Movies often take viewers behind the scenes to show us how art and entertainment is created. One such film, “The Red Shoes,” Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s hauntingly beautiful examination of the inner workings of an internationally renowned ballet company and the creation of a new ballet, has stood out ever since its release in 1948.
It was a smash hit in the United States, where it ran for 110 straight weeks in New York and Great Britain. The film was nominated for five Oscars, winning for Art Direction and Original Score, and was named by the British Film Institute in 2000 as one of the Top 10 British films of all time.
Always noted for its spectacular Technicolor look, a new, high-definition digital restoration has returned “The Red Shoes” to its original luster, leading director Martin Scorsese to remark that “Our breath was taken away by the richness of the color which was still there 60 years later.”
Scorsese discusses the restoration process and contributes to the audio commentary on wonderful new DVD and Blu-ray editions of “The Red Shoes” released this week by the Criterion Collection ($39.95 for each version, not rated).
The filmmaking team of Powell and Pressburger adapted a rather dark Hans Christian Andersen story about a dancer whose magical red shoes cause her to keep dancing until she dies.
The story revolves around a ballet impresario, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and the world-renowned ballet company he runs. A keen eye for talent and a believer that art should dominate all other aspects of life, he adds a young dancer named Victoria Page (played by the real-life 21-year-old ballet star Moira Shearer, who had been dancing with Britain’s Sadler-Wells troupe) and a young composer named Julian Craster (Marius Goring) to his company.
The life-vs.-art theme develops as dancer and composer fall in love, and the impresario tries to stop their new relationship from interfering with their work. Adding striking authenticity to the performances are real-life ballet stars Robert Helpmann, Leonide Massine and Ludmilla Tcherina.
Lermontov and his associates create a new, 15-minute ballet, “The Red Shoes,” that stars Page and is performed to the music of Craster.
The filming of the performance (choreographed by Helpmann) in its entirety director Powell pulls out every cinematic trick at his disposal to create a dazzling visual spectacle.
Shearer is exceptional throughout in a performance that has been raved about for decades. She’s a gifted dancer and natural actress whose flaming red hair, so beautifully photographed by cinematographer Jack Cardiff, lights up every scene she’s in.
In the audio commentary by film historian Ian Christie, featuring interviews with Scorsese, Shearer, Goring, Cardiff and Oscar-winning composer Brian Easdale,
A 2009 interview with Powell’s widow, Thelma Schoonmaker Powell (herself a three-time Oscar-winning editor who worked on Scorsese’s “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “The Aviator” and “The Departed,” and other films) discusses her husband’s work and the restoration of “The Red Shoes.”
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