The impact of the works of Stephen Sondheim cannot be understated. Through his witty, insightful lyrics and gorgeous, complex music, his shows revolutionized the American musical theater in more ways than can be comprehended, being awarded with eight Tonys, eight Grammys, and an Oscar over the course of his career. Not to mention, there are the generations of composers he mentored, both directly and indirectly, to write in their own voices to push the form even further. At the time of his recent death at the age of 91, a gender swapped revival of his musical Company was in previews on Broadway, a well reviewed revival of Assassins was running Off-Broadway, and a new film adaptation of West Side Story from the legendary Steven Spielberg was to have its premiere a few days later. These works created decades ago are still thrilling and moving audiences today.

With someone so celebrated in the theater, it is only natural that Hollywood would look to adapt some of these beloved musicals for the screen. After all, the movie musical has long been a genre primed for both prestige and box office success, and one would assume going to these lauded, revolutionary sources would be the best way to achieve those things. While Sondheim's shows have redefined the stage musical, their transitions to the silver screen have been... less successful. Sure, a few have received some Oscar nominations and made decent money, but their legacies do not hold a candle to their theatrical counterparts. That is, except for one: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins' Best Picture winner West Side Story. Sixty years later, the film remains one of the gold standards of the Hollywood musical and is, by any metric, the most successful translation of Stephen Sondheim's work to film.

While millions have adored the updating of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to 1950s New York for decades, there is one person who was not the biggest fan of Stephen Sondheim's work in the piece, and that is Stephen Sondheim himself. West Side Story opened on Broadway when Sondheim was just 27 years old, and he took the gig on the recommedation of his mentor, legendary lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II (Oklahoma!, The Sound of Music). The thought was it would be a good experience to collaborate with composer Leonard Bernstein, one of the most respected composers in the theater, as the show's lyricist and be a foot in the door to the proper Broadway community. Sondheim and Bernstein saw lyric writing in two very different ways. In his indispensable book of annotated lyrics Finishing the Hat, Sondheim writes, "Many of the lyrics in West Side Story suffer from a self-conscious effort to be what Lenny deemed 'poetic.' I had originally been hired to be a co-lyricist with him, and I knew from the start that I was getting into a collaboration with someone whose idea of a poetic lyric writing was the antithesis of mine."

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Sondheim spotlights lyrics like "Tonight there will be no morning star" from the song "Tonight" and "It's alarming how charming I feel" from "I Feel Pretty" as lyrics written in an attempt to sound poetic, rather than being true to the characters of the piece. He writes, "Tony is suppoed to be a dreamy character, but it's unlikely he's even seen a morning star (you don't see stars in Manhattan except at the Planetarium), much less he would be inclined to use it as an image." He is aware enough to realize the "wetness," as he describes it, of these lyrics pleased his collaborators and probably contributed to the show's popularity. His work on West Side Story also contributed to people looking at him solely as a lyricist, a perception he resented and fought against for a lot of his career. Not only does the most successful screen adaptation of his work come from a show where much of his work makes him wince, but it is for a show he didn't even write the music for.

So, why does West Side Story, despite Sondheim's reservations about the material, translate so well on screen when so many other of his shows don't? The key to its success lies in dance. Nearly every beloved live-action movie musical over the last near century hinges on the visual splendor of the film's choreography and capturing of dance, from the movies starring Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly all the way up to the likes of Chicago and La La Land. The cinematic kineticism dance affords a production is what dazzles an audience and allows for story and character to be conveyed visually, which still is the primary sense film taps into. Jerome Robbins' choreography for West Side Story remains arguably the most treasured pieces of dance in the history of the American musical, where revivals of the show all over the world painstakingly recreate it constantly, and it being photographed in glorious 65mm creates some of the most indelible images and sequences in film history.

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Sondheim's shows as both composer and lyricist, the ones that really broke the rules of the stage musical, basically have no dance in any of them, which is partly what made them so fresh. He is not terribly interested in razzle-dazzle or showstopping numbers. What makes his musicals so compelling comes from conversational numbers and introspective, stream-of-consciousness songs. Sondheim is not writing songs that make someone tap their foot. While his music can be strikingly staged in a theatrical setting, finding the right technique on film to capture this seemingly naturalistic approach to musical storytelling proves enormously difficult. Adaptations like Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Rob Marshall's Into the Woods, for the most part, film the musical numbers with people just kind of standing or sitting around, making the pictures feel rather lifeless. Even Harold Prince, the legendary stage director and producer who worked with Sondheim on many of his shows, had no idea how to shoot these numbers in his infamous film adaptation of A Little Night Music, a show Prince had brilliantly directed on stage.

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Even though his music comes across as grounded and naturalistic, his material is just as theatrical as any of these larger-than-life numbers. The urge to film these sequences just as you would scenes of spoken dialogue is understandable, but misguided. Movie musicals that look to operate as a stage book musical need some element of artifice for the music to really sing, if you pardon the pun. Howard Ashman (Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast) was a writer who understood this concept and why he took to animation as the perfect vessel for the movie musical with his work with Disney, starting with The Little Mermaid. Sondheim film adaptations have not really been afforded the opportunity to play in that conceptual, distancing space, where people singing what's on their minds would make sense. Not only does West Side Story have the inherent edge of dance for its success, it is also the only adaptation that does have the proper amount of artifice for the non-dancing numbers to operate with grace, such as "Maria."

Stephen Sondheim may not have the great love of West Side Story that people all over the world do, but he has certainly not shied away from the show in any way. Whenever a revival of the show is up on Broadway, he is there to consult, teach, and encourage the company to make the best show possible. The same goes for Spielberg's new film as well. He clearly cares for the piece and wants to make sure it is done correctly. One day, a film adaptation for Sunday in the Park with George, Follies, or Pacific Overtures will come along and be able to stand alongside West Side Story as one of the greatest movie musicals of all time. Maybe it will be Richard Linklater's adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along that we will see at some point in the 2030s, as he is taking a Boyhood-esque approach to the filming. For now, we will continue to snap along with the Jets and sit in awe of Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, and company performing "America."