I never saw West Side Story but I hate it
NewsThe New York Times in its finite wisdom has published an anti-Spielberg, anti-Bernstein op-ed by the head of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, attacking both the old West Side Story and the new as unrepresentative of her field of expertise. Yarimar Bonilla begins: ‘I have to confess that I never saw the original “West Side Story.” All I knew was that it somehow involved gang members dance-fighting and singing about how much they loved America.’
The Chicago Symphony violist Max Raimi finds this statement factually untrue and musically uninformed. He has written a demolition of the Times op-ed exclusively for slippedisc.com.
By Max Raimi
West Side Story is certainly taking a beating these days. It turns out that it wasn’t a meticulously researched documentary about the Puerto Rican experience in 1950s New York City, and more than a few academics seem to find this unforgivable. The latest broadside comes in the New York Times, courtesy of Yarimar Bonilla, the director of Centro, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, and a professor of anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center.
Ms Bonilla’s approach is rather novel, in that she seems to make it a point of pride that she never saw the original musical or the film made from it 60 years ago. She tells us, “All I knew is that it somehow involved gang members dance-fighting and singing about how much they loved America.” Well, no, actually. They don’t sing about how much they love America. America, the song that she is apparently referring to, is a masterpiece of ambivalence and cynicism. The second line of Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics read “Everything free in America/For a small fee in America.” Furthermore, Jerome Robbins’ choreography of the song makes it clear that the immigrants singing it regard their new home as a two-faced and violent place. It is not exactly “Proud to be an American”.
But this is a quibble. There is a much more significant blind spot. She doesn’t seem to grasp that West Side Story is a musical. They are called musicals for a reason and it is astonishing that Ms. Bonilla can write an essay about West Side Story and not say a word about the music. Leonard Bernstein’s music is miraculous from beginning to end, a fact that Ms. Bonilla somehow managed not to notice when she deigned to watch the new Spielberg film.
Allow me to dissect just one musical number, the song Cool, or more specifically the ensuing dance sequence deriving from it. Bernstein sets it as a fugue, a musical form dating from centuries before involving a recurring idea introduced repeatedly by different voices (or instruments) imitating each other. It is a form that reached its apex at the time of Bach, and was more than two centuries out of date when Bernstein got the notion to put it in a Broadway show.
He updated his fugue with a guided tour of the history of classical music. To begin with, the idea he treats with fugal techniques is a clear reference to a work from 1826, Beethoven’s monumental Grosse Fugue for string quartet. But he alters Beethoven’s idea so that he goes through all 12 pitches in our Western tuning system—all the white and black keys on the piano in a single octave—in the course of his sinuous melody. He borrowed this so-called twelve tone procedure from Arnold Schoenberg’s Second Viennese School, which enjoyed its heyday nearly a half century before Cool.
And yet Cool does not sound remotely anachronistic. It is utterly of its own time, a show-stopping dance number redolent of the jazz of the era from which it came, brilliantly employing marimba and drum riffs steeped in that genre.
Every time I hear Cool I am awed and exhilarated once again by it, as indeed I am by all the music in West Side Story. I am quite confident that it will be providing sustenance to audiences as long as people have ears to listen to it, long after both Ms. Bonilla and I are forgotten.
I don’t like it either, but unlike the clever lady I have seen it. It is very smart and fabulously orchestrated, but it is written for dancers’, not singers’ voices, and behind the songs I hear more Bernstein dissecting, say, Brahms’ compositional method in one of those Young People’s talks than genuine, Lennon-McCartney type inspiration. And there is that video where the would-be inspiring maestro sucks out the last breath of air out of anyone involved. Compare against the same Kiri te Kanawa in My Fair Lady — everything is written for the voices, and she is ablaze and flying under a less overrated conductor.
Excellent, educated, well-informed response to the woke drivel of Ms.Bonilla.
Another piece of evidence to prove how low the NYT has descended, because they have actually printed this ignorant diatribe. Now the person can condemn aa work of art he or she has neither heard, nor seen, just because it involves members of a certain group.
No reason to spend even one hard earned penny on the useless NYT. Ignore and boycott and it will go away.
Yet another person who has not read the article. Talk about ignorance!
Really, the headline of the “article” speaks for itself. What waste the time. Talk about ignorance!
I haven’t read your comment – or even my own.
Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance.
William Gaddis
Reminds me of another quote, Michael: “Everyone is entitled to be an idiot but some people abuse the privilege”.
‘Ignorance is a precious flower; touch it and the bloom is gone.’ Oscar Wilde
Stupidity and ignorance is separated by a thin veil.
There is no cure for stupid.
It’s amazing that the Hasidim haven’t complained about “Fiddler on the Roof.” I’m pretty sure the Austrians are ticked off about “The Sound of Music.”
“West Side Story” is the greatest American opera, IMHO.
All correct, except it’s not an opera since there is dialogue between the songs. It’s a musical, and one of the greatest ones. People treating it like a documentary or that it was meant to be an all encompassing view of PR life in the US are making it more than what it is.
Bernstein did not consider it an opera, but it isn’t the presence of dialogue that makes it so. Carmen, The Magic Flute, and The Tales of Hoffman all included dialogue, and they are most definitely operas.
My friend’s German mother didn’t like The Sound of Music, because she said it was too anti-German.
What?
As to Fiddler, that Dante’s Inferno-candidate Harold Prince fired Zero Mostel from the movie. Tevye is dark, and no one captured that but him.
Jews were not welcome in many places. Entertainment was inviting. So Russian Jews made a musical about massacres. We couldn’t express death on this scale without altering 75% of it. All Jews know this.
Who was the drummer playing Cool 1961. It cannot be matched
Thank heaven for real musicians, like Mr Raimi, who can both analyse music and enjoy its emotional impact. Ms Bonillla truly betrays her ignorance of this work, even to non-experts like me who, nevertheless, have indeed seen the original film, understand the irony from the Puerto Ricans, and continue to enjoy the musica immensely.
“Mr Raimi, who can … analyse music”
But Mr. Raimi fails to address Ms. Bonilla’s central musical claim: that WSS has no true Afro-Caribbean rhythm.
That Mr. Raimi traces “Cool” to Bach, Beethoven and Schoenberg doesn’t undermine her claim one bit, in fact, it tends to lend credence to her claim.
I would love for Gustavo Dudamel to weigh in on the “latino” music Bernstein wrote: e.g., is Mambo a real “mambo”? when latinos dance the mambo, do they ever put on Leonard Bernstein?
Yes, Ms Bonilla by ESP can make a musical claim without having heard the music in the musical or the movie. How wonderful!
but it’s a stupid claim, that WSS has no true Afro-Carribbean rhythm?
How much traditional Turkish Music is in Mozart’s Seraglio?
Ms. Bonilla exposes the typical problem of her generation, the outcome of people stupified in front of TVs: total lack of imagination.
toApples and potatoes. Mozart’s Singspiel was set two centuries in his historical past; there did not exist in Vienna in the late eighteenth century a sizeable community of Turks; and Austria until recently had been in a state of war with the Turkish empire. WWS is set in the present, in a city where there was a sizeable community of Puerto Ricans, who were American citizens. The Viennese were familiar with Janissary (military) music, and the instruments used in it; Mozart and others adapted it to the classical style. Where is the Afro-Caribbean music in WWS (I ask sincerely – it is some years since I have seen it)?
I’m not sure how Ms. Bonilla’s imagination, or lack of it, is relevant. What generation are you referring to? She is, I believe, in her mid-50s. There is a Wikipedia article about her, under Yarimar Bonilla. Her career and achievements do not suggest that she is a couch-potato.
I sometimes mix tomatos with potatoes and make a nice cold salad of it and it really tastes good. So maybe that also goes for these types?
Sally
Correction: mid-40s, not mid-50s. But I’m still puzzled about your condemnation of ‘her generation’.
It’s hard for me to think of any musical as strictly authentic since they are fantastical to begin with.
But since he conducted the music for the new movie, I, too, would love to hear Maestro Dudamel’s views on this debate—particularly since the “mambo” number appears to be his musical calling card with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.
Based on YouTube videos, the reception he has received from Latino audiences seems to be rapturous.
But it is also a truism that, for Mambo to be effective, certain modifications must be judiciously made to the musical phrasing and the rhythms in the percussion parts. Years ago, none other than Morton Gould told the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra percussionists while rehearsing the WSS Symphonic Dances: “I don’t know what the hell it is that you are doing, but keep doing it! It sounds great!”
Mr. Irizarry,
Sounds like the best of all possible worlds!
I appreciate your insight/acknowledging Dr. Bonilla’s tremendously valid points. I loved the movie, and her review AND Mr. Raimi’s reply. I don’t think any exclude the others.
To add on to your question re Dudamel, I think a conscious decision was made in not crediting Wayne Bergeron. This seems to add to the mix, at least for me.
Some academic. If she is going to comment on Spielberg’s interpretation of West Side Story, she should know the source material.
I have read the most abject tosh out of academics in recent years. When I was a student of literature, we were REQUIRED to study the body of work from the beginning through to the moderns, to study the classics, and to study foreign languages and literatures. Essays had to source any assertions. I have a horrible feeling the “feelings” crowd has taken over the academy — and lecture on their opinions, not on a body of thought that can then lead students to question, argue, challenge and form their views.
This piece would be a C- at my alma mater.
If you want to comment on Ms Bonilla’s op-ed piece, you should read it more carefully first. What makes you think she doesn’t know the source material?
She says so?
I read her article, and did not find it devoid of interest, but it struck me as special pleading of the most irrelevant sort. She did not display any grasp of the American musical, and the — obviously — fantastical world it inhabits. Rather, she looked for ways to take offence because it did not conform to HER idea of what it “ought” to do.
It’s a point of view, and may well be shared, but she rests hers on her academic credentials, and, as I have argued above, she does not apply the most basic of academic principles: going to the source. And she completely ignores the context in which WSS exists: as a Broadway musical, here translated to the screen.
I’m not a great fan of musicals, but they exist and I recognise them for what they are. Basically, entertainments. And although I struggle to get through them, I have seen both WSS films and do not see disrespect of the Puerto Ricans in either. I met some members of that community when I attended a Democratic National Convention, and they seemed pretty happy to be in America.
Ms. Bonilla seems to have forgotten an important principle:
— Don’t trash it until you have read, seen or heard it
Slipped Disc readers take note!
Yes. Presently I’m immersed in ‘Mein Kampf’ to be sure I was right in a number of things.
Except that, if you read the actual article carefully, Ms. Bonilla has not forgotten the principle. SD commenters who rely on the misinformation in NL’s heaadline and (regrettably) Max Raimi’s first two paragraphs, have indeed forgotten it.
For those deficient in their knowledge of English usage, there is a big difference between “I never saw” [as a child, growing up in Puerto Rico], past perfect, which is what Ms Bonilla wrote, and “I have never seen”, past continuous, which is what NL implies she meant. The rest of her article makes it clear that she is familiar both with the original film and with the remake. Nor anywhere in her article does she say she ‘hates’ West Side Story. That is another piece of NL’s click-bait misinformation, designed as often to stir up hatred.
Max Raimi’s excellent discussion of the musical aspects of WSS does not in any way invalidate what Ms Bonilla has to say about both films’ portrayal of the Puerto Rican immigrant community.
People have commented that WSS is based on the Romeo and Juliet story. There is a crucial difference. In Romeo and Juliet, the opposing factions, Montagues and Capulets, are racially and ethnically identical Italians. One of the points is the folly of hatred between people who are the same as each other. The creators of WSS chose to make it about the rivalry between two gangs with different ethnic and racial identities. That is a radical change to the dynamics.
But I preach to the deaf.
uuh..”I have never seen” is the PRESENT PERFECT, get your grammar right
I love arguing points of grammar. “I have seen” would be a simple perfect = at some point or points in the past I have seen (with no implication about the present). If you add a negative, ‘never’, then it takes on a continuous meaning, including the present “I have never seen” = “I am in a condition of not ever having seen”. But I may not have got my terminology correct, and if so, thank you for your rebuke.
I haven’t read Yarimar Bonilla’s op-ed, but I hate it.
no, zero change. there is no radical change to the dynamics. The rivalries are between humans. Very much Sondheim’s and Bernstein’s point. Like Shakespear’s. Your brain adds the mental construct of race, gives it an importance it doesn’t have. It’s only an illustrating attribute, not a constituting one to the drama.
OK, simplify it, if you wish. Read it as a straightforward love/hate story between individuals whose origin, race or ethnicity have no significance. I prefer complexity.
Exactly! The only worth quote of Mao Zedong was: “He who doesn’t investigate does NOT have the right to speak.”
Yeah, well I didn’t like the idea that Shakespeare’s totemic lovers in Romeo and Juliet were 13 and 14 and in possession of poetic skills greater than practically any other writer in the history of the world!!
In those times children read already Shakespeare in 1st grade. Education was so much more sophisticated.
We are back, via Bonilla, to the nonsense that only members of a particular group can write about or represent it in any way:
Only Puerto Ricans can discuss PRs; only Black writers can discuss James Baldwin (even if they’re not gay?), etc.
I suspect however, that Bonilla does not resist discussing non-Puerto Ricans.
Well, it is pretty well known that it was originally conceived as “Lower East Side Story” about an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family which Bernstein and Sondheim were much more culturally familiar with, and Laurents convinced them to make an arbitrary switch to it Puerto Ricans.
That’s because when the whole concept of West Side Story really got off the ground, the conflict between Jews and Catholics here in the United States was not nearly as prominent or overt as it had been. At the time when the concept of West Side Story really got off the ground, there was a huge influx of Puerto Ricans into New York City, and the Continental United States, generally, so there was a good amount of conflict between the Puerto Ricans and the white European ethnic Americans.
The greatest art is news that stays news. If it were just a mediocre minstrel show nobody would ever care and it would long since go into history’s dustbin. But every new piece of protest about this musical is a testament not only to the power of this musical but also its eternal relevance and humanity, with new ways to interpret it in every generation. I guarantee West Side Story will seem yet again like a completely different musical in another fifty years. West Side Story is one of the essential artworks to ever come out of America, and always will be. Like Citizen Kane, it is absolutely sui generis and has new things to tell us at every step of our lives.
Not QUITE “sui”!
I think it’s the music, not the story, that keeps that musical alive.
What the world needs now, is MORE viola players like Max Raimi.
The problem is our side is trying to use facts, experience, reason, perspective, common sense to logically argue against, or even persuade, the opposition of ideology, demagoguery, blind hatred against the West, the US, white people. One side charges like a raging bull, the other tries to calm it by saying “there, there”. One side wants to turn the existing order upside down, the other just want to get on with their normal lives.
Game, set and match to Max.
I do also hate many music pieces or operas I have never heard or seen, it makes me feel good & progressive!
Sally
So WSS does not reflect the true Puerto-Rican experience? Neither does Oklahoma reflect the American mid-west nor Oliver reflect the true Dickensian London. This academic needs to get a grip on reality and learn about the suspension of disbelief in the theatre. And please, someone tell her that WSS is a masterpiece with brilliance in its lyrics, its choreography and its music. Especially its music!
During a walk through Central Park, Lee Konitz mentioned how he and Leonard Bernstein had lived in the same Manhattan building at one time – I suppose this was the late forties or early fifties – and were friends, including complimenting the conductor for being an excellent pianist. What came next took my breath away. Lee said Lenny told him the song “Cool” from West Side Story was inspired by his alto saxophone improvisations. Indeed, the generalized “jazz” influence on the show is more specifically the jazz style of Lee Konitz, including the magnificent opening moments of the show. Lee attended the preview of West Side Story in Washington DC, and during intermission, Bernstein rushed into the lobby to ask him, “What do you think?”
Regarding the contrapuntal treatment of “Cool,” in addition to being a fugue, it is strongly evocative of the interplay between Konitz and his teacher, Lennie Tristano, both on live and studio recordings, something that also influenced what became known as West Coast jazz as exemplified by Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker.
One of the greatest versions of “What’s New,” recorded by Lee with Italian jazz musicians, presents an inspired interpretation coalescing with a Latin beat, something I wish he had explored more in his vast oeuvre.
I’ve often wondered why Konitz apparently did not share the story of “Cool” and West Side Story with others, having checked with some of his colleagues and friends about this. Perhaps he was concerned that his friendship with Bernstein might be misconstrued, something that was difficult for someone of his generation, or maybe it was something too personal to generally share, and it just slipped out. You see, I raised the subject of Leonard Bernstein during that walk, relating how I had met him at Tanglewood, including dancing adjacent to him at a post-concert party while the conductor verbally analyzed to me the Herbie Hancock recording that was playing simultaneously. Lenny’s interpretations of the Mahler Ninth and the Shostakovich Fifth with the Boston Symphony Orchestra that summer were out of this world. It was after I spoke about my experiences at Tanglewood during our walk that Lee spontaneously related his friendship with Lenny like it was no big deal!
Bravo to Norman Lebrecht for featuring this story about the Lee Konitz influence on West Side Story last year, showing a most admirable desire to gain new insights into music history as opposed to hiding them, allowing for deeper musical appreciation.
http://azuremilesrecords.com/leeandleonardkonitzfiguresinbernsteingswestsidestory.html
Thank you! I had never heard of Lee Konitz until now. Amazing. What a musician!
Lee would be gratified learning he had gained a new admirer! It was a sad commentary on the intellectual and cultural daftness of the Kennedy Center in failing to honor Lee Konitz, one to the primary architects of modern jazz, as his friends and colleagues, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis understood, instead giving their award to lesser musical lights on a number of occasions. A similar daftness informs the New Yorker magazine of David Remnick, choosing to hide the significance of Konitz by making no mention when he passed away, presumably because the notion of a primary Jewish jazz musician is a bridge too far for them. Ditto the main jazz writer of The NY Times who went completely silent when Konitz died.
http://azuremilesrecords.com/amomentousroundmidnight.html
typo: …one of the…
I don’t know anyone under 65 who is excited about the Spielberg remake, and I don’t know anyone over 65 who is excited enough to brave Omicron to see it in a movie theater.
The movie is on track to make less than Cats the movie.
West Side Story, as Tony Kushner so aptly put it in the LA Times, was a musical made by 4 gay Jewish men. Spielberg’s and Kushner’s remake is not that far off. I don’t know any Puerto Rican, aside from Rita Moreno, who was ever terribly excited about WSS.
“4 gay Jewish men”
If Ms. Bonilla were writing back in the 1980s, when gay studies was all the rage in academia, instead of her race theory analysis today, she would have written about all the hidden gay motifs in WSS.
I’m 77 and I saw the remake in a largely empty theater. I was curious but not excited. Possibly a generational thing but it didn’t grab like the original. Remakes rarely do, do they?
Unusually, Max Raimi is over-reacting, almost as if he did not read the article in full. It is, of course, far more nuanced and thoughtful than the out-of-context quote given by SD suggests, and It offers an understandable Puerto Rican perspective. The first two paragraphs are:
“I have to confess that I never saw the original “West Side Story.” All I knew was that it somehow involved gang members dance-fighting and singing about how much they loved America. I wasn’t interested. But then, growing up in Puerto Rico, I never had to search for myself in the side plots of Hollywood or Broadway. I could watch the movies and television shows made by and for Puerto Ricans.”
“For many first- and second-generation Puerto Ricans in the mainland United States, however, the 1961 film most likely was the first time they saw themselves represented on the big screen. Despite the convoluted plot, the dearth of actual Latino actors, the mishmash of Caribbean and Spanish culture and the deep stereotypes it trafficked in, it at least offered a recognition of the Puerto Rican presence in the United States and allowed us to be seen with some measure of grace and beauty.”
Note that when she says “I never saw the original West Side Story” she is referring to her childhood – growing up in Puerto Rico. She may well have seen it since, especially since she was among those consulted by Spielberg and Kushner about how to make their remake more ‘authentic’.
Thank you! I am sooooooooooooo TIRED of snobs telling me how much we should hate this musical!! Have they even bothered to ask the starring Latina actresses, Zegler and DeBose their thoughts?
I sympathize with Yarimar Bonilla having difficulty with West Side Story, finding her reasoning entirely understandable and valid, not being not sure what the solution might be, if any.
http://azuremilesrecords.com/seraphicsurgecongueroponchosanchez.html
Thanks for this, Max. Doesn’t the NYT have an editorial staff?
For those who can’t get through the NYT paywall, here is a link to the full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/opinion/west-side-story-remake.html
The writer understands the song ‘America’ better than Max Raimi suggests, and recognizes the ambivalence in the original song:
“In the 1961 version of the song “America,” Anita is so happy to leave the island, she wishes it would “sink back in the ocean.” In the reworked version of the song, the more disparaging lines about Puerto Rico are gone: Anita now sings ambivalently about both Puerto Rican and American life. Suddenly we find ourselves asking: How does her particular experience tinge her view of both Puerto Rican and American life?”
What a radical idea! Actually reading Bonilla’s article before criticizing it. What are you, some sort of pinko communist…?
No, she is a woke music theorist and disciple of Philip Ewell.
Actually, no, I’m none of those things. I simply believe that people who want to attack what somebody else writes should have made at least some attempt to read and understand what they are attacking. If that is dismissed as a ‘woke’ idea, the United States is in really big trouble.
I read the article a few days ago — one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen in awhile. These social critics knocked the musical both for what it is and for what it isn’t. One of them hadn’t even seen it. Their primary complaint was that West Side Story should be a symbol of Puerto Rican repression. I can only ask: does Fiddler on the Roof properly represent vicious and fatal pogroms? Does Gypsy represent child abuse? Does Gigi represent prostitution trafficking? They are musicals of their time, not avatars of social wokeness.
Thanks, Max. Far too much common sense and intelligence for the average wokey to understand, though.
Seems like Yarimar Bonilla is writing an essay about something without having read the coursework. I’d have been marked down for that, and for not drawing appropriate analogies with references to the source. “Unrepresentative of her field of expertise”? Seems her work is unrepresentaive of what she would require of her students. West Side Story is a musical, based on an updated plot analogous to Romeo and Juliet. It’s a STORY – it isn’t real life nor a deeply researched political tract. It remains one of the most vibrant, passionate and moving examples of its genre, whether Bonilla has heard of it, watched it or liked it – or not.
Alas, I fear it is exactly what she would require of her students: a grievance that pertained to THEM, rather than a cool analysis of a piece n context.
Mr. Raimi, bravo! You should have sent this to the NYT, not the parochial confines of SD. I hope at least that you emailed it to Ms. Bonilla.
I was shocked by the pathetic NYT “review;” it was irresponsible ignorant opinion disguised as journalism. Thank you for this rebuttal.
It’s not a review, it’s an op-ed. The Times’ film critic, A.O. Scott, gave it a pretty good review.
Ms. Bonilla didn’t just miss the music, one of the most innovative and brilliant scores of the twentieth century. In her op-ed, she writes: “despite the convoluted plot” and “the small details might be right, but the meaning and overall purpose are muddled, at best.” She did not mention and apparently missed the fact that West Side Story is based on Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.
Great op-ed, Max.
I guess she knows little about dead white men but disapproves as a matter of principle.
Well. Done.
Max,
You are most certainly correct, although I would like to add that Ms. Bonilla missed the fact that WSS is a wonderful love story. It is also a brilliant remake of a Shakespeare classic. It is certainly not a documentary.Political correctness has nothing to do with art, at least not in the Western experience.
Boy, boy, crazy boy,
Get cool, boy.
Got a rocket,
In your pocket,
Keep coolly cool, boy.
Don’t get hot,
‘Cause man, you got
Some high times ahead.
Take it slow
And, Daddy-o,
You can live it up and die in bed!
Boy, boy, crazy boy,
Stay loose, boy.
Breeze it, buzz it,
Easy does it,
Turn off the juice, boy.
Go man, go,
But not like a yoyo schoolboy.
Just play it cool, boy,
Real cool.
Considering that both Sondheim and Bernstein were gay men, the lyrics to Cool, about teenagers, which undoubtedly has the most use of “boy” and “man” in a single song, and in particular the line “got a rocket in your pocket”, always seemed a bit … creepy.
That’s a rather sick reading of those lyrics Seek help.
You would do yourself a favor by familiarizing yourself with the parlance of the era and place before making ridiculous comments.
I’m a little worried what will happen to her when she finds out about the contemporaneous expression “ants in your pants.”
@Tiredofitall @BRUCEB
Double entendre.
Look it up.
In today’s world, perhaps. In the period of the work, no. A prurient reading would only go there. Look it up. Merry Christmas!
Mary,
Do you think those two homosexuals were trying to recruit young boys to the “Homosexual Lifestyle?
After all, who do you think this subliminal messaging was meant to affect?
And I’m confused about the MAN and BOY in a single song comment, I thougt Pedophilia was very different from Homosexuality, are they not?
I have also heard that if “they” recruit a certain # of individuals to the lifestyle there are rewards. A friend of mine only needs one more convert, and he gets a Subaru!
There is one issue I have with your hypothesis, you speak only of subliminal messaging through the use of LANGUAGE, all of a very fancy, double trouble sort. Y Somehow, you very shamefully, seem to have forgotten the hip MUSIC, the ballet & modern DANCE, and let’s not forget, this was presented on STAGE, & as a MOVIE!
By my count WSS has;
1. LANGUAGE
2. MUSIC
3. DANCE
4. THEATER
That, my deerest Mary, is the ultimate “fill you conversion quota” combo known as the;
QUEER QUARTET!
How, after seeing this masterpiece, the straightest of manly-men lumberjacks didn’t ronde de jambe over the edge of Gay Cliffs in droves, like so many queer lemmings, is beyond me!
In conclusion Mary, l leave you with this;
As I have done in response to your comment, so you too have done.
You are reading WAY TOO MUCH into a song that is trying to warn a hot headed teenage boy not to do something stupid, and end up dead.
After all, sometimes a banana is just a banana.
Politics and art have always made rather odd bedfellows– the former rather ephemeral and the latter often nonsense.
Bravo, brilliant rebuttal.
Thank you. “America” is my favorite part, but I’ve never seen it as a patriotic anthem. I really appreciate Mr. Raimi’s analysis of “Cool.” Bernstein often seemed to lament that his Broadway work was better known and loved than his classical works, but West Side Story – whatever complaints one may have about the story – is genius. And I love the new film, appreciating the cultural touches it attempts while not expecting it to be a documentary.
At some time in the relatively recent past, the traditional hard-core study routine that allowed one to learn—enter more deeply into the mysteries of the universe via gaining a foothold in the difficult subjects that allow an entré into things like the Egyptian view of death or the world of the paradisal West, if it exists—have become more and more common. By mixing a little bit of knowledge with a lot of chutzpah, universities have allowed more and more subjects to parade as true scholarly disciplines, things like “how to teach,” often called “method” and Educational Psychology. More recently, topics touching on race and going by various names have entered the scam. These people are know nothings. Someone like Nikole Hannah-Jones use a very touchy subject like race to turn a subject that in the time of Martin Luther King had substance, today is merely a conveyance for one person to run a scam on a racially charged basis to do one thing: use race fear to turn themselves into fake experts and celebrities . Get rid of all of this fake scholarly topics.
Bernstein also uses a theme from Gotterdammerung – the Redemption theme at the start of “I have a love and it’s all that I have”.
Having seen Spielberg’s remake, I was also disappointed. I have grown up loving the show and it’s music. Sure, it’s an excellent movie but why keep the setting in late 1950s New York? Who remembers that period now? How many of those younger than about 60 can identify with it? Having seen it with two Asians in our group, both first wondered what was a Puerto Rican. When told, they could not understand why they would leave their island for a better life in America and then start turf wars in a dying part of the city?
If ever there was a movie ideal for updating – as we often see on opera stages – surely this was it.
Quite right Nick2 – let’s bring it up-to-date because most younger people won’t understand it. Let’s set it in a supermarket and change the lyrics to rap. Friar Laurence should be a psychotherapist; the Sharks should all be Maoists and the Jets Trotskyites. Tony dies after snorting some adulterated coke.
Yarimar Bonilla will be forotten in a couple of weeks; West Side Story in its original format will still be a hit decades after the worms are eating her mortal remains.
For what it’s worth, I believe that Candide is equally worthy – a supremely inspired collaboration betwen Bernstein at his coruscating best and Voltaire’s acerbic satire.
In “There’s a Place for Us,” Bernstein also, uh, “references” a melody in Beethoven’s Concerto # 5.
bravo, bravo and bravo!!!
The NY times is a liberal media full of itself, facts mixed with opinions. I never read their offerings
This piece was an op-ed by one academic, one of a number of items they published about WSS. To conflate it with the Times’ journalism – real reporters often risking their lives to relate world events – is lazy and facile.
Well, I didn’t read Bonilla’s piece in the NYT after the first couple of paragraphs and had never heard of her. Nonetheless, I am willing to shout that she she knows bupkis about West Side Story. But, her wasted space of an essay will allow her to put the NYT opinion piece on her resume, and that seems to what really matters to her. And, of course, the NYT always is happy to print anything with a racial angle, whether it makes any sense or not.
An Acedemic complaining about two films she never saw. I would assume she would fail 5th grade with that approach.
I think she saw the films.
Unlike Ms. Bonilla, who as an academic talks for a living, Mr. Raimi has actually accomplished something, and mastered a musical instrument.
Oh c’mon.. orchestral musicians only care about two things: their pensions, and their break times. This is what makes life in a symphony orchestra such a delight.
I think we’ve probably heard enough of your bile on this site. Take a break, please, and make it a long one.
Those are Frank Zappa’s words, not mine, after having worked with LA Phil, Royal Phil and London Sym. All I’m saying is, I agree with commenters who rightly point out that Raimi’s rant is unenlightened at best as he really missed the nuance of Bonilla’s piece. And then in his pointless analysis of the fugue in “Cool” doesn’t even know what a vibraphone is.. that vibe part is THE major vibraphone excerpt on every single orchestral audition. So it kinda takes the wind out of his pedantic and pretentious diatribe. Plus Bonilla never said she hated the movie. In fact she helped facilitate research to improve it.
Bad vibes, Couperin. Now beat it.
Well said Max Raimi !
Thanks for bringing some intelligence and good sense into this ‘we hate West Side Story’ feast. I haven’t seen the new version yet but don’t understand why there are new theatre productions of this superb musical every year and yet a new film version is attacked and vilified. I had the privilege of seeing the theatre version on my 15th birthday in London in 1959!! It’s an experience I’ll never forget and I revisited that production about 4 times, saving up my small allowance for a ticket. The film wasn’t the same experience but obviously reached a wider audience.
I’ve yet to see Madame Butterfly sung by a Japanese opera singer (no doubt there are) and yet it’s always magical. I’m sure that Spielberg’s WSS is magical as well and updated appropriately. COVID controls the world at the moment and my generation are simply not going to the cinemas in the middle of a new wave. That’s the only reason for its initial failure but it will be seen for years to come by people who appreciate the genius of its creators and of Spielberg’s work.
It’s complex. I love West Side Story, but one could also read Bonilla’s article in good faith and consider how it might caricature Puerto Ricans in ways that are misleading and perhaps demeaning. Just being a musical doesn’t necessarily give the author’s a pass on that.
A NBC article describes the view of Frances Negrón-Muntaner, the founding director of the Media and Idea Lab at Columbia University, who felt the musical, “relied on centuries-old stereotypes about Latinos that portrayed women as virginal and childlike or sexual and fiery while the men were violent and clannish.” In spite of the Romeo and Juliet conceit, the musical also hints that Puerto Ricans are invaders all moving to the NYC and crowding out the whites. These themes, of course, bring out a number of SD readers with their torches and pitchforks ready to lynch anyone who might question the virginal white purity of classical music.
Flash 60 years forward and we have “Hamilton” with Puerto Ricans wearing powdered wigs and embodying the roles of our slave-state founders. It’s difficult to make sense of the world. I look forward to watching the Spielberg take and the bandages it puts on these issues.
“It’s difficult to make sense of the world.”
Maybe if you remember that the “world” in question is a stage, and a musical stage at that?
Whatever happened to suspension of disbelief? Imagination? Sit back and enjoy it? It’s a couple of hours of people PRETENDING for a living. (Sometimes with stage make-up, get over it).
As someone who spent many years in theatres watching ballet, I came to accept the weird conventions of the unspoken story, and people moving about in ways I could not. WSS does not seem much of a leap in comparison.
That’s great. Perhaps Mr Raimi could write at greater length in riposte. A rich and systematic demolition of this puerile, critical race theory based, anti-art, and intentionally destructive piece in the NYT is needed. An expert like Mr Raimi could provide such a thing!
I love West Side Story. ‘America’ is hilarious, as well as a cracking number. ‘Cool’ is finger-clicking as well as ominous but what about the beautiful ‘Maria’ and the heart-rending ‘There’s a place for us’! And don’t forget it is based on ‘Romeo and Juliet’!
If you want to make a name for yourself,demolish something sacred.Just ignore the woman.
Don’t worry Norman, he probably tested positive for Covid, having healed himself (and his Dog, who he named Fido or Feedough or something, like his Face, which doesn’t come after G’liath at all) which is why the lease is up, and he’ll get kicked out or it will be over with, if he’s not fired, and hopefully will grow out of it….
What in the hell are you talkingk about?
Not familiar with the ravings of our Nijinsky, who seems to have dived into the eggnog (even if he hasn’t) earlier and earlier these days?
I hope that Mr Raimi’s eloquent response was also sent to the NYT as well.
I sent it to them. They declined to run it
Concerning Bernstein I don’t understand why the orchestras don’t play the music of On the waterfront. A pure Masterpice like the film (the greatest american film ever made for me). I don’t care any more about what the NY Times writes. I understand that for them classical is out of time. What they write is insignifiant and they don’t accept that their influence is far less important since the early internet age.
It’s just good music and a great new production.
Pleasure to read such an elegant demolition job.
I never read Mr/Mrs/Ms/Mx Yarimar Bonilla‘s article, but I hate it.
Oh dear. Mr Raimi has used his ‘privilege’ to reinforce the virtuous ignorance of Ms Bonilla. Does he not realise that she(they) does not need to know anything about the think them condemns?
And using a Dead White Guy’s ‘Grosse Fugue’ to prove another DWG’s brilliance and her lack of it (Apologies to those who will be hurt by my not using ?’s preferred pronouns but there is nothing to help me to avoid the offence).
Still he, I’m sure he has no such hangups about who he is, further compounds the hurt by using a song that is performed by ‘White’ boys thus demonstrating again the deeply embedded racism of America and his own pernicious superiority.
So, Ms Bonilla must be right because she ‘feels’ the hurt. Mr Raimi must be wrong because, he knows like ‘stuff’ and knowledge is clearly a dangerous and oppressive thing to those who proudly wallow in their own ignorance.
Thank you, Max Raimi. There are lots of beams/motes in the eyes these days.
Max Raimi writes about Cool “…brilliantly employing marimba…steeped in that genre.”
It’s a vibraphone.
But that’s viola players for you!!
How do you make a viola player panic?
Write ‘Solo’ in their music.
Thanks for the correction. I knew it was vibes; I have no idea why I wrote “marimba”. The only thing harder than proofreading prose is proofreading music.
Sir: as a Puerto Rican artist, I commend your courageous stance. I fail to see the need of some rabid individuals to attack you so viciously. They can always move elsewhere and read or listen to other rants and assorted vacuities passed -off as academic thought that fit their twisted, political agendas. (It is all political, you see.) WSS is a masterpiece, unquestionably. Your insights made me reassess some of my approaches to this music. Meanwhile, Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Laurents will remain geniuses till the end of the time, long after any of the participants in this exchange are gone and forgotten.
Yet another academic joining the ranks of the ‘I want to be offended.’
It’s all just special pleading.
Bonilla Bullshit
I’ve seen it. Whilst I found it weird to get used to the new song order and where they were sung I found it enjoyable. The new Maria is sweet and acts like the Maria we all knew and loved. But of course Natalie will always and forever be Maria to me.
Riff though felt out of place in this remake. Never heard of the actor before and his voice just didn’t fit like the original version.
Anybody was also changed and I felt this was just wrong. Trying to appeal to a modern audience even though this is set in the late 50s / early 60s surely means trans didn’t exist or was deemed innapropriate back then.
But overall it’s enjoyable and for kids who have no idea about the original like I didn’t until my Mum said it’s her favourite film I became a fan. So kids today might become a fan of this version. Never say never.
I’ll give it 3.5 from 5. Not bad and a nice way to enjoy a chilled evening out with family.
Gosh, what unique and innovative ideas we’ve never heard before. Who would have thought that an orchestra musician would break from traditional social norms and be so progressive in his perspectives? Such great insights no doubt come from the fact that he has so many Puerto Rican colleagues in the Chicago Symphony.
I wonder what Riccardo Muti thinks of all this.
First of all, he won’t even conduct Madama Butterfly (he never has, and he says he never will) because it is too popular.
Somehow, I don’t think Raimi’s appeal to Bach, to the fugue, to the Twelve Tone System, will be enough to convince Muti that “Cool” is a masterpiece.
I’m willing to put money on this: Muti has never conducted anything from West Side Story, or probably anything else by Bernstein.
As someone who works in a corporation, I have always been offended by Frank Loesser’s How to Succeed… Loesser never worked in a corporate setting and knew nothing about it, really. I think that anyone who works in a private corporation should boycott that film.
‘West Side Story’ Sequel In The Works As Ethnic Groups Reclaim Their Stories
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marchershberg/2021/12/19/west-side-story-sequel-in-the-works-as-ethnic-groups-reclaim-their-stories/?mc_cid=d7d716f25c&mc_eid=0fdfb3ae7e&sh=3d7bf9931567#new_tab
The sheer awfulness and ignorance of pseudo-academics like Yarimar Bonilla is one reason why I will not be sponsoring my grandchildren to go to the lunatic asylums they call universities. I do not want their heads to be filled with this rubbish. If you want wisdom, go to the guys on a building site!
That’s great, keep living in the stone age when elders actively encouraged their children to be uneducated. Perhaps you can tell your grandkids that they should just get married at 19 and start popping out babies. They can start a career at Wal-Mart, get fat, and live to the ripe old age of 48 if covid doesn’t kill them before that, because you probably told them not to get vaxed too?
“uneducated” = lacking education in what, exactly?
Your attitude towards people who have not been to university is telling.
I thought it was obvious that M McAlpine is pointing out that universities are teaching students what to think, not how to think.
Hunter and City College were not always this way.
I love that the melody of “There’s a place for us” sounds like the slow movement of the Beethoven “Emperor” concerto.
West Side Story is and was a History Making musical. Every one involved from Harold Prince, Bernstein, Sondheim, Robbins, the amazing cast made Theatre History. This amazing musical should be Celebrated by every generation of Theatre goers.
West Side Story is, and was one of the greatest musicals ever written and produced. Given to us by the greatest minds and talents of the musical theatre. Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim, Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and an amazing cast. I’m sorry for the Critics who can’t see it’s majesty.
This is the most sanctimonious racist bullshit I’ve seen in a while. Puerto Ricans have the right to be offended by how their culture is descipted – or or incorrectly despicted, even if a movie has ‘musical merit’. Both this author & publisher should be ashamed od themselves.
Also, if you read the full NYT op-ed, vs screeching about the opening statement, she HAS seen large chunks of WSS, if not the full movie. Congratulations on being ridiculous and ignorant and saying “racism is ok if I like the music!”
I don’t understand why it is progressive for black people who may not understand Spanish, to have to pay full-price to listen to non-subtitled dialogue, that they can’t understand. Have Steven Spielberg and Yarimar Bonilla not heard of Black Lives Matter?
Why isn’t Ms. Bonilla outraged that the character of Maria was played by a woman of Columbian descent? How inauthentic!
And, Anita is played by a woman who, in real life, identifies as “queer”. How is that true to a clearly heterosexual character?
And why didn’t they cast a Polish person as Tony/Anton? Why are they erasing the immigrant experience of Poles?
And how is it possible that a story set in New York in the 1950’s doesn’t have any Jews? Clearly Spielberg is antisemitic.
It’s very obvious to me that the characters of Tony and Riff are engaged in a closeted homosexual relationship. Why was this aspect of the story suppressed?
I was a child when my father took us to see WSS. Pardon my innocence and ignorance of lofty musical analyses but WWS not only made me love musicals but it taught me exactly how much prejudice sucks. Will always think of it as genius.
Good points, Cat. Glad your father took you to see West Side Story when you were a kid. It sounds like you learned a lot.
If one reads the woman’s opinion piece, it is clear that she has, in fact, seen it. I disagree with everything she’s written in it, but your headline is egregiously misleading,
Max Raimi’s dissection of Bonilla’s ignorant critique was right on the money! She must be tone deaf if she couldn’t get the connection between the dancing, music, and lyrics which was, or I should IS, the lifeblood of the movie.
I do kind of like Leonard Bernstein: it was just one tonal response from me, not knowing what I recognized yet, and then in came the flutes: I have somewhere written down at least a trio of them. And I hadn’t really ever gotten to talk to that nice nice janitor that saw me play some Wagner at the piano. Having just only discussed about whether I could compose anything: I had started on that trio, still not needing anything either, but then in came the math teacher who I was told is allowed to come through about once every amount that was much larger than a month…… (it wasn’t even in the bathroom with a ruler!?)!
What?
Isn’t it ironic that the author dismisses Ms. Bonilla’s problems with West Side Story and then continues to mansplain it’s virtues. If we followed the author’s logic, if we wrote songs about Critical Race Theory or kneeling during the National Anthem, a certain population would find it more acceptable.
lol her problems with WSS are worthless because she has never seen it
Read up to “Mansplain”
Opinion discarded.
WHAT WSS MEANS TO ME
I saw the original the week it opened in a movie theater in the Bronx on the Grand Concourse. It was a case of country cousin (me) visiting City cousin (Lili). I remember every moment, every scene, my first exposure to the name Leonard Bernstein and the great, great melodies. I sang the tunes from memory. Tonight and I feel pretty especially. The only other “musical” having such a powerful effect on my love of musicals and desire to be part of the world of theater…then opera- was the Fantastks. Just grateful nearly 65 years later for the experience and chance to share.
Bonilla is commenting on what WSS fails to do for her culture. Lebrecht loves Bernstein’s music but fails to grasp that it does nothing to represent Puerto Rican culture. Given Bernstein’s gifts, I find it difficult to believe that it would have been beyond him to infuse the bomba, salsa, or even a cumbia into WWS’ score. And that is precisely the point: he wasn’t interested in doing so. By extolling a take on fugues rather than engaging with Bonilla’s actual critique, Lebrecht only strengthens the substance of her complaint.
If you wish to make a film to promote Puerto Rican culture, or raise some global awareness, go out, raise the money, cast it and produce it. It certainly is not very meritorious, or useful to say the least to criticize a brilliant work of art and musical concept because the main idea put across is how awful any kind of prejudice is and where it leads…..do it Jose, I’ll buy a ticket, and if you invite me come to the grand opening. I also think it is racist for a Hunter professor to go to the trouble of promoting her own ideas publicly, and does not serve a purpose for non Hispanic students. Quite the opposite.
Let us suppose a group of Puerto Ricans, a composer, a playwright, a director, create a brilliant musical which whose main plot involves a Jewish group in rivalry with another ethnic group (not Puerto Rican); and the Jews are represented, though on the whole sympathetically, in stereotyped ways which do not reflect their own understanding of their culture; and the excellent score is entirely based on Hispanic and Afro-Caribbean musical genres, avoiding the Jewish/European contribution. How would Ms Kamonier react?
Let’s see this musical and then we can cast judgement. When is the opening date?
Mambo ! I kinda heard that in the original
SInce when is “hate” good or even useful?
Pretty ignorant of the lady, to pass judgment on something that she never saw.
Ms Bonilla is perfectly free to create a musical, opera, novel, etc. that reflects the Puerto Rican-in-New York experience as she understands it, if she has a talent other than for carping. What she does not seem to grasp is that WSS was the vision of independent persons who were artists not sociologists. The WSS creative team was never hers to command. Tyrants dictate to artists in totalitarian states but compulsion is not inspiration.
What else would you expect from the director of a ‘Center for Puerto Rican Studies’?
I have now seen the new version of West Side Story, although, like Yarimar Bonilla, I have never seen the original. However, I know the songs well enough to have known what she wrote was wrong.
As a common punter, I expect to be able to understand what is being said, having paid the money to do so. If a significant amount of Spanish dialogue is not subtitled, then I can’t really be expected to understand what is fully going on.
So this may contribute to why attendances are low. Cinema is a commercial enterprise and so people aren’t going to pay to watch a film they can’t understand. I have watched a number of foreign language flms on the basis that they are subtitled, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. That doesn’t mean English is a superior language.
Will Spielberg insist that the Chinese do not subtitle the film in Mandarin or Cantonese when it is distributed in China?
As they say, “go woke, go broke”.
And what about Cats? How can any feline watch it without insult? Not a real cat in it.
Cool used vibraphone, not marimba.
I suppose the Austrians should be irked, annoyed and angry AF about the casting of The Sound of Music.
The woman playing maria ,rachel is not Puerto Rican. That says it all !!!
So many people are criticizing the new Stephen Spielberg’s West Side Story or missing the point. For the first time,there are true Hispanics. Not just white people playing them and this makes it “muy importante” very important
I’m surprised that even Latinos don’t get it.
It’s not about perfection. It’s about trying to get it right.
They even have a true Latina in it with Rita Moreno playing the widow of Ned Glass’s character. Her personal review is much more important than any reviewers take on the film
So bravo to Mr. Spielberg for making the new version
West side story. A modern ( mid century) of an English play set in Renaissance Italy reset in mid century New York using a white vs PR Conflict as a standin for two families in Renaissance Italy for a Broadway musical with music written by an esteemed mid century talented classical composer.
To quote the original source “tempest in a teacup”.
It was never intended as social commentary. Just enjoy it,or not.
Perhaps the NYT could start a weekly feature; art reviews by people who haven’t seen the paintings; dining reviews from critics who never made it to the restaurant. Film reviews by the blind.
I, too, thought Ms. Bonilla’s commentary in the Times was ridiculous and left a comment as such.The work is one of great genius by a genius. It captures the sounds and rhythms of the city and it flavors the cultures of both the Jets and the Sharks with their own individual energies. The choreography by Robbins is astounding. People should let this work shine on its own without “modernizing” it or “improving” it. It shouldn’t be updated anymore than Rembrandt’s “Nightwatch” should be. It is no more derogatory to the Puerto Ricans than it is to the white kids. It takes a lot to “critique” something when you have no idea what the original was. That’s called hubris and Ms. Bonilla seems to have that in great quantity. I haven’t seen the new film, but if Spielberg has changed it too much, my heart will sink.