West Side Story

347 Words2 Pages
The movie West Side Story directed by Robert wise and Jerome Robbins, is an adventurous drama, based on the tragic love story “Romeo and Juliet”. The beginning of the movie clearly identifies the hatred between the Sharks and Jets (West side New York gangs).The sharks are Puerto Rican and the Jets are polish. Racism, culture clash, passion of love and the passion of hatred are very topical situations in the movie. The first shift in mood was when Baby john (Jets member) gets attacked by one of the sharks. This event sparks a flame in the heated gang war. From this point on the two gangs plan small feuds or rumbles. The next major event is at the school dance when Tony (jets former member) And Maria (sister of a shark) fall in love at first sight. This is a major shift because it has changed from hatred to love. Maria and tony fall into forbidden love, Bernardo (Marias brother) forbids Maria from seeing tony. Anita as well tells Maria to “find someone of there own kind”, this shows the harsh racism. The candy store is the Jets hangout spot, this candy store is also where Riff (jets leader) and Bernardo (sharks leader) make a deal on the final rumble. This brought intense drama to the story line. Love is a common shift in mood caused by Maria and tony. The shift to love was showed in the dress shop scene as Maria talks about her never ending love for tony. The rumble was the biggest event in the movie, as a result of the rumble Bernardo and riff both end up getting stabbed. As if this weren’t enough of a shift Maria finds out that tony was the one who stabbed bernardo her own brother. Love once again appears as Maria forgives tony and still wants to be with him. Tony and Maria talk about running away together to break this forbidden love and be together forever. But at the end Hatred overpowers the love and Chino (Sharks member) shoots tony in Marias
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