Film

Sun, Nov 15, 1:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

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West Side Story. 1961. USA. Directed by Robert Wise. Image courtesy of Photofest

West Side Story. 1961. USA. Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman, based on the play “West Side Story” by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins. With Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn. DCP. 152 min.

Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’s adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s 1957 play (itself an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) is one of the most successful movie musicals of all time—winner of 10 Academy Awards and the highest grossing film of 1961. Robbins, initially dismissed as co-director after his musical sequences ran over budget and behind schedule, was eventually given an honorary Academy Award for his choreography. Rita Moreno won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Anita, a feat repeated by Ariana DeBose for the same role 60 years later in Steven Spielberg’s version of the film.

This film accompanies Sundays with Steven.

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