All it takes is one bad take on social media to ignite a bit of a firestorm. And apparently, the most recent one involves Steven Spielberg and “West Side Story.” The discussion got so involved, Guillermo del Toro felt the need to come to the defense of one of the best filmmakers to ever grace the medium.
It’s a little inside social media baseball, but the story starts like this: some rando on Twitter began complaining about Steven Spielberg making a ‘Frank Bullit’ movie based on the Steven McQueen 1968 “Bullit” film, going so far to suggest Spielberg couldn’t shoot a car chase (apparently revealing that they hadn’t seen a lot of Spielberg’s work including the movies “Duel” and “Raiders of The Last Ark” that are filled with thrilling car chase sequences, among others).
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This led to a lot of, “What are you f*cking crazy?!”-esque responses on Twitter, given that Spielberg is rightfully recognized as one of the best shooters and directors in any genre. That outpouring of love for Spielberg—in defense of a bad take, but welcome all the less—led to many either finding a newfound appreciation for Spielberg’s recent musical remake, “West Side Story,” or just re-espousing their love for the film.
One of those defenders is actually Guillermo del Toro, who added to the social media Spielberg conversation with a detailed breakdown about why the filmmaker’s work on “West Side Story” isn’t just good, but actually “masterly” with “brain-surgery levels of precision.”
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The entire Twitter thread is too long to reprint (the tweet is below), but here is just a bit of del Toro’s defense:
“Extremely hard to execute. Pure, masterly clockwork precision and a lot more complex than ‘seamed’ shots or steadicam-to-crane ‘relay’ shots. Baffling, virtuoso- but one of so, so many shots that make the camera ‘dance’ with each musical number. Here are some of the dance number shots that are extremely (if not impossible) to decipher and almost all of them require brain-surgery levels of precision. I was elated from the purity of his audiovisual painting strokes…When you dissect a Sirk move or a Hitchcock or an Ophüls or a beautiful Kalatozov or- you name it- you come closer to listening to the movie in its own voice- not the voice inherited from theatrical or literary tradition. WSS is intoxicating, Heisenberg-level pure, uncut Cinema.”
To say that del Toro is raving about “West Side Story” is an understatement. He’s basically providing a defense and argument for why Spielberg is deserving of all the awards recognition he’s receiving.
With “West Side Story” arriving on Disney+ next week, perhaps people who missed out on the film in theaters will begin to show an appreciation for the work Spielberg was able to accomplish on the film. If nothing else, they’ll begin to understand what del Toro is trying to express.
“West Side Story” is expected to arrive on Disney+ on March 2.