the groundhog day project

Today it is 1957. Watching I Was a Teenage Werewolf .. Was reading the other day about how this movie was a bit controversial when it came out (not sure where I read that so I cannot quote anything), and right away it starts in with a fistfight that escalates to Tony (Michael Landon) grabbing a shovel. The cops show and Tony seems a lot like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause two years earlier; he wants to fight everybody. Some classic 50s stuff going on when Tony comes to take Arlene (Yvonne Lime) out and her father has a talk with him. The party they go to is odd--a little bit beat , a little bit Elvis. Vic (Ken Miller) is more interested in playing his bongos than dancing with Pearl (Cynthia Chenault) (who, for some reason is dressed like a clown because she thought it was a costume party). A few pranks happen until Tony overreacts to one and punches Vic. Tony sees a doctor (Whit Bissell) because, well, his anger issues. Doctor drugs him and experiments on him because of his ...

A couple questions linger as I complete my week with West Side Story . The first: why did Saul Bass give us such a static opening image? Sure it changes color, but as far as movement goes, it's got nothing on Anatomy of a Murder , The Man with the Golden Gun , Psycho , Spartacus , Vertigo , North by Northwest ... and more. Bass usually goes for something more... interesting. I read that he was also responsible for the aerial shots that take us from that overview of Manhattan into the smaller zones, until we get to the West Side and the playground and the Jets. But, that slow movement doesn't make up for the static image of Manhattan. His end credits are nice, putting the credits onto walls and signs. Between that and the aerial shots, he certainly evokes a specific time and place. But, I can't help but feel a little disappointed that the initial shot is so static but for the color. The second: Why are there rows of doors around the neighborhood? Here, strewn in a...

I argued the other day , every movie is about gender. Or, at least, every movie tells us something about gender. West Side Story mostly upholds the usual gender binary. Men are men (or boys are boys) and Women are women (or girls are girls). Anita is quite... what's the polite way to call her pushy? She can hold her own against Bernardo. (She also justifies the boys fighting as them having "Too much feeling." The fact that Baby John cries is highlighted, but then again, his name is Baby John. Not the most manly name. One character that exists on a sort of brink between male and female is Anybodys. She dresses like the other boys, but the Jets mostly dismiss her because she's a girl. I think it's Action who responds to her request to be in the gang, "How else is she gonna get a guy to touch her?" It's also Action who later calls her a "freak." And Graziella calls here "an American tragedy." But, it's actually quite progre...

Saw a lot of movies today, most of them short. Sixteen short films, ten of them nominated for Oscars next week, then a feature film-- Still Alice --nominated for best actress. Now West Side Story . That's a good day for me. But then, there's disappointment... And, I find myself just sitting her watching the movie instead of bothering you all with personal details. Forty minutes in, Tony and Maria have just met. It's good timing to actually get to some typing. Anyway, the disappointment--ran into someone I know at the movie theater, did not talk to her. Avoiding her was easier. I argued the other day that musicals operate in a world where love at first sight is, you know, a thing. It exists, it happens. In the real world, I figure I'm unlucky or that's a load of bullshit that keeps us going to movies and reading romance novels and listening to pop music, because it just doesn't happen. In the real world, what we call love takes effort. It's not a dance ...

Sample lyrics from America from West Side Story : STAGE: SCREEN: Puerto Rico You ugly island My heart's devotion Island of tropical diseases Let it slip back in the ocean Always the hurricanes blowing Always the population growing And the money owing And the babies crying And the sunlight streaming And the bullets flying And the natives steaming I like the island Manhattan Smoke on your pipe and put that in I like to be in America OK by me in America Ev'rything free in America For a small fee in America Only minor changes, but it makes the movie version just a little nicer to Puerto Rico. Sandoval-Sanchez (1999) is not as kind as I am; he writes, "In the film version, this scene, which, in the original text is a racist and defamatory articulation toward Puerto Rico, was revised in order to soften the negative attitude toward Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican immigrants" (p. 72). Elsewhere, Sandoval-Sanchez seems to be arguing that the film, like the play, makes q...

Rubin and Melnick (2007) argue: " West Side Story turned to Puerto Ricans as the newest 'problem' group that needed to be incorporated into a national narrative of reconciliation" (p. 100). Romeo and Juliet , the blueprint for West Side Story , deals in a generational conflict between families, not a matter of race. West Side Story makes color a vital difference between one side and another. That opening 4 minute color-shifting aerial drawing of New York City is not just a simple poster-style visual but a vital transition of stage to screen. I don't know how colorful the stage version was, but this film version is all about color, and not just of skin. The gangs have their colors--Sharks a lot of purples and reds, and a bit of green, the Jets some muted yellows and blues and browns. There are a few exceptions (one Jet that wears a red shirt, for example). But, color separates not just people but locations. For example, "Jet Song" is starting right now...

Thirty-seven minutes in, dancers dancer, and the screen goes blurry but for two spots of clarity--Maria on the left, Tony on the right. The rest of the dance ceases to matter (and is quickly reduced to just three other couples) as Maria and Tony dance for the first time. And, as the dancing ceases (for them) there's this line: "I knew something never before was going to happen, had to happen, but this is so much more." The something is clear--like Romeo and Juliet before them, Tony and Maria have fallen in love. Love at first sight. A trope of fiction, entirely necessary for a musical because we don't really have time to deal with anything more realistic. Not that musicals aren't realistic. Aside from the obvious break with, you know, normal human interaction, musicals tend to be quite grounded, more melodrama than drama. "You're the only thing I'll see forever," Maria sings, and a somewhat cheesy thought occurs to me to counter my usual cyn...

It's been a while since I've watched West Side Story ... And, it is late and, though I did manage a nap midday, I got up at 4am today, so I'm not sure I will really say much today. (Took members of the speech team to volunteer at Midnight Mission for their 6am breakfast service. Then, was home for a bit, then to campus for some office hours and performance studies class which ran right up until 10pm. Drove home and turned on--drum roll, please-- All That Jazz . I don't know if I was mixing it up with Chicago in my head, but I was thinking that All That Jazz was a musical, not just, you know, about a musical. Had a whole paragraph written--said something about Gideon's constant cigarette--then realized my error. I admit, I am no film expert. Anyway, settled on a replacement musical, and it's on now. I will be up very late. And, I've got an 8am class tomorrow. It's speech day, so I don't have to be entirely on my game, as it were, but I do have...