'West Side Story': This Is Our Time Exclusive Featurette

Steven Spielberg explains why he directed a new re-imagining of "West Side Story."

Video Transcript

- Walking tall.

- We always walk tall. We're [INAUDIBLE].

- The greatest.

- That's perfect.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

- (SINGING) How to help. Someone gets in our way. Someone don't feel so well.

STEVEN SPIELBERG: So I have been challenged by what would be the right musical to take on, and I could never forget my childhood. I was 10 years old when I first listened to the West Side Story album and it never went away.

- (SINGING) On the whole [INAUDIBLE] mother loving--

STEVEN SPIELBERG: They have been able to fulfill that dream and keep that promise that I made to myself, you must make West Side Story.

Divisions between unlike-minded people is as old as time itself.

[WHISTLES]

[SHOUTING]

And the divisions between the Sharks and the Jets in 1957-- which inspired the musical-- were profound, but not as divided as we find ourselves today.

It turned out in the middle of the development of the script, which took five years, things widened, which I think in a sense sadly made the story of those racial divides, not just territorial divides--

- Kill the lights.

STEVEN SPIELBERG: More relevant to today's audience than perhaps it even was in 1957.

- (SINGING) One of your own kind. Stick to your own kind.

- It's such a profound story. It speaks to every generation.

- You're not Puerto Rican.

- Is that OK? That I'm not?

- I don't know.

STEVEN SPIELBERG: It's just that love bridges every divide. It's timeless in the sense that we'd be reminded of that story as often as possible.