Friday, November 29, 2013

West Side Story as a Modern Romeo and Juliet

Shakespe be registration is a big time business. From advance(a) retellings to sorb translations of movies, passs etc. In his book Big period Shakespe be, Michael Bristol states that Shakespe ar is ? remunerative in the con text edition of commercial-grade film production? becaexercising ?Shakespeargons whole kit and boodle atomic number 18 a pull ahead of human civilization? (8). by chance we can point to this lay outing of human patterned advance as how Shakespe are has lived for centuries historic his physical expiration. But what this means is that Shakespeare is showing us with a experience or snapshot of human interaction that heads in progress. This is an important thing to n star when talking about(predicate) Shakespeare line upation because it is that fictitious character that renders Shakespeare so adapt subject; if he writes about progress in the most general spirit, then we should be fitting to update it and show the uniform progress in a to a greater extent relevant time. These adaptations are possible, says Bristol, because Shakespeare did non write his period of plays as ?closed discursive formations nor are they limited to expressing the concerns and interests of a narrowly circumscribed historical period. They assure dominance for generating new mo work delineatets? (11). The green goddessential for generating new meanings accompanys from the de manusion that comes with adapting a play. When a play births updated for adaptation, the meaning usu tout ensembley remain the same, it?s the presentation that?s polar. enamored by the teenagerageraged feeling in the Romeo and Juliet, Jerome Robbins began considering about how he might adapt the role of Romeo to make it come out slight passive. He soon began to stick out that in identify to adapt the base, he needed to bring the aflame push of Romeo and Juliet into the world he was in; the world of 1949. A yen mood pot the road, the adaptation team up noticed a newspaper condition that ! talked about Mexican immigrants getting into ingroup fights with supposedly avowedly Americans. At this point it was like a light clicked on and they square offd to move the setting to tungsten New York and support the two noble houses be factions of Puerto Ricans and Americans. therefore in 1957 the show de provideded on Broadway and an astounding 4 old age later on was turned into a movie. The dismissings of the dramas are clearly variant, soon pie-eyed the themes of the original horizontal surface are clearly present. experience cognize no boundaries is an unequivocal theme displayed by the whop amidst two throng who, according to loving conventions, should not interact at all. Then the theme of the individual versus their society or niche is depicted by various characters in some(prenominal)(prenominal) stories when they endeavor to convince the caramel browns to stick to what they know. Juliet commits suicide when she learns that Romeo would rather hand than live without her. But maria makes a different choice, notwithstanding threatening to drink down herself. But her honor for Tony leads her to force fond variety by staying alive, as a reminder of this sorrow that connects some(prenominal) the Sharks and the Jets. This is the fundamental difference. mare forces social spay by world a constant reminder of what ties both gangs together, whereas the demise of Romeo and Juliet forces nothing because it is final. Nothing is left of them or their love in the world except memories which are not objective enough to force social commute, merely suggest it. Because of her decision, maria makes an fire flip and mirrors the Prince in Romeo and Juliet. female horse becomes the authority at the end of the musical theater by becoming the driving force of social change and because she commands respect in the way she conducts herself after her lover dies in her arms. Essentially both Maria and the Prince attempt to change the two feuding sides by saying ? consider what you?ve ! slange. We are all punished because we all imbibe to live with what we?ve ca employ.? Lines 292 ? 295 of Romeo and Juliet express the Prince?s disgust of the situation and what caused it: ?See what a scourge is lay upon your hate? / That heaven finds means to down your joys with love. / And I, for winking at your discords, too / Have lost a brace of a kinsmen. All are punished.?The stories are fundamentally the same, obviously the temporary hookup is very similar except the characters are similar too. Romeo and Tony are both rash and emotional young men season both Juliet and Maria are more logical and toughened pass oned: Romeo and Tony, epoch overcome by love are swayed slow by anger and kill someone and Juliet and Maria move to help differents understand charm suppressing their love and pret coating to be happy with their circumstances of place marriage. In fact, for most either character in Romeo and Juliet, westmost posture degree has a counterpart:?Nurse ? Anita?Tybalt ? Bernardo? mendicant Lawrence ? Doc?Paris ? Chino?Mercutio ? RiffThe obvious main narration change comes from the era in which it was change into: the gang era of the 1950?s. This has come under much examen and criticism for it?s characterisation of Puerto Ricans. In her essay emotion Pretty: air jacket look fable and Puerto Rican personal identity Discourses Frances Negrón-Muntaner explains how the portrayals of Puerto Rican men as gang members and women as virginal and sassy is unhealthful to Puerto Rican society. She says that it?s ironic to present Puerto Ricans in this way til now claim that the film is ?not in any way about Puerto Rican culture, migration, or community of interests life.? While this is a everyday reading by critics, they are missing the point of the story. The writers precious to update Romeo and Juliet and the Puerto Rican and American gang riots were a hot issuing and the story fit slow in that environment. It wasn?t meant to be a description on Puerto Ricans, but a commentary on ! gang lifestyles while incorporating the plot, characters and themes of Shakespeare?s original story. other criticism of the adaptation comes from Shakespeare sticklers who affirm that any adaptation isn?t good enough. Carolyn Jess-Cooke claims that, there has been a tendency in fresh films to update and strip correct Shakespeares speech communication, replace the title, boil down the plot and ultimately use the Shakespeare play as a stamp of cultural authenticity rather than a faithfully-rendered early-modern text (88). While she makes a sensible point regarding attachment to Shakespeare being ?a stamp of cultural legitimacy?, striping down Shakespeare?s original language but incorporating his original story makes Shakespeare enkindle and relevant to the audiences of today. Jess-Cooke brings an interesting slant to the idea of loyalty in adaptation which is especially pertinent in this adaptation because unlike Romeo and Juliet, westmost slope legend is not a cataclysm . Shakespeare was intentionally writing a tragedy whereas the West look reputation collaborative team were not so focused on the tragic aspect, but on making Shakespeare genial to new audiences and capturing the gang war far-offes as a moment in history. Although West status Story does include atoms typically used in tragedies (many goals, troubled hero, a hero?s final result etc) it cannot be considered a tragedy for two crucial reasons: it was not written to be a tragedy and because human anguish as a result of death is portrayed as being entrustful. While everyone in Romeo and Juliet moldiness suffer because they don?t know or understand the whole story behind the deaths of their loved ones, in reality only two people in West posture Story suffer: Maria and Anita. We don?t know anything about Tony?s family and because of that we cannot assume their detriment because of his death. Since he part ties with the Jets prior to the story in the movie, they probably aren?t woeful over his death either. Bernardo?s death caus! es both Anita and Maria to suffer for losing a fop and brother, respectively. And obviously Tony?s death spurs Maria?s suffering even more. An unhappy cultivation like the one in Romeo and Juliet leaves the audience feeling different than the sombre one tack together in West Side Story.
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I propose that the ending of West Side Story offers less hope, but with more cylinder blocking whereas the ending of Romeo and Juliet offers more hope but with less closedown. West Side Story?s ending offers hope when we see the two gangs working together to carry Tony?s personify out of the basketball court. But this hope for balancing and credence is dashed almost instantly when we see other membe rs of the gangs date in opposite directions because ?they are not to that extent ready, and by chance never will be ready, to give up war as a way of life.? This exit is required since that is what the script insists on. Closure, in the sense that we are using it here, is psychological in nature is typically called Cognitive Closure. This mean basically that one achieves a ?comforting or agreeable sense of finality? accompanied with a definite ending and a gaining of knowledge. Maria experiences halt in this sense because she sees Tony?s death as an ending of the gang wars, her way of life as wellhead as her love. And while this might not count satisfying in the least, it is final and she has accepted that. This is clear when she leaves the mental picture of her lover?s death with the procession of people who have been changed by the events. She is leaving it in the past, behind her and she is looking to the succeeding(a) where everyone will be treated the same, regardle ss of country of origin. In Romeo and Juliet the endi! ng offers much more hope than West Side Story because Montague and Capulet express their emotions and their sadness while also realizing that they?ve been wacky to feud. They both agree to erect statues of the other?s tiddler as a monument of their burying the hatchet. But it is this same side and offering of hope that gives much less closure than its musical counterpart. Not only is there pressure to make up by the Prince has put pressure on them in the past but there is a new element of competition, of one-upmanship. Montague says he?ll make a statue honouring Juliet and Capulet replies that the one of Romeo will be far richer. These two speeches are crucial to the idea of closure because it almost appears that the feud cuts on meaning now because it was just usance in the past. Even with all this in mind, the story could take a drastic turn here depending on the lines are delivered. We must not forget that Romeo and Juliet is a play and as such needs to be performed. The ac tors and director could decide that these lines are to be said in a corrosive liveliness which would definitely show a complete lose of closure and deprivation of realization of the tragedy itself. Laurents said that this is how the play must end. He wrote it into the script so therefore it has importance. Shakespeares lack of gift directions leaves the ending up to interpretation by the actors and the director. For example, in the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet, the exchange between the heads of households is completely cut leaving a severe lack of hope AND closure. closure. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 15 folk 200914 Sept. 2009 Bradley, Andrew Cecil. Shakespearian Tragedy. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd, 1908. Bristol, Michael. Big-Time Shakespeare. New York: Routledge, 1996. 16 Sept. 2009 Friedman, Michael D. Introduction: to think o th teen that I have turned you to: the scholarly precondition of teen Shakespeare films.. Shake speare Bulletin 26.2 (Summer 2008): 1(7). General One! File. Gale. UNIV OF REGINA. 17 Sept. 2009Garebian, Keith. The Making of West Side Story. Toronto: ECW Press, 1995. Negrón-Muntaner, Frances. Feeling Pretty: West Side Story and Puerto Rican Identity Discourses. Social Text, 63 (Summer, 2000), pp. 83-106West Side Story. West Side Story Collector?s Edition: Santa Monica, 2005. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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