Romeo And Juliet With West Side Story
Story are two very similar movies. Though they
are alike in many ways, they are
also very different as well. The two movies
mirror each other all the way until
the fight in West Side Story and until
Mercutio dies in Romeo and Juliet. When
Tony dies in West Side Story and
Maria, acting as a "Juliet", the major
differences start to show. In Romeo
and Juliet, the two lovers both die, in West
Side Story, Maria lives.
Instead of fighting between families, as the Montagues
and the Capulets, West
Side Story brings out the gang activity, Sharks vs. Jets.
Some of the
characters in West Side Story are the same personality-type as the
ones in
Romeo and Juliet. These characters: Maria as a Juliet, Tony as
Romeo,
Bernardo as Tybalt, Anita as the Nurse, etc., have the same
attitudes. These are
only a few of the similarities. The opening scenes in
both movies are similar
also. In West Side Story the Sharks harass a man, as
the members of his gang
show up to his side. They don’t exchange words; they
just start singing and
dancing. This is when the cops come to break up the
two gangs, just like Esclas(?)
did in Romeo and Juliet. There is another time
when Riff talks Tony into
attending the dance at the gym as Benvolio talks
Romeo into attending the ball.
At the dance, there appears a young girl,
Maria, just as in Romeo and Juliet,
the exact ideal when Juliet appears. When
Anita is telling Maria that she
can’t possibly be in love with Tony; for he
is an American, and Lady Capulet
and the Nurse speak to Juliet about the
differences between the two families.
Both girls know that their love is
chancing, they still are strong-willed in
keeping it. Both girls are also
there to marry people they are not in love with.
And again, their Ladies
tell them that they should just marry who they are told
to marry. In West
Side Story, Tony and Maria first meet at the dance just as in
Romeo and
Juliet, where they both first meet at the ball. It is like love at
first
sight in both stories. The balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet also
reflects
the fire escape scene in West Side Story. Both men speak to the
girls as a part
of the sky, the sun, moon, etc. Anita finds out about the
love between Tony and
Maria, as the Nurse with Romeo and Juliet, yet both
are supportive. The gang
activity in West Side Story doesn’t come that close
with the gang activity of
today. Today, gangs are a lot more violent, there
is a harsher way to prove your
loyalty whereas today, like having to kill
someone or cut off their fingers,
etc. In West Side Story, to be in gangs you
must just prove your loyalty through
your honesty. In gangs today, they
surely don’t sing and dance around. The
names that the gangs have in West
Side Story are not harsh names, either. Today,
they are ugly names with harsh
meanings. The only similar things with the gangs
today and in West Side Story
that I have seen is that they stick together, push
their publicity, and have
certain things about them that they all do together.
One example, being
the color, number, race, name, etc., that today’s gangs use
to distinguish
themselves with also is used in West Side Story. Roxanne and
Cyrano de
Bergerac also have similar qualities to them. First, the names of
Roxanne
and C. D Bales, maybe standing for Cyrano de Bergerac and of course
both
girls are named Roxanne. In both movies, the whole town loves a man, but
the man
fears that he could never have the love of a woman because he has
such a big
nose. Both movies strike a universal note because maybe that we
all have some
type of thing or way about us that we secretly fear people may
ridicule. In
Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano falls in love with Roxanne, as
does Christian. This
reflects Bales falling in love with, again, Roxanne just
like Chris. In Roxanne,
she falls in love with Chris first because of the
outer features, but he
doesn’t know how to talk to woman. C.D Bales is good
with woman and gentle
with them, just like in Cyrano, how Roxanne is in love
with Christian’s face
and Cyrano’s words. There is also a way that Cyrano de
Bergerac is like Romeo
and Juliet. It relates to the romance part when Romeo
and Juliet first kiss,
they then get married and Romeo dies. In Roxanne, her
and Christian kiss, they
get married then Christian dies. In Cyrano de
Bergerac, we discover how stupid
Christian is, but also admire him
because he just wants Roxanne to love him for
him, not his words, since they
are really Cyrano’s words anyway. This has some
similar feelings as in
Roxanne. I liked personally liked both of the older films
better. Romeo and
Juliet, just because it is a classic, and to me West Side
Story is just a
poor version of it. I thought that Cyrano de Bergerac was better
than Roxanne
because it had more meaning. I did like Roxanne because it was more
modern,
but I guess great movies can never be duplicated.