Taking Sides

Director Robert Wise and choreographer Jerome Robbins were the first joint winners of the Best Director Oscar for their 1961 take on West Side Story. That was just one of ten Academy Awards the legendary film musical would win that night at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. The original musical, by Robbins, Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, broke new ground when it premiered on Broadway in 1957, but it was the big screen version that truly established this tragic love story as a worldwide favourite. In the 60 years that have passed since the film’s premiere, its status as a masterpiece has only become more deeply rooted. So it’s a brave artist who feels able to take on this musical giant and reimagine it for the 21st century. Luckily for us, visionary director Steven Spielberg is such an artist.

Spielberg has wanted to make a musical for a very long time. His Peter Pan film, (1991), was originally envisaged as such – John Williams and the late Leslie Bricusse even wrote a clutch of songs for it – but the film ended up