, whether or not these characters were good people, lived a good life, or lived in a good society is a very controversial topic.

Baz Lurhmann’s creation of the film Romeo and Juliet has shown that today’s audience can still understand and appreciate William Shakespeare. Typically, when a modern audience think of Shakespeare, they immediately think it will be boring, yet Lurhmann successfully rejuvenates Romeo and Juliet. In his film production he uses a number of different cinematic techniques, costumes and a formidably enjoyable soundtrack; yet changes not one word from Shakespeare’s original play, thus making it appeal to a modern audience.

     The music helped in elaborating this great film. As I mentioned in class different instruments helped create different moods for different scenes in the movie. We heard the cello and the violin to create sadness and remorse. The flute created eeriness and the trumpet created awareness. I thought these were instruments and tools that help make this film extraordinary.

The date was December 13, 2016. We had a game in West Dubuque. We lost that game by 10 points. It was a bad loss and a game that we should have won. After the game a player on my team was in the locker room. The varsity guys were in there too. By this time I had left with my parents and heard about what happened in the locker room a couple days later. The varsity guys put a couple of Western Dubuque women's practice jerseys in the freshman's bag. Later to be found by him. Instead of going to the School and turning them in. He decided to keep them and hide them in a sliding drawer. His parents found them and confronted him about them. They made him turn them in. When he told the story to the Athletic Director he refused to

The audio although normally overpowered by the visual aspect played a key role in defining and empowering the movie. The music was fast and uplifting during celebration and on

     The play included all types of dancing, including Jazz, Ballet, Modern, Tap, and Lyrical. Most of the dancing, however, was a form of Jazz. At one point in the play a group of bugs perform a tap dance. This scene was comical, but the tapping was outstanding. Most of the actors are accomplished singers, actors, and dancers with a lot of previous experience. Many of them have attended performing art schools and not only rehearse their main role, but also understudy 2 to 3 other characters. The actors are all well practiced, which is evident in the quality of the show.

The artistic intensions of this film are implicitly stated everywhere throughout the film. All of the dancing, singing, acting and pretend fighting was done thoroughly and very well, although the miking and mixing during the pretend fighting did not seem realistic. Specific actors, dancers, and singers were trained and taught how to perform in order to get the message across to the audience that this West Side Story is not just a film, but a

Three Hundred Fifty Years of Blind Love: A Contraposition of Shakespeare and Robbins’ Romeo and Juliet Andy Warhol once said, "They say that time changes things, but actually you have to change them yourself." Two hundred fifty years passed between the original Romeo and Juliet and the premiere of West Side Story on Broadway in 1957. However, time did not change the message of the story, simply the creators’ unique visions evolved. Shakespeare’s delivery of the timeless tale of desperate love in his classic Romeo and Juliet proves to only intensify through retelling and modern interpretation. Audiences cherish Romeo and Juliet as one of the most beloved plays of all time from the Elizabethan Age to the present.

The music contributed heavily to setting the tone and mood throughout the film. The film

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.

In some aspects great musicals and orchestral scores can add to the experience of a theatrical play, but films have adapted these aspects as well and have proven to be a more successful form of entertainment. Theatre productions have become secondhand in comparison, though still viewed as a high class of an entertainment, it is not nearly as successful to reaching a widespread audience as the film industry has accomplished. The resulting film adaptations that have theatre-like qualities often fail completely due to their inability to capture the attention of contemporary audience members, essentially creating a stagnant film. In this paper, I am specifically narrowing my focus and discussing tragedy film adaptations in comparison to themselves and theatre. But first, I will give an overall briefing of the history of film and theatre. Then I will discuss their relationship and what elements create successful entertainment within films and how theatre-like adaptations have a crippling effect to a film’s success rate. Finally I will have an in-depth discussion on these elements within the films: Waiting for Godot, Hamlet, and Moulin Rouge!, and the success rate of each.

This clearly explains the significance of music and the role that has in motion pictures. Music has to match the emotions that the actors are showing and the environment they are in. If fail to do so, the movie could be a dreadful thing to watch.

I loved that when there was an explosion everything looked so realistic and broke in pieces. Then when they were singing everything came back together like magic. It was a cute and interesting setting. Also, the fact that the main setting was the downstairs of the house, but then when the construction was highered, the downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs were part of the stage.

“Human houses should not be like boxes, blazing in the sun, nor should we outrage the Machine by trying to make dwelling places too complementary to Machinery. Any building for humane purposes should be an elemental, sympathetic feature of the ground, complementary to its nature-environment, belonging by kinship to the terrain.”