SIM Ep 788 Flicking #31: West Side Story (1961)

Our Yosra Osman isn’t alone in loving 1961’s cinematic musical West Side Story, in which love-at-first-sighters Maria and Tony find themselves entangled in a bitter battle between rival gangs The Jets and The Sharks amid music from Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim.

60+ years on, with a recent Steven Spielberg revival in the bag, is it a cinematic gem packed with bangers or a problematic white vision of racial unrest? Can a film be both? Will Hannah ever stop hanging out in underground car parks, making shapes and saying “cool!”? And why are she and Mick looking nervous? 

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices