Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T21:03:13.314Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 5 - Coming to Grips with Shakespeare’s Tragedy in a Film Musical: Re-assessing Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s West Side Story (1961)

from Part I - Revisiting the Canon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2023

Victoria Bladen
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
Sarah Hatchuel
Affiliation:
University Paul-Valéry Montpellier
Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin
Affiliation:
University Paul-Valéry Montpellier
Get access

Summary

Before mainly focussing on Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s musical to examine relevant correspondences with Shakespeare’s play (such as the sustained rhythm of physical confrontations, or the poetic stasis of pure love, or the hectic reactions induced by loss and despair, or other emotional archetypes), this chapter will examine former screen adaptations in relation with either music or singing or dancing (including George Cukor’s 1936 version, with Agnes de Mille as a choreographer; André Cayatte’s 1949 Les Amants de Vérone, with Isabelle Aubret as a singer and Renato Castellani’s 1954 version, with Roman Vlad as a composer), so as to consider how and when emotional intensity is added to the play-text, and how West Side Story takes after and also increases such emotional intensity, as it wonderfully combines its screenplay with songs, symphonic orchestra, melodic and rhythmic variations, the dramatic device of leitmotifs and choreography.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Berson, M., Something’s Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination (Milwaukee: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2011).Google Scholar
Foulkes, J. L., A Place for Us: West Side Story and New York (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2016).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lajus, S., ‘Les Amants de Vérone : du théâtre à la théâtralité’, CinémAction 98, Jacques Prévert qui êtes aux cieux (2001), 120–5.Google Scholar
Laster, A., ‘Le Cinéma dans le cinéma. À propos des Amants de Vérone de Jacques Prévert et André Cayatte’, in Wilhelm, F. (ed.), Le Théâtre dans le théâtre, le cinéma au cinéma (Manage: Lansman, 2002), 185–94.Google Scholar
Lehmann, C., Screen Adaptations: Romeo and Juliet – A Close Study of the Relationship between Text and Film (London: Bloomsbury, 2010).Google Scholar
McJannet, L., ‘“A hall, a hall! Give room, and foot it, girls”: realizing the dance scene in Romeo and Juliet on Film’, Borrowers and Lenders 10.2 (Spring 2017), https://borrowers-ojs-azsu.tdl.org/borrowers/article/view/272/541.Google Scholar
Pastoureau, M., Rouge. Histoire d’une couleur (Paris: Seuil, 2016).Google Scholar
Rothwell, K. S., ‘Hollywood and some versions of Romeo and Juliet: toward a substantial pageant’, Literature/Film Quarterly 1.4 (Fall 1973): 343–51.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, W., Laurents, A., Werstine, P. and Houghton, N., Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story, Introduction by Houghton, N. (New York: Random House, 1965).Google Scholar
Shearer, M., ‘A new way of living: West Side Story, street dance and the New York musical’, Screen 56.4 (Spring 2015): 450–70.Google Scholar
Tatspaugh, P., “The tragedies of love on film”, in Jackson, Russell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 141–64.Google Scholar
Teague, F., ‘Shakespeare and musical theatre’, in Burnett, M. T., Streete, A. and Wray, R. (eds.), The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 185–99.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×