by Nathaniel R
Have you heard the news that there's a Leonard Bernstein biopic coming? There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that there's a Leonard Bernstein biopic coming at all! I mean... he's only a bonafide genius of the 20th century. Even better Jake Gyllenhaal is attached to star. Even better Cary Joji Fukunaga (Jane Eyre, Beasts of No Nation, True Detective) will be directing! Gyllenhaal gives quote:
Like many people, Leonard Bernstein found his way into my life and heart through West Side Story when I was a kid. But as I got older and started to learn about the scope of his work, I began to understand the extent of his unparalleled contribution and the debt of gratitude modern American culture owes him. As a man, Bernstein was a fascinating figure—full of genius and contradiction—and it will be an incredible honor to tell his story with a talent and friend like Cary.”
More after the jump...
The bad news is the movie is currently planning to call itself "The American" which has to be the most dreadfully basic, most boring, and most unsearchable google search movie title of all time. Bernstein, Gyllenhaal, and Fukunaga all deserve better. Times three!
In unrelated but related news, Bernstein fever could be all the rage soon. As you've undoubtedly heard by now though we haven't discussed (I've been trying to work through my... uh... feelings about it since West Side Story is the single most formative movie of my childhood) Steven Spielberg will be remaking the Oscar winning 1961 classic.
West Side Story is Bernstein's most enduring achievement (though hardly his only major work) and the greatest musical ever written, if you ask me. You didn't ask me but I sing West Side Story's praises when I can. Recent casting call notices in New York and Miami suggest that they're going ultra authentic this time (well, apart from teenage gang members bursting into song and dance) and will be hiring actors that are both close to the actual age of the characters (teenagers) and the right ethnicity, too. That could be exciting. The Broadway revival in 2009 also tried to get more authentic using a lot of Spanish when the Sharks were alone which was a welcome shift. The emotions are so clear in great musicals and the story so famous that you didn't even need to understand all the words to get it.
All the news coverage about the casting call auditions for Spielberg's film have specified that they're looking for Latinx actors who speak Spanish, sing, act and have "a strong dance background". We're not sure if they're holding separate auditions for the Jets (the white gang in this Romeo & Juliet influenced romantic drama that replaces feuding Houses with racially segregated teen gangs ) of if the news outlets that have covered the auditions have only mentioned the search for Latinx actors because racially appropriate casting unfortunately hasn't been the norm in Hollywood before.
At any rate we wish Spielberg and crew luck but West Side Story is SO colossal, culturally and musically, that it's a tall order to remake even if the original film has its flaws. Plus the musical might not need an auteurial voice quite as loud and centered as Spielberg's tends to be when Bernstein with a side of Shakespeare is so clearly this masterwork's author. But we hope for the best! Maybe the youth and the racially appropriate casting of the actors will create an electric freshness akin to the lightning that Franco Zeffirelli caught in a bottle when his version of Romeo & Juliet (with actually dewy actors, breaking the long tradition of casting the pair much older) hit the zeitgeist in 1968 and was instantly beloved by youth culture and adult moviegoers alike. It's hard to picture a Shakespearean drama with unknown stars OR a dramatic musical riffing on the same text about racial strife and young love being gigantic box office hits and cultural behemoths in our current age of 'only visual effects spectacles and animated franchises allowed at the top of the box office charts!', but it happened back in the 1960s.