With ‘In the Heights,’ Jon M. Chu disrupts the movie musical. Here's how he did it
At first, these snippets were too expensive to film. “But I knew if we didn’t have these shots, the section wouldn’t be complete,” says Chu. An initial cut of the sequence with stock footage tested well but didn’t exactly click, which convinced the studio to expand the budget for these specific shots. “The people here work hard for their families and their community — they’re the magic of this place,” says Chu.
Nevertheless, Chu loves the fact that both “In the Heights” and “West Side Story,” two movie musicals with Latino characters, are being released in the same year. “The rivalry thing is fun — not that there’s a rivalry, he’s Steven Spielberg! — but it evokes the conversation of, why does there only have to be one? Why doThroughout “In the Heights,” Jon M. Chu intercuts more fantastical sequences with vignettes of neighborhood life.
While he plans to highlight “Wicked’s” dominant themes of “being othered” and “female friendship, specifically,” he also sees the long-gestating project as an opportunity to meet the moment. “Right now, our definitions of history are changing — we’re in a very important moment about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Chu explains.
“Now that bubble is bursting all around us, which can be seen as a scary, scary thing,” he continues. “You can feel sorrow for the things that are going away, you can feel anger for the things that have happened, you can feel vengeance for the things you want justice for. Sometimes violence occurs — good or bad, it happens.
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