Substratum Cinema Revisited #2
“Dance she did, and dance she must – between her two loves” goes the motto of The Red Shoes (1948). British directors’ Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (a.k.a The Archers) most commercially successful film is engaging due as much to its luscious techicolour visuals as well as its leading triumvirate of characters.
As opposed to the usual tradition, ballet dancer Victoria Page’s (Moira Shearer) two loves are not the two men in her life, but rather the choice between one man she loves, budding composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring), and her career as a world class dancer under the tutelage of director Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook). As a hard-lined perfectionist, Lermontov refuses to allow his lead dancer’s to become infatuated with anything else but their art: ballet. The Red Shoes manages to expertly balance the three characters on screen. Both Victoria and Julian are mere beginners in their fields at the start, proving their skills at ballet and composing in Lermontov’s eyes. And while it is these three characters that share center stage, it is ultimately Lermontov who is the most intriguing character. The love triangle between Victoria, Julian and ballet is the flashpoint, and Lermontov thinks himself the proud (too proud) master of their fates.
The direction the drama takes is uncharacteristically unpredictable for a dance film, taking a page or two from Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina near its finale. Victoria is torn between two worlds, a choice imposed on her by men – a ‘choice ‘that for a modern audience is ridiculous. A modern woman would well take both paths rather than have to choose only one. But this is 1948. Most intriguing is how the ballet adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale of The Red Shoes mimics the real life drama. In one long sequence halfway through the film, The Red Shoes is put on stage. This fifteen to twenty minutes of ballet is perhaps the most exquisite and beautiful to be filmed on celluloid. What begins as a static shot of the stage, soon closes in on the characters. As the ballet progresses, it becomes clear that it is no longer a probable on-stage performance, but instead melds into fantasy as only film could achieve. In one particular scene, Victoria dances with a newspaper come to life (pictured above), and in another she is free-falling into a world of blues, purples and greens.
Martin Scorsese chose The Red Shoes at this year’s Cannes to re-introduce in a re-mastered form, calling it one of the two most beautiful colour films in existence. I would be hard-pressed to find another film from the period that manages to astound as these few minutes of ballet. Outside of this sequence is an engaging story with great performances: notable among them is Anton Walbrook as Lermontov. Walbrook is a sort of European chameleon, playing a Russian who can speak French here, and a German officer in an early film by the Archers, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Between his fiery eyes and Moira Shearer’s fabulous dancing legs, The Red Shoes is a marvel to watch.
Classic Recommendations | 
June 14, 2009
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