Richard Barrios Books

A captivating, richly illustrated full account of the making of the ground-breaking movie classic West Side Story (1961). A major hit on Broadway, on film West Side Story became immortal-a movie different from anything that had come before, but this cinematic victory came at a price. In this engrossing volume, film historian Richard Barrios recounts how the drama and rivalries seen onscreen played out to equal intensity behind-the-scenes, while still achieving extraordinary artistic feats. The making and impact of West Side Story has so far been recounted only in vestiges. In the pages of this book, the backstage tale comes to life along with insight on what has made the film a favorite across six decades: its brilliant use of dance as staged by erstwhile co-director Jerome Robbins; a meaningful story, as set to Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's soundtrack; the performances of a youthful ensemble cast featuring Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, and more; a film with Shakespearean roots (Romeo and Juliet) that is simultaneously timeless and current. West Side Story was a triumph that appeared to be very much of its time; over the years it has shown itself to be eternal.

"She was born nearly a century ago and has been gone for well over half that time. The body of work she left behind is of limited size and, in some cases, debatable quality. The environment in which she thrived, popular entertainment in the 1950s, is a distant memory, if that. Those are indisputable facts. Why is it, then, that they seem so immaterial? How is it that the phenomenon continues unabated, that the iconography and mythology only seem to increase? Why all the interest and speculation and merchandising, and why all the documentaries and miniseries about her? Plus, to cut a little closer, all those shelves of books? With Marilyn Monroe, there is never one single answer. To start with one of the most obvious: some of it has to do with the element of tragedy, the special kind that crashes in when a life of magnetic achievement and renown is cut short with miserable suddenness. Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, Byron and Keats, Valentino, Hank Williams, James Dean, the Kennedys, Malcolm X, Dr. King, Joplin and Hendrix and Morrison, Elvis, Princess Diana, Michael Jackson. How natural to mourn, how easy to speculate on what could have been. Monroe offers unusually ripe territory for this, with her blatant, rapid-fire explosion into the world's consciousness, the tumult and visibility of her private and professional paths, and the sharply cut-off way she died, overlaid with just enough ambiguity to cause some people to wonder about the circumstances. From there, eventually and alas, to an unseemly franchise based on conjecture about that death, with most of the ruminations drenched in paranoia and personal agendas"-- Provided by publisher