Film Music Analysis - West Side Story's "Somewhere"
The film musical, West Side Story, (1961) is a film adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, and the story itself is a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, a timeless love story that is here placed in the contemporary setting of N.Y.C. Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise directed the film, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The film follows the same ‘2 Act’ structure as the original musical, and contains the same level of prominent drama, serious subject matter and depth of character. Like any adaptation of a ‘musical play’, the film’s plot and character motivation are developed through song and dance. The two form a specific narrative syntax. Since its initial reception, written analysis has tended to focus mainly on the dancing in West Side Story and for just reasons – the modern dance element was groundbreaking. The characters were inseparable from their dance. Dance became emblematic of the core struggle at the heart of the drama. However, song was also innate to the characters. It was arranged to transmit theme in an authentic way. The songs in West Side Story can be divided into two categories: the songs that surround the conflict between the two gangs (the ‘Jets’ and the ‘Sharks’), and the songs that surround the love story between Tony and Maria.Four distinct love songs featured in West Side Story form their own narrative paradigm, which shadows the temporal chain of events of the love story. “Something’s Coming”, “Maria”, “Tonight”, and “Somewhere”, play out in this sequence and create a linear outline of relational progression. Song not only substitutes a large portion of Tony and Maria’s verbal emotion to develop their love, but also helps to mark the stages of their relationship into four clearly identifiable sections – the ‘knowing’, the meeting, the happening, and the result – which all occur from the moment they meet in this world, to the moment Tony’s life is taken away. Love is bookended by song. The following pages will analyze the last of the four love songs – “Somewhere”. I will discuss how the song functions in the film as a whole, looking at how the song reflects the deepest desires of the love narrative, while also touching on how it relates to the larger thematic context of the film. The second half will focus formally on the precise scenes in which the song occurs, both diegetic and non-diegetic instances, and again how those brief moments symbolize the greater themes at work in the film; all of which will be discussed in order to describe how “Somewhere” can be seen as the anthem representing the true message at the heart of the film.
The meaning behind the song itself is twofold. In one sense, “Somewhere” can be seen as a song about escape, a song that signals the offering of a way out, and it does. On a deeper level, it is a song about believing – the belief that comes from trusting in a love so powerful that it can transcend all present realities of space and time; the belief that outside all the hate, violence, ethnic differences and urban confusion, there is a place, a calm, still place that stands exclusively for love to be free. This song defines such a belief in love, illustrating how special Tony and Maria’s love is for each other; against everything that has happened to them, all the forces that have tried to tear them apart, they still believe that ‘somewhere’ there is a place for them.
In terms of plot, “Somewhere” is the unexpected answer to “Tonight”. The song reflects the change in outcome after “Tonight”’s course of events: what actually ends up happening ‘tonight’. Although the song “Tonight” is largely remembered only as the duet between Tony and Maria on the fire escape, an alternate version of the song appears at the end of Act 1 as a quintet and chorus number, sung by the ensemble. This version of “Tonight” represents something different for each group of characters. For Tony and Maria, it represents their first hoped-for night alone together, the real beginning of their relationship. For the Jets and the Sharks, it represents ‘the rumble’, the last time either gang will have to share the streets of New York. For Anita, Bernardo’s girlfriend, it promises gratification. Tony and Maria are bound to the greater representations of “Tonight”, and to all possible consequences that may ensue for everyone. Tony is attached to the Jets; he was once a founding member. Maria is attached to the Sharks; her brother, Bernardo, is the leader. Because Tony intervenes and influences a course of action where Bernardo kills Riff (the leader of the Jets) and in revenge Tony kills Bernardo, everything changes. Tony becomes the next target in a cycle of revenge. Now “Tonight” can no longer exist for Tony and Maria in the way they had intended. Diegetically, their love song was never supposed to come to “Somewhere” but a new set of circumstances has imprisoned them because of what has happened ‘tonight’. “Somewhere” promises a future hope as ‘Tonight” anticipated a present fulfillment; contextually one song replaces the other. Up until now, nighttime has belonged to Tony and Maria; it gave them a chance to be together, a brief time for intimacy, privacy and security. Now that the darker events of night have unfolded, and critical character knowledge revealed, night reshapes itself into threat. With no access to their love, the idea of “Somewhere” becomes the only possible alternative.
On a parallel note, “Somewhere” also reflects the aftermath of “Tonight” for the gangs. This is expressed primarily through the destabilization of the Jets. Until the rumble, the film emphasized the power and strength of numbers. By yourself you are nothing, but as a Jet you are somebody. Being a member of a gang gives purpose and direction. When Riff is killed, the sudden lack of leadership breeds an agitated fear of uncertainty that consumes the Jets. The scene following “Somewhere” is the first time we see the Jets in the wake of death’s cataclysm. It marks the first sense of their inner fragility. The outer world feels different. New York does not belong to them anymore; it no longer exists to host their endeavors. It’s game over.
There is a profound moment in a scene in the middle of Act 2 where Doc, the manager of the local soda shop, turns to the Jets and says, “You kids make this world lousy”. ‘Action’, one of the key members, replies, “We didn’t make it, Doc”. This line strikes a chord. Action’s response can be comprehended in one of two ways. ‘We didn’t make it’, as in, we did not build this world. We, the members of the gang, are not responsible for creating the circumstances that have transpired around us. Or, and this is what I like to think he meant, ‘we didn’t make it’, as in, we never made it. ‘We didn’t make the cut’. We were not able to make it in this world. We never found a place that accommodated our way of living; we thought we had it in New York, but we were wrong. It is through these subtleties of verbal unease and awkward expression that their rising sense of inadequacy is conveyed. Character instability is only reflected through the Jets, for they now share a similar homelessness with their rivals, the Sharks, the Puerto Rican gang who have always been looking for a place of their own in the western world. Hence by Act 2, every character is looking for a ‘somewhere’.
The melodies of all the love songs are worked into the orchestral score. Most of them appear non-diegetically several times to accompany certain moments in the film. “Somewhere”’s melody is heard three times. The first is during the fictional wedding scene at Madam Lucia’s Bridal Shop where Maria works. As Tony and Maria begin to act out their wedding ceremony, they turn and look at one another. In an instant, the camera captures a genuine expression of dawning truth that they both really do want to spend the rest of their lives together. In the same shot, simultaneously, “Somewhere”’s melody fades in, for only a brief few bars, as the two walk down the imaginary aisle, and then it softly diminishes as they kneel facing the camera.
The choice to include this melody outside the realm of the diegesis creates a dialectic. “Somewhere”’s melody is clearly recognizable, and many viewers are aware of the song’s greater symbolic context – a love that cannot exist in this world. Thus, when the melody is identified in the scene, the viewer immediately absorbs certain implications from the song. When the play-act of marriage, and all that such a union symbolizes, is portrayed at the same time that “Somewhere” sounds, it creates this conflict: the melody foreshadows another fate – the impossibility of the characters’ hopes and desires. This union will never actually happen in reality. This distinction between the bond of union depicted visually and the separation the score implies in the background sets up a subtle opposition, only a few bars that hint at an inevitable future. It does not, however, take over the scene; a more traditional wedding melody enters the score, and Tony and Maria are free to play out their roles as bride and groom. This makes “Somewhere”’s diegetic effect all the more powerful, for the melody has placed our ‘audience knowledge’ one step ahead of theirs. We have been prepped; they have not. There is nothing we can do about it but watch.
Uniquely, “Somewhere” appears in the diegesis one and a half times: the first in the main scene where the song is sung by Tony and Maria in her apartment room; the half occurs in a brief reprise at the end, which I will discuss later. The song lyrics rise with their initial embrace. Maria has just learned of what has happened at the rumble. Tony tries to reassure her that everything will be all right, but she cries out, “It’s not us…It’s everything around us”. Tony presents the solution as he starts to sing “Somewhere … there is a place for us”. The scene is very short, two minutes exactly in duration, much shorter than the other songs. In these two minutes there are only two cuts that occur. Film form is arranged not to interrupt or deplete the essence of the song. The choice to use cuts sparingly creates an intimacy and a stillness that could not be attained otherwise. Our focus lies entirely on the beauty of this lyrical exchange between two lovers. The scene is shot completely in a two-shot. It starts in a medium close-up of the embrace, then cuts to a medium shot, with the camera placed outside Maria’s bedroom window. It tilts upwards into a slight low angle shot, as they both stand and take each other’s hand – in time for the line, “hold my hand and we’re have way there”. As they turn, as in a waltz, the second cut occurs. The camera comes back into the room to follow their rotation, capturing the same profile shot on their opposite side.
The structure of the song is grouped into an ‘8 bar’ meter, with a 4/4 time signature. Throughout the piece, the “Somewhere” motif shifts in form, and the two cuts are timely placed to emphasize the phrase changes. Nigel Simeone explains this progression, “The two-note ‘Somewhere’ motif first appears in a descending form in the eighth bar…and a melody that initially leads downwards at the end of every phrase then takes on a more aspirational turn when the ‘Somewhere’ motif is inverted (‘Some day!, somewhere’…), to powerful expressive effect.” (109) The first cut is made on the downbeat, right after the upbeat from Maria’s ‘Some day!’. The camera now pierces through the window as Tony completes the other half, singing ‘somewhere’. This type of ‘call and response’, accented by the cut, enriches the texture of the duet. Moreover, the change in phrase is paired with the change in visual composition, enhancing “Somewhere”’s progression by the simultaneity of the cut.
Throughout the entire duet, the mise en scene highlights everything in ‘twos’. When the first cut occurs, the shot is framed so that it is vertically split into two halves by Maria’s window frame. This composition is similar to a Hitchcockian duality, accomplished by foregrounding objects in the frame. In this case, the window frame creates the illusion of prison bars. The shot compartmentalizes Tony and Maria into two rectangular units, putting them in parenthesis. This formal technique accentuates the song’s function as an interlude, providing a break from everything else around them.
The mise en scene is surprisingly rich with its use of color and shape to accent this idea of a ‘pair’. The scene is lit from outside Maria’s door, which is made up of multiple glass plates. When the light shines through the glass it creates a reflection of block colors. In “Somewhere”, only two reflected colors are prominent – red and blue. As the music fades out, Tony and Maria crouch down out of the frame, and the camera holds its position on the wall, exhibiting these two adjacent blocks of primary color, which symbolize a binary relation. This song scene is a profound example of how film form and scenographics are used to encapsulate a song’s greater thematics. The melody of “Somewhere” is heard in the score a second time not long after the diegetic song scene. In this scene we return to Maria’s room a few hours later. The melody comes in as the two are lying in bed together. Suddenly they hear two knocks on the apartment door and Anita enters. She has just heard word that her boyfriend, Bernardo, is dead. Anita goes to open Maria’s door but it is locked. As she calls, ‘Maria’, the “Somewhere” melody stops, once again having telegraphed a subliminal warning. It foreshadows an impending course of action. This time, however, it is more starkly direct with Anita on one side of the glass and Bernardo’s killer, Tony, on the other. “Somewhere”’s contextual implications become heightened, now that the last place potentially belonging to the lovers is under immediate threat. This scene is simple yet effective; it leaves no time to process any other option as it pushes the love narrative out onto the streets, where it has to end. Now, the desperate need for a ‘somewhere’ becomes no longer an idea expressed through song but a reality.
The last time “Somewhere” is heard in the film, both in melody and song, is during the reprise, the final scene. When Tony falsely learns that Maria has been killed by Chino, the Shark who is after him, “Somewhere”’s life line is severed. Belief ceases. With no possibility of hope, Tony has no reason for living here. He goes searching for death at the hand of Chino. As Tony runs into the basketball courts, yelling for Chino, Maria appears. They run towards each other in happiness, but it is too late. Chino spots Tony, and guns him down. “I didn’t believe hard enough,” he says. “Loving is enough,” Maria replies. In this moment we see the torch of belief has passed to Maria, who assures Tony that they can still get away. She initiates “Somewhere”’s reprise, and clutches his hand tight. But as she sings, Tony softly tries to quiet her words, almost as if saying ‘not here, not now’. He dies in Maria’s arms. The reprise stops. As the last vocal syllables of “Somewhere” leave Maria’s lips, the melody in the score takes over; now, “Somewhere” exists purely outside of this world. A look of acceptance comes over Maria as she lowers Tony to the ground, poignantly implying that maybe their way of being did not belong in this world. The camera cuts to the gang members who have gathered on either side of the lovers. As the melody includes their presence, medium shots of both crews are juxtaposed against the attached lyric line, “We’ll find a new way of living”. The themes of “Somewhere” now speak to and for all. They address everyone. Tony and Maria’s truth has awakened the collective ensemble. As the Jets step forward to lift Tony’s body off the ground, with evident difficulty, two Sharks step in to help carry the load. They step in right on, “There’s a place for us”. At this moment both parties freeze in reaction, then carry on as if acknowledging that they really can coexist together. As the bars of “Somewhere” ascend towards the sky, the camera follows, climbing above the courts while the members disperse out of the lamplight into the night to find some place for themselves on their own.
“Somewhere” no longer implies, it defines.
Works Cited
Simeone, Nigel. Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story. Burlington: Ashgate, 2009. Print.
West Side Story. Dir. Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise. Perf. Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris. Mirisch Pictures Inc., 1961. VHS. Magnetic Video, 1981.
