Classic Movie Review: The Red Shoes
By Josh Spiegel
July 19, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Until Toy Story 3 was released on June 18th, my favorite movie of the year was Shutter Island (and it’ll likely find a place in my top ten if the year continues on as disappointingly), a feast for the senses from the best working director, Martin Scorsese. Where some find a pointless and predictable exercise in style, I found a probing and tragic character study filled to the brim with as many flourishes as could be thrown into a 140-minute film. Scorsese, even in his more universally successful films, is more than willing to acknowledge his influences. In Shutter Island, Scorsese calls back to directors such as Val Lewton in evoking the horror and insanity created by the oppressive atmosphere on the titular isle. But one of the biggest influences in Scorsese’s entire career shows up quickly, and will go unnoticed by all but the most eagle-eyed film buff.
Without giving away any spoilers, there is a crucial scene near the end of the film where the main character, portrayed masterfully by Leonardo DiCaprio, runs to the top of a lighthouse, hoping to find answers to the various mysteries he’s encountered on Shutter Island. DiCaprio’s character is already very frayed at the edges, his mind pushed to its breaking point, so he’s turned almost feral, brandishing a rifle, ready to streak at anyone. He dashes up the stairs, and the camera focuses tightly on, of all things, his shoes. What’s Martin Scorsese playing at here? He’s doing what he always does, which is pay tribute to his mentor in the best way he knows how. The mentor is the late Michael Powell, a director previously highlighted in this column with films such as A Matter of Life and Death, and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
This time, let’s talk about The Red Shoes, a 1948 drama all about ballet. Don’t run away, reader. I’m no fan of ballet, but sometimes an art form can transcend its clichés to become something deeper, something more powerful, something moving to any of us. The Red Shoes is the movie that features a famous close-up of a woman running down an endless flight of stairs, the camera close in on the titular shoes; this is the visual reference Scorsese uses in Shutter Island. Though the movie is set in the world of ballet, what The Red Shoes is truly about is the coming together of a community of artists. We may watch ballet and be bored by it, but there is undeniable skill and talent involved in making a ballet come to life. One of the pleasures of watching The Red Shoes is that we see that process, and in the most entertaining way possible.
Part of the reason I wanted to highlight The Red Shoes today, aside from the fact that it is a truly amazing film, is because it’s finally getting a US release on Blu-ray. If documentaries like Planet Earth and movies like Cars are great examples of why you should get HDTVs, then The Red Shoes is a great example of why Technicolor is the most ignored yet important technology any filmmaker can use. The movie is released on Tuesday, July 20th, and you need to go to your Best Buy or head to Amazon and buy this movie. I’m not usually the type of person who would endorse purchasing movies sight unseen (I’ve only done it a few times, and have had a spotty record), but some movies deserve such consumerism. The Red Shoes is a perfect example.
Powell and Emeric Pressburger, as I’ve said in previous columns, made up the filmmaking duo of The Archers. Though most people these days are unfamiliar with their work, in the 1940s, they were as prolific, dazzling, and entertaining as directors like Christopher Nolan are today. The 1940s, with films such as A Canterbury Tale, A Matter of Life and Death, and The Small Back Room, was the decade of The Archers. The Red Shoes, to many people, is the highest peak they ever reached, managing to fully realize the mixing of story and sound, transcending mere dialogue. The set piece the film is known for comes near the end, with the main character, Vicky, dances the ballet of The Red Shoes, based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen. With fluid movement and impossible-to-detect tonal shifts, Powell and Pressburger make the ballet as real as the film surrounding it.
Vicky is a budding talent in the world of ballet as the film begins. She wants to dance in the ballet company run by the great Boris Lermontov, a shrewd, fiercely devoted artist who demands the utmost dedication from his dancers. Lermontov is impressed by Vicky’s determination, talent, and focus, and invites her to join his company. Once there, Vicky is pleasantly overwhelmed by the people she’s joining, prickly and creative people who welcome her into the club. When the prima ballerina leaves to get married - something Lermontov can’t fathom - Vicky becomes the new lead. Lermontov, with the help of his new playwright, Julian Craster, creates a new ballet from The Red Shoes for Vicky to star in. When Vicky and Craster begin to fall in love, Lermontov, who wants to ignore human nature in favor of the art form he works in, lashes back.
The Red Shoes succeeds as a film about ballet because it’s a film about creating art. No matter what my opinion, ballet is art. It’s not just a question of the people on stage being able to do something I can’t (but, boy, is that true), it’s a question of making something to excite and inflame the imagination. Is art possible without full dedication? Should we pretend not to have human desires to succeed at what we do? Is it possible to do both? There’s no way to ignore the parallels between Lermontov and Powell, known as an equally dedicated director who could be known to alienate when working on the maximum best for any movie. Could Vicky be a representation of the other actors and actresses he’d worked with who didn’t give what he thought was their best? Speculate away, but the connections are there.
The central, titular ballet, which manages to be about Vicky’s struggles between art and love, and also be an accurate adaptation of the Andersen story, works so well because it starts on a stage and then Powell and Pressburger blend the reality of the story with the theatricality in one fell swoop. The stage disappears, the sets become real, and the red shoes - which, in the story’s plot, force the main character to dance literally until she dies - become more than a prop. Once the actual ballet is over, the story continues, and Vicky ends up living the story of the shoes; it’s a major flight into tragic fancy for the filmmakers, but as vital today as they believed it was during the film’s making. Just as the set piece blends the reality of the story with the music, so does the ending make us question how much of what we saw was meant to feel real.
The film is rightly praised for its sparkling use of Technicolor, thanks to famed Archers cinematographer Jack Cardiff. The Blu-ray release (which I’ve not seen, unfortunately, but will vouch for anyway - it’s from Criterion, so it’s hard to imagine they’d screw things up) should likely make the already-bright colors pop out of the screen, blinding you with their dazzling power. The reds are redder, greens greener, and so forth. Such love and care is put into the technical aspects of the film that you’d almost wonder how the actors and script play. As Vicky, Moira Shearer is a dream and revelation, the dancer whose acting skills are the opposite of flat; Shearer is charming, prickly, and as driven a performer as you’ve seen. There’s no doubt she’s bringing her life to the character, but that’s the best kind of informed performing.
She’s matched by two dynamic, different actors: Anton Walbrook (from the great Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and La Ronde) as Lermontov, and Marius Goring as Julian Craster. Walbrook is charming, charismatic, and icy in the same breath, always luring the audience in and simultaneously making them back off just a bit. There’s no doubt to why everyone is so drawn to Lermontov; who wouldn’t be? Goring is less assertive, but so is Craster. Craster is a gifted conductor, but he’s also able to distance himself from the art of ballet, enough to desire a life to live outside the theatre. Goring is, in some ways, an audience surrogate in the beginning, as we watch him breathlessly take to the theatre to watch a new ballet, but in a realistic enough way for those audience members not enamored with the art to be sucked in.
What The Archers excelled at is creating worlds that are believable and livable, and worlds we don’t want to leave. When Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger present us with a creative community of dancers, choreographers, conductors, producers, and so forth, it may not be as sumptuous as James Cameron’s Pandora, but what they lacked for in budgets, the Archers made up for in desirability. I want to dine with these people in their twilit restaurants. I want to watch them create works of beauty. I want to go to their parties, meet their friends, and learn about them. The Red Shoes belongs to that rare class of films, where the movie works on so many levels, whether analyzing the academic nature of the story or basking in the glow of the colors jumping out at you, that you are thrilled at what magic can be created on strips of film.