The Red Shoes (1948 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Red Shoes is a 1948 British drama film written, directed, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and starring, in the same order as the movie's opening credits, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring and Moira Shearer. It follows the beautiful Victoria Page, played by Moira Shearer, the ballerina who joins the world renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov, played by Anton Walbrook, who ultimately tests her dedication to the ballet, when she must choose between her career and a romance with composer Julian Craster, played by Marius Goring. It marked the feature film debut of Shearer, an established ballerina, and also features Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine, and Ludmilla Tchérina, other renowned dancers from the ballet world. The plot is based on the 1845 eponymous fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, and features a ballet within it by the same title, also adapted from the Andersen work.
The Red Shoes was filmmaking team Powell and Pressburger's tenth collaboration and followup to 1947's Black Narcissus. It had originally been conceived by Powell and producer Alexander Korda in the 1930s, from whom the duo purchased the rights in 1946. The majority of the cast were professional dancers. Filming of The Red Shoes took place in mid-1946, primarily in France and England.
Upon release, The Red Shoes received critical acclaim, especially in the United States, where it received a total of five Academy Award nominations, including a win for Best Original Score and Best Art Direction. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, and was named one of the Top 10 Films of the Year by the National Board of Review. Despite this, some dance critics gave the film unfavourable reviews as they felt its fantastical, impressionistic centrepiece sequence depicted ballet in an unrealistic manner. The film proved a major financial success, and was the first British film in history to gross over $5 million.
Retrospectively, it is regarded as one of the best films of Powell and Pressburger's partnership, and in 1999, it was voted the 9th greatest British film of all time by the British Film Institute. The film underwent an extensive digital restoration beginning in 2006 at the UCLA Film and Television Archive to correct significant damage to the original negatives. The restored version of the film screened at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and was subsequently issued on Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection. In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 5th best British film ever.
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Plot
At a performance by the Ballet Lermontov at Covent Garden Opera House, music student Julian is in attendance to hear the ballet score Heart of Fire, composed by his teacher, Professor Palmer. Separately present is Victoria 'Vicky' Page, a young, unknown dancer from an aristocratic background, with her aunt, Lady Neston. As Heart of Fire progresses, Julian recognises the music as one of his own compositions. During the performance, Professor Palmer receives an invitation to an after-ballet party at Lady Neston's residence, also asking Boris Lermontov, the company impresario, to attend. Julian leaves the performance in disillusionment at his professor's plagiarism of his music. Lermontov and Vicky meet, and he invites her to a rehearsal of the company.
Julian has written to Lermontov to explain the circumstances behind Heart of Fire, but then tries to retrieve the letter. Lermontov's assistant Dimitri thwarts all attempts by Julian to gain entry to Lermontov's suite, but finally Lermontov gives Julian an audience. Julian says that he wishes to retrieve his letter before Lermontov has seen it, except that Lermontov has already read the letter. Lermontov asks Julian to play one of his own works at the piano. After hearing Julian play, he hires him as a répétiteur for the company orchestra and assistant to the company's conductor, Livingstone Montague (known colloquially to the company as 'Livy'). Lermontov realises that Julian was the true composer of Heart of Fire.
Julian and Vicky arrive for work at the Ballet Lermontov on the same day. Later, Vicky dances with Ballet Rambert in a matinee performance of Swan Lake at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, in a production with a company led by Marie Rambert (who appears in the film as herself in a wordless cameo). Watching this performance, Lermontov realises her potential and invites Vicky to go with Ballet Lermontov to Paris and Monte Carlo. He decides to create a starring role for her in a new ballet, The Ballet of the Red Shoes, for which Julian is to provide the music.
The Ballet of the Red Shoes is a resounding success and Lermontov revitalises the company's repertoire with Vicky in the lead roles and Julian tasked with composing new scores. In the meantime, Vicky and Julian have fallen in love, but keep their relationship secret from Lermontov. Lermontov begins to have personal feelings toward Vicky; he resents the romance between her and Julian after learning of it. The impresario fires Julian; Vicky leaves the company with him. They marry and live in London, where Julian works on composing a new opera.
Some time later whilst travelling, Vicky receives a visit from Lermontov, who convinces her to return to the company to dance a revival of The Ballet of the Red Shoes. On opening night, Julian appears in her dressing room; he has left the première of his opera at Covent Garden to find her and take her back. Lermontov arrives; he and Julian contend for Vicky's affections, each one arguing that her true destiny is with him only. Torn between her love for Julian and her need to dance, she eventually chooses the latter.
Julian, realising that he has lost her, leaves for the railway station; Lermontov consoles Vicky and tries to turn her attention to the evening's performance. Vicky is escorted to the stage wearing the red shoes and, seemingly under their influence, turns and runs from the theatre. Julian, on the platform of the railway station, runs towards her. Vicky leaps from a balcony and falls in front of an approaching train, which hits her. Whether this is suicide or murder (by the red shoes) is left ambiguous. Shortly after, a shaken Lermontov appears before the audience to announce that, "Miss Page is unable to dance tonight—nor indeed any other night". As a mark of respect, the company performs The Ballet of the Red Shoes with a spotlight on the empty space where Vicky would have been. As Vicky bleeds to death on a stretcher, she asks Julian to remove the red shoes, just as the ballet ends.
Cast
In same order as the movie's opening credits: Template:Cast list
Analysis
"Art versus life"
A central theme to The Red Shoes is a performer's conflict between their art and personal life.Template:Sfn Commenting on this theme, Powell himself stated that the film is "about dying for art, that art is worth dying for."Template:Sfn Film scholar Adrienne McLean, however, notes that Victoria's final leap to her death does not adequately represent this idea.Template:Sfn Rather, McLean states that Victoria "seems pushed by those she loves who would rather possess her than support her," and that the film ultimately illustrates the impact of "ruthless personalities" can have on "the weaker or more demure."Template:Sfn
Scholar Peter Fraser, in Cinema Journal, observes of this tension between art and life that the film implodes its own "narrative and lyrical worlds... from the moment of recognition, when Vicky looks down at her red shoes and knows that she is then her lyrical persona, her two worlds collapse."Template:Sfn He further states that the interpenetration of the lyrical upon the narrative "alters the meaning of the fiction" itself.Template:Sfn This blurring of the lyrical and the narrative is represented at the end of the film, when Vicky jumps onto the train platform; she is wearing the red shoes which she wore while preparing in her dressing room, despite the fact that in the performance her character does not put them on until part way through the ballet. Powell and Pressburger themselves discussed this idiosyncrasyTemplate:Sfn and it has been subject to significant critical analysis since.
See also
