May 25, 2022
MarkBernstein.org
 

Dirge For Democracy

The Spielberg/Kushner West Side Story is, I think, the first time that a remake of a great movie has turned out to be a greater movie. Extraordinary.

Bernstein and Sondheim, Robbins and Laurents were not exceptionally optimistic, but they held out some hope:

Someday
Somewhere
We'll find a new way of living
We'll find a way of forgiving
Somewhere

They must have believed, because the whole conception is an argument for this. But, fifty years on, with Nazis again on the march, and as the editorial board of the New York Times argues that we should accept the inevitable Russian victory because delaying our submission to the yoke of totalitarianism may be costly?