West Side Story
Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins | Music by Leonard Bernstein | Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
USA | 1961 | Fiction | 153 mins

This event is part of Global Roots Film Festival: Why Sing, Why Dance?

Winner of 10 Academy awards including Best Picture

The tale of a turf war between rival teenage gangs in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen and the two lovers who cross battle lines, loosely adapted from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

"The opening finger-snapping sequence is one of the best uses of dance in movie history. It came about because Robbins, reading the screenplay, asked, "What are they dancing about?"The writer Laurents agreed: "You couldn't have a story about murder, violence, prejudice, attempted rape, and do it in a traditional musical style." So he outlined the prologue, without dialogue, allowing Robbins to establish the street gangs, show their pecking order, celebrate their swagger in the street, demonstrate their physical grace, and establish their hostility -- all in a ballet scored by Bernstein with music, finger-snapping and anger." ~ Roger Ebert, 2004