December 21, 2009
Lermontov: Why do you want to dance?
Vicky Page: Why do you want to live?
Lermontov: I don't know exactly why, but.. I must.
Vicky Page: That's my answer too.
Here is the key exchange at the heart of Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes. The ballet impresario Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), as ruthless in business as he is passionate about dance, seeks to casully put down ingenue amateur dancer Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) who instead bests him in argument as she turns out to be as dedicated to art as is he. The makers of The Red Shoes make a statement for the importance of dance, for their own medium of film and for all the arts, that had immediate meaning in a post-war Britain of austerity and rationing, but also one that still resonates 60 years later as a counterblast to utilitarianism.
"The Ballet of The Red Shoes" is from a fairy tale by Hans Andersen; the story of a girl devoured with an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of Red Shoes. For a time, all goes well, but when weary and wanting to go home, she discovers the Red Shoes are not tired - in fact never tired, and she becomes their slave until the only release is death.
This ballet, commissioned and staged by Lermontov for his company's winter season in Monte Carlo, forms the thrilling centrepiece of the film whose story follows Victoria Page's rise to stardom and her subsequent battle between the competing forces of love, in the form of Lermontov's young musical director (Marius Goring) on the one hand, and of striving for perfection in her art on the other. This 2-way battle is deepened by hints that Lermontov's ambition for his principal ballerina is complicated by his sexual jealousy of Goring. The stark choice that he places before Victoria, of dedication to her career or domestic insignificance, turns out to be made by a man with his own hidden motive.
This is a melodrama, and at the end the melodrama reaches a high pitch, but complaints on that score are rendered insignificant by the sheer flair and beauty with which the film is made. In this new print restoration, partly funded by Martin Scorsese of all people (the film is one of his favourites), one does not know what to praise most. The inventive direction, the sharp script, the photography by Jack Cardiff who employs a constantly moving camera, the glorious set designs, the mesmerising staging of the ballet in a bravura 15 mins sequence, the acting of Anton Walbrook, magisterial, cruel but ultimately vulnerable, or the freshness and poise of Moira Shearer in her first film - and all presented in ravishing Technicolor.
This is possibly the greatest ever British-made film, and by any standards a masterpiece of the cinema.
Vicky Page: Why do you want to live?
Lermontov: I don't know exactly why, but.. I must.
Vicky Page: That's my answer too.
Here is the key exchange at the heart of Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger's 1948 film The Red Shoes. The ballet impresario Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), as ruthless in business as he is passionate about dance, seeks to casully put down ingenue amateur dancer Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) who instead bests him in argument as she turns out to be as dedicated to art as is he. The makers of The Red Shoes make a statement for the importance of dance, for their own medium of film and for all the arts, that had immediate meaning in a post-war Britain of austerity and rationing, but also one that still resonates 60 years later as a counterblast to utilitarianism.
"The Ballet of The Red Shoes" is from a fairy tale by Hans Andersen; the story of a girl devoured with an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of Red Shoes. For a time, all goes well, but when weary and wanting to go home, she discovers the Red Shoes are not tired - in fact never tired, and she becomes their slave until the only release is death.
This ballet, commissioned and staged by Lermontov for his company's winter season in Monte Carlo, forms the thrilling centrepiece of the film whose story follows Victoria Page's rise to stardom and her subsequent battle between the competing forces of love, in the form of Lermontov's young musical director (Marius Goring) on the one hand, and of striving for perfection in her art on the other. This 2-way battle is deepened by hints that Lermontov's ambition for his principal ballerina is complicated by his sexual jealousy of Goring. The stark choice that he places before Victoria, of dedication to her career or domestic insignificance, turns out to be made by a man with his own hidden motive.
This is a melodrama, and at the end the melodrama reaches a high pitch, but complaints on that score are rendered insignificant by the sheer flair and beauty with which the film is made. In this new print restoration, partly funded by Martin Scorsese of all people (the film is one of his favourites), one does not know what to praise most. The inventive direction, the sharp script, the photography by Jack Cardiff who employs a constantly moving camera, the glorious set designs, the mesmerising staging of the ballet in a bravura 15 mins sequence, the acting of Anton Walbrook, magisterial, cruel but ultimately vulnerable, or the freshness and poise of Moira Shearer in her first film - and all presented in ravishing Technicolor.
This is possibly the greatest ever British-made film, and by any standards a masterpiece of the cinema.