Wednesday, 10 November 2010

Soundtrack Retrospective: "From here on in, everythin's gonna be all right! I got a feelin'!"

This month’s film is Robbins/Wise’s ‘West Side Story’ (1961).

I do love musicals. I've got all the greats: 'Carousel', 'The King & I', 'Camelot'...

But this is the one I put on most often, just as a soundtrack, rather than as a film. The film itself is timeless - setting it as a stage production, rather than attempting to film it 'live' on the streets of New York helps with that, I think. The music (Leonard Bernstein) and lyrics (Sondheim, of course) mesh so perfectly, so seamlessly, it's easy to see why this film won 10 Oscars.

Indeed, it's currently the only musical to achieve that, and it looks like it'll hold onto that record.



And isn’t ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ just as relevant today as it was then?


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3 comments:

  1. James Higham10 November 2010 at 18:23

    I do love musicals. I've got all the greats: 'Carousel', 'The King & I', 'Camelot'...

    World of Warcraft?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Quiet_Man10 November 2010 at 23:25

    Unbidden, a thought came to me of you sitting in a car/bus/train mp3 on and belting out show tunes.

    Say it isn't so...

    ReplyDelete
  3. JuliaM11 November 2010 at 05:35

    "World of Warcraft?"

    I do have the discs from all three WoW soundtracks, yes... ;)

    "Say it isn't so..."

    It ain't entirely so... :) My musical tastes are pretty catholic - pop, rock, a little country, some classical.

    No rap, though. Well, unless Vanilla Ice counts? :D

    ReplyDelete