The Red Shoes (film)
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The Red Shoes (1948) is a feature film by the British-based director-writer team of Powell and Pressburger (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger).
Plot
The inventive, self-referential plot of this film tells the story of a young ballerina who joins an established ballet company and becomes the lead dancer in a ballet called The Red Shoes, based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen about a woman who cannot stop dancing. The film stars Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring and Moira Shearer. It was adapted by Powell and Pressburger, with additional dialogue by Keith Winter and (uncredited) Marius Goring.The script by Pressburger was originally written for Alexander Korda as a vehicle for Korda's future wife Merle Oberon. After some years had passed with no film having been made, Powell and Pressburger bought the script back, rewrote it to make it a more heavyweight affair and include more dancing, and made it themselves.
The plot revolves around Victoria (Vicky) Page (played by Shearer), a young dancer from an aristocratic background. At an after-ballet party, originally staged to provide a means for her to audition for him, she meets Boris Lermontov (Walbrook), the single-minded, ruthless but charismatic manager of the Ballet Lermontov, who recruits her as a student, where she is taught by, amongst others, Grisha Lubov (Massine).
After seeing her perform in a matinee performance of Swan LakeThis was at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill. It doesn't look much but was one of the major venues for ballet just after the war, Lermontov realises her potential and invites her to go with the company to Paris and Monte Carlo. Lermontov has lost his prima ballerina to marriage and intends to create a title role for Vicky in a new ballet, The Red Shoes. The music is to be written by Julian Craster (Goring) a brilliant young composer engaged as orchestral coach the same day that Vicky was brought into the company.
As the premiere of the ballet approaches, Vicky and Julian fall in love. The ballet is a success, but only before a small and limited audience. When Lermontov learns of their affair, he is furious at Julian for taking Vicky away from dancing. Lermontov had once pronounced backstage that "a dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love will never be a great dancer"—and Vicky had overheard him. Julian refuses to give up Vicky and is sacked by Lermontov, and she decides to leave with Julian. They marry, and Lermontov relents on a decision to enforce her contract with the ballet. He permits Vicky to dance where she pleases, but he forbids her to dance The Red Shoes and keeps all the music Julian wrote for him as his own property, convinced that the young composer will amount to nothing on his own.
Some time later, while joining her aunt for a vacation in Monte Carlo, Vicky is visited by Lermontov on the train. He convinces her to dance in a revival of The Red Shoes, which he had removed from his company's repertoire after the couple left. As she is preparing for the opening night, Julian leaves the premiere of his first opera at Covent Garden and appears in Vicky's dressing room at Monte Carlo. He demands that she leave with him. Torn between her love for Julian and her love of ballet, she remains reluctantly to perform the ballet while Craster leaves for the railway station. Lermontov assures her that her sorrow will pass and that "life is unimportant".
While being escorted to the stage by her dresser and wearing the red shoes, Vicky suddenly runs out of the theatre. Julian sees her running and runs helplessly towards her. She seems to leap—from the same balcony where she and Julian first felt feelings for each other—falling in front of the train that is coming into the station where Julian is waiting. While lying on a stretcher, bleeding, Vicky asks Julian to remove the red shoes—just as in the finale of the ballet.
Heartbroken Lermontov announces that Miss Page will not be able to perform "this or any other night" and says that the company will perform The Red Shoes, with a spotlight on the empty space that Vicky would have occupied.
Production
To create such a realistic idea of a ballet company at work and to be able to include a fifteen minute ballet as the high point of the film, Powell and Pressburger decided to create a ballet company of over 50 dancers. They decided early on that they had to use dancers who could act rather than actors who could dance a bit.The principal dancers were Robert Helpmann (who also choreographed the main ballet), Léonide Massine, Ludmilla Tchérina and Moira Shearer.
Subsequent history
It was liked by those of the British public who saw it . However, the film did not make much money at first in the UK, because the Rank Organisation could not afford to spend much on promotion due to severe financial problems exacerbated by the expense of Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). The financial directors also did not understand the artistic merits of the film.When it was released in the USA, it was only after an independent US distributor showed it for a 110-week run in The Bijou, an off-Broadway theater. The success of this run showed Universal Studios that it was a worthwhile film after all. Universal took over the US distribution in 1951. Since then it has continued to be one of the highest earning British films of all time.
Brian Easdale's score won an Oscar for "Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" in 1948. The film also won an Oscar for "Best Art Direction-Set Decoration" for Hein Heckroth and Arthur Lawson (designer). It was also nominated in the categories "Best Picture" (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger), "Best Writing, Motion Picture Story" (Emeric Pressburger) and "Best Film Editing" (Reginald Mills)
When it was first previewed, a lot of ballet critics in the UK and in the USA wrote very good reviews about it, pleased to see ballet portrayed so well on screen. But when they realised that it was universally popular, their reviews suddenly became quite dismissive of the film.
The Red Shoes led to quite a few other films being able to treat ballet and dance seriously. It was only after he made the studio executives watch The Red Shoes a few times that Gene Kelly was able to include ballet in An American in Paris.
The Red Shoes is also arguably the most famous work done by Powell and Pressburger and is considered one of their great works as well as a classic of British cinema. The film is particularly known for its dazzling almost breathtaking cinematography. In an audio commentary track for The Criterion Collection DVD, Martin Scorsese who has long championed their works considers this along with Jean Renoir's The River as the most beautiful film ever shot on colour.
Other media
Song and album
There is also a song and an album called The Red Shoes by Kate Bush, inspired by this film. The music from that album was subsequently used in a film The Line, the Cross and the Curve (1993) made by Kate Bush , starring Miranda Richardson and Lindsay Kemp. It references the 1948 film.Musical theatre
There was also a Broadway musical The Red Shoes by Jule Styne. It was shown at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City.Steve Barton played the role of the ballet impresario Boris Lermontov. Margaret Illmann played the role of Victoria Page. The choreography was given the Astaire Award of the Theatre Development Fund. The premiere was on December 16, 1993. The musical, after 51 previews, closed after only five performances.
References
External links
- [The Red Shoes] at screenonline
- [Reviews and articles] at the [Powell & Pressburger Pages]
- [Ian Christie essay on criterionco.com]
- [George Chabot's Film Review]
- [Trailer] at Virgin.net
| Powell and Pressburger The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger |
|---|---|
| 1930s | The Spy in Black | The Lion Has Wings |
| 1940s | Contraband | An Airman's Letter to His Mother | Forty-Ninth Parallel | One of Our Aircraft is Missing | The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | The Volunteer | A Canterbury Tale | I Know Where I'm Going! | A Matter of Life and Death | Black Narcissus | The Red Shoes | The Small Back Room |
| 1950s | The Elusive Pimpernel | Gone to Earth | The Tales of Hoffmann | ''Oh... Rosalinda
|
| 1960s | Peeping Tom (not Pressburger) | They're a Weird Mob | Age of Consent |
| 1970s | The Boy Who Turned Yellow |
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