The 1961 movie version of the musical West Side Story marked a significant departure from the Hollywood set musicals that dominated 1950s cinema. From the film’s opening scene, directors Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise wanted to eliminate any sense of artifice by framing the choreography both as the protagonists’ natural mode of expression and as an organic product of New York City’s streets. The storyboard rendering was created to help plot out the 10-minute sequence that establishes the opposition between rival gangs the Jets and the Sharks at the start of the movie.
Robbins, a lifelong New Yorker, was determined that the movie version of his successful Broadway show would represent his native city in all its gritty glory. His archive includes significant amounts of film and photographs documenting his location scouting. The torn-down tenement buildings seen in this image resulted from Robert Moses’s urban renewal scheme for the area that is now Lincoln Center.
Ground broke on the project in 1959, so when Robbins was filming the area was filled with rubble; while you don't see these specific buildings pictured above during the opening scene (they're just out of frame) you do see the rubble.
Robbins's time working on the West Side Story film is the stuff of legend, though not an entirely enchanting legend. As the original director of the film, Robbins was far behind schedule and over budget only a few weeks into filming and was fired and replaced by Robert Wise. What the studio did not then fully appreciate was that the delays and increased spending were the necessary outcome of Robbins’ quest to redefine the genre of the film musical. Instead of the musical numbers feeling like set pieces that lived outside of the story’s reality and narrative thrust, the music of Leonard Bernstein and Robbins’ choreography seem to ooze out of the city’s urban landscape, the three elements of music, dance, and environment working together to reflect the inner conflict within the characters of the film.
Despite losing directorial control, Robbins stayed on as choreographer and managed to find various ways to exert significant influence over the movie. His exacting standards and uncompromising vision were challenging and often expensive, but yielded undeniable results. Wise and Robbins shared the Oscar for Best Director on the film, and the Academy even gave Robbins a special award for Brilliant Achievements in the Art of Choreography on Film, which has not been given out since.
Robbins never again helmed the translation of one of his Broadway shows to the big screen. By the time Fiddler on the Roof was released as a film in 1971 Robbins had returned full time to his role as Associate Artistic Director of the New York City Ballet alongside George Balanchine, a role he retained until his death in 1998.
Somewhat ironically, West Side Story’s opening fight scene takes place on what later became Lincoln Center, the ground where Robbins cemented his choreographic career during his tenure at New York City Ballet, and where the Dance Division bears his name at the Library for the Performing Arts.
Established in 1944 and renamed for Robbins in 1999, The Jerome Robbins Dance Division is the world’s largest dance archive with an international and extensive collection that spans seven centuries. It provides a community space and much more for dance professionals, researchers, and the general public, all free of charge.
This story is part of our partnership with the NYPL around the Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures, which showcases items spanning 4,000 years from the Library's research collections, including this image. We'll be publishing one NYC-related object a day throughout September, and you can see everything at gothamist.com/treasures.The show opens Friday, September 24th, 2021 at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Free timed tickets are now available here.
