WEST SIDE STORY (1961) screening at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | 1961 | USA | 2h33m | Presented in the original English audio with English subtitles

WEST SIDE STORY is one of the most electrifying studio musicals ever made, a film that takes the energy of Shakespeare, street melodrama and Broadway form, then drives all of it into something hard, physical and tragic. Set on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it reworks ROMEO AND JULIET through the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, with Tony and Maria caught inside a world already wired for violence. The brilliance of the film lies in how completely it fuses movement with conflict. The dances don’t interrupt the drama. They’re the drama. Jerome Robbins brought his choreography from the stage production, Robert Wise brought cinematic control, and together they made a musical where bodies, colour, rhythm and urban space are locked into the same emotional system.

The film matters in part because of the scale of its achievement and the place it holds in American cinema. Leonard Bernstein’s score, Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics and Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal’s screen music supervision give it one of the great sound worlds of the genre, restless, lyrical, aggressive and full of songs that haven’t left popular culture. Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn give the film its star power, but it’s Moreno and Chakiris in particular who carry so much of its heat and force. On release it became a major critical and commercial success, then won ten Academy Awards, which says something about how fully it hit its moment without losing any of its difficulty.

WEST SIDE STORY lasts because it never treats youthful violence as colourful background. The film is full of beauty, but that beauty is always under pressure. Desire, ethnicity, masculinity, territory and humiliation are all there from the beginning, and the film never pretends music can dissolve them. That tension is exactly what gives it its charge. For all its theatrical stylisation, WEST SIDE STORY remains unusually alive to rage, grief and the stupidity of men teaching boys how to inherit conflict. It’s grand Hollywood entertainment, yes, but it’s also one of the clearest examples of the musical carrying genuine social and emotional weight.

FOOD AND DRINK POLICY: FOMO Cinema Lounge Bar opens 1 hour before the first screening of the day and closes at 02:00,.serving a wide selection of beer, wine, cocktails, and non-alcoholic refreshments including coffee and tea, as well as fresh hot popcorn! Outside food is allowed in the bar but not in the cinema. No alcohol from outside allowed. All guests are invited to arrive early and stay late!

LOCATION: FOMO Secret Cinema, Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi. A five minute walk from Liberty Square metro.

HOW TO FIND FOMO: Enter Bazari Orbeliani via Atoneli St above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left to the first floor. You can also check our Instagram story highlights for a video showing exactly how to find us:
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17933106294029235/