44 The Red Shoes

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Damn, now I'm afraid to ask how the restored film looked. The recollection of its grandeur might kill him if this valentine is any indication! Thanks for sharing your appreciation here, HS.

[HerrSchreck]

Schreck, it sounds like you've embarked on the beginning of a life long love affair. This is a movie you genuinely will live with. So much to say about it, but among other things the amazing circularity of influences to and from Powell which float around, like the Expresssionists roots of his early days with Ingram, not only in the ballet but tellingly in the late domestic, post-marriage scene - miraculous mise en scene in which both Vicki and Craster are compelled to creep out of each others company and back into thier private worlds of art. The travellings and lighting in this sequence are breathtakingly stunning. As for the ballet itself, what a debt Powell owed to Helpmann - a generally ignored, even disliked figure in the movie business. His own choroegaphy for the ballet is completely at one with Powell's world within a world conception, and - whether Powell or Helpmann or Junge - how about the central netherworld sequnece with Vicki eemerging from a wall into the land of the dead - hello Cocteau two years later! The circularity here is the clear influence MInelli must have had on Powell with his short/extended dance scenes in Ziegfeld Follies (particularly Limehouse Blues) and the Pirate, the the outrageously brilliant extension Powell applied to through composed dramatic dance which, in turn Minelli and Kelly re-iterate (to almost the exact same length) in the American in Paris ballet.

Perhaps you can see why I named our last furry family member Boris - after the sublime Walbrook. His perf here is only rivalled by his General in Blimp, and Max's staggeringly beautiful La Ronde - but with even more of Anton in the long (non Marcel approved) cut.

Beginning of a love affair? O how fortunate I would have been to have seen it in that premiere quality on the big screen for my very first viewing. I was smitten by the film for the first time when I was just a boy-- I caught it a few minutes into the beginning and never knew what the title was for years since there was no TV Guide laying around that week and it was on PBS. Like Last Metro it was another of those films that I asked everyone about "It's old and it features a lot of RED..." But as for Shoes I'd easily seen it ten or fifteen times prior to this screening, which was my first viewing on the big screen.

Love your brief description of the scene w Vicky & Craster slithering out of bed beyond the midnight hour to-- dare we call it-- "cheat" w their art. It has the air of infidelity to it, subtext bursting at the seams with a creeping mise en scene and dim lighting that certainly encourages the sense of emotional suspense. Flawlessly executed.

Jean Luc, the films image was fabulous-- I was noting privately to Morgan Creek that there is a scene that always sticks out for me and others, especially when viewed on the CC: the birthday party for Ljubov, where Lermontov first discovers the budding romance between Craster & Vicky. That scene was shot at nightttime w far less lighting than 99.99 of the rest of the film, which was shot either outdoors during the day (and with reflectors AND lights) or during a fully controlled indoor studio environment... and so one can see via the change in grain structure that a far faster film stock was used here. Folks tend to note the change and ask about it, i e 'Something feels different..", but in this restoration the film fit seamlessly fore and aft. The look and feel of 3 strip technicolor was fully maintained (and the dye transfer process was used for the prints) while still managing to pull the best of the corrective utilities that digital makes available to the restoration team.

And, to whet your whistles... according to Thelma and Marty-- Blimp is next on deck. (Roars of joy, hats fly into the air en masse.) What a treat that will be!

[Tommaso]

And, to whet your whistles... according to Thelma and Marty-- Blimp is next on deck. (Roars of joy, hats fly into the air en masse.) What a treat that will be!

Oh well...indeed! Great news! Still, am I the only one who would rather have the chance to see "Pimpernel", "Rosalinda" (though it's not really good, I admit) and "Honeymoon" on disc first? Not to speak of "Bluebeard", of course, though apparently there are rights issues on this one.

how about the central netherworld sequnece with Vicki eemerging from a wall into the land of the dead - hello Cocteau two years later! The circularity here is the clear influence MInelli must have had on Powell with his short/extended dance scenes in Ziegfeld Follies (particularly Limehouse Blues) and the Pirate

This is exactly what I was thinking when I rewatched the best moments of "Ziegfeld" some time ago (I really can't stand to watch it as a whole due to the jarring 'spoken comedy' bits, I'm afraid). Apart from 'Limehouse Blues', I was especially thinking of 'This heart of mine' with regard to a Powellian connection, though I can't tell you exactly why in particular. It must have had to do with the complete effortlessness, the elegance and style not only of the dance, but also of the sets and colours. Similar to the "Red Shoes"-ballet, this is one of the few dance sequences that constantly bring tears of joy to my eyes for its sheer beauty. Surely one of Fred's most sublime moments (along with 'Dancing in the dark' a few years later).

I'm not fully sure on the other hand whether Cocteau knew "The Red Shoes" though, given that the film wasn't very successful initially and only got its world-wide fame some two years later when it became popular in the US. At that time, "Orphée" had already been filmed, of course. However, the Monte Carlo staircase in "The Red Shoes" obviously references "La belle et la bete", as do the wind-blown curtains in "Black Narcissus". But Powell was always very good in incorporating other directors' visual ideas into his own work (think of some of the Veidt scenes in "Thief") without ever seeming derivative. Perhaps it all comes down to Powell, Minelli, and Cocteau being very kindred spirits at heart, and them coming up with similar solutions to similar artistic and spiritual problems. After all, what connects them is that they put their art (or art in general) at the very centre of their work and thinking.

[Morgan Creek]

I'll add my praise for the restoration to Herr S's - truly one of the memorable filmgoing experiences of my life, and I knew we were in for something special when, during the demo beforehand, the audience literally gasped at a before/after clip from Lady Neston's post-theater party. What struck me even more than the predictably brilliant work on the richly colored material was how exquisitely the darker scenes - Lermontov alone in his office, or in his hotel room before the mirror-smashing; the carriage ride along the corniche; the aforementioned bedroom sequence - were now rendered. Both the cool silver-blue and the warmer amber light had a velvety quality that was ravishing.

[Tribe]

La Manohla speaks on The Red Shoes:

A Tragic Ballerina Dances Again, Her Shoes Now Redder Than Ever
By MANOHLA DARGIS

“Why do you want to dance?” barks the imperious ballet impresario Boris Lermontov in “The Red Shoes,” the 1948 masterpiece from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

“Why do you want to live?” answers the young ballerina, Victoria Page, her face pale and pure as cream. It’s a mad, beautiful line, yet she utters it so easily, without apparent effort or guile, that you know that she means it and that you’re meant to believe it too. She dances because she must, because there is no choice. She dances until the sweat beads on her brow, and the abyss opens. Mostly, she dances because she is a flame for art, blazing bright until she is snuffed out.

Widely deemed the most famous ballet film ever made, “The Red Shoes,” directed by Powell and written by Pressburger (officially sharing the credits), has been the inspiration for countless bleeding feet and soaring artistic passions since its release. It is likely to seduce yet new generations of seekers and true believers, some of whom will doubtless be practicing demi-pliés on the ticket line when the movie — recently restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with help from Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation and several other groups — opens at Film Forum on Friday for a two-week run. This is essential viewing because even if you think you have seen the movie before its restoration, if you’re under 60, you probably haven’t seen it anywhere near its original Technicolor glory.

This born-again version of “The Red Shoes,” digitally resuscitated from battered prints and negatives, should surprise even those who have watched the fine Criterion DVD. A film like few others, made like few others — the Powell and Pressburger partnership remains sui generis — it reaches high and strikes its mark, at times improbably. It’s an insistently designed work of non-naturalism, daubed with startling, unreal, gaudy colors that seem to have been created to blast away the last traces of wartime drear. The colors in “The Red Shoes” don’t just exist, they also express. “Color and I are one,” the painter Paul Klee said. When watching “The Red Shoes,” it’s easy to imagine Powell saying the same. Instead, he said, “I am cinema.”

Loosely taken from the macabre Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Red Shoes” follows Vicky (Moira Shearer, a real ballerina, making her film debut) from her first determined steps in the corps to stardom in Lermontov’s company. Partly based on the impresario of the Ballets Russes, Serge Diaghilev — with some Powell thrown in — and played with mesmerizing ferocity by the Viennese-born actor Anton Walbrook, Lermontov drives Vicky toward perfection, insisting that she sacrifice everything for art, even her heart. But she falls in love with Julian Craster (Marius Goring), the composer of the work that makes her a star, succumbing to him as she rehearses the ballet. Enraged by her supposed betrayal, Lermontov fires Julian, and Vicky quits, only to later and fatally return.

Vicky is caught between Julian, the selfish lover who wants her only for himself, and Lermontov, whose obsession with her appears to transcend the sexual, suggesting a kind of demonic possession. A suave number partial to sunglasses, Lermontov appears several times in and on trains belching clouds of smoke, an evocation of Vicky’s catastrophic final leap. (According to Powell, Ms. Shearer leapt without a double, landing on a mattress.) Until then, Vicky spins and spins and spins, her vertiginous journey visually echoed in the images of fans and a rotating record and, in one astonishing scene, a seemingly endless spiral staircase on which she flees the theater and its fantasies to head into the hard light of the real world.

“The ballet of ‘The Red Shoes,’ ” Lermontov explains to Julian early in the film, “is the story of a young girl who is devoured by an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of red shoes. She gets the shoes, goes to the dance. And first all goes well, and she’s very happy.” She tires, but: “The red shoes are never tired. They dance her out into the streets, they dance her over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forest, through night and day. Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the red shoes dance on.” Then what happens? Julian asks, not realizing that he’s asking for the end of his own story.

“Oh,” Lermontov says with a small wave of the hand. “In the end she dies.”

This is about as much exposition as Pressburger provides in a screenplay that, while richly embroidered with memorable, quotable lines (“Not even the best magician in the world can produce a rabbit out of a hat if there is not already a rabbit in the hat”), is a vehicle for cinema, not speeches. Indeed, several nondance scenes unfold without a word, as does the spectacular 15-minute ballet centerpiece. (The choreographer Robert Helpmann dances the part of the boy, while Léonide Massine, a Diaghilev protégé, makes a dazzling and suitably devilish cobbler.) Somewhat reminiscent of Busby Berkeley’s more fantastic dance numbers, the ballet doesn’t take place on a conventional, constricted stage, for the viewing pleasure of a clapping audience, but in a purely cinematic realm, complete with trick photography.

In this strange and violent dance, the theater’s walls melt away, and the barriers between Vicky and her character, between art and life, at which Lermontov has been steadily pounding, give way. That life and art are finally inseparable is a theme of the story, or perhaps its lesson. This refusal of barriers extends to the filmmaking itself, which draws on other arts — literature, painting, dance and music — and recombines them into cinema. That synthesis, in turn, is mirrored by the creative partnership of the two filmmakers, who, calling themselves the Archers, usually shared the credit “written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger,” an acknowledgment of the intimacy of their collaboration and shared vision.

A box office disappointment in Britain, where it was indifferently released by the producer J. Arthur Rank, “The Red Shoes” was a smash elsewhere, playing for two years in Manhattan. Not long ago I met a woman who said she watched it every week for a year when it opened in Los Angeles. She went on to dance with Arthur Freed’s unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, home to some of the most glorious film musicals not made by Powell and Pressburger. In his autobiography Powell writes that Gene Kelly repeatedly showed “The Red Shoes” to MGM executives before getting permission to make Vincente Minnelli’s “American in Paris” — an influence most evident in the long ballet Kelly dances in that film. Time rushes by. The red shoes dance on.

[Feego]

There's a brief mention of the theatrical release on Criterion's home page. Is there any definite indication that Criterion will eventually release this on Blu?

[swo17]

They have hinted on Facebook that this will be coming at some point.

[jbeall]

Maureen Dowd, of all people, on The Red Shoes.

[HerrSchreck]

Reading that Dowd, and having listened to the CC commentary the other day, I always get a little weirded out reading about Shearer's seemingly ongoing poo-pooing of the film til her death-- could she truly not see what she was blessed to be a part of? You'd think she was pulled into a cheap western or something, not a film that essentially showcased and popularized her for exactly what she was and what she did... even elevated her a little bit as it made her out to be, in the film's troupe--something she was not in Sadler's Wells/Royal Ballet-- the reigning ballerina who dazzled the whole world. I'm always a little puzzled-- you'd've thought they put her on a midwestern farm in blue jeans and put strand of hay in her mouth & made her sing Home On The Range, causing her to get calls from producers for the rest of her life asking her to speak in a twang and sing about buffalo and coonskin caps or something.

I could see if she thought the film was a bad piece of art-- but to complain, as a redheaded ballerina, that she was put in a film that made her out to be a great redheaded ballerina that the world adored... and that she was forever associated with a redheaded ballerina that the world adored... it perplexes me just a touch. I can't say I know an awful lot about her beyond her general bio and the more obviously available info, so perhaps there's more to it. It's odd, though, listening to the commentary on the CC (which I don't think I'd even listened to before over all these years owning the damned thing), she doesn't seem to have a single kind word about the film, really.

Incidentally, looking at the CC-- the difference is incredible: it looks like b&w compared to the new resto. And this is coming from a guy who used to think the CC was pure Technicolor heaven.

[Tommaso]

I find Shearer's reaction odd, too. It's true that she faced difficulties when she wanted to return to the 'pure' ballet world after the film, but if that was the reason for her dismissive words, why in God's name would she return to P&P only three years later to make "The Tales of Hofmann"; and then allow herself to be associated with a film like "Peeping Tom" on top of it? And in this respect, she also cannot have been too much irritated by Powell's usual advances towards his leading ladies either. Perhaps it's just that until the end of her life she regretted having flirted with the film world at all, still dreaming of what would have been had she remained an on-stage ballet dancer. But she nevertheless sounds a little ungrateful.

[Sloper]

Didn't someone else on that commentary point out that Michael Powell was pretty unkind to Shearer during the shoot? She obviously felt like a complete fish out of water - I remember that sad story about how she burst into actual tears while shooting the climactic tug-of-war between Kraster and Lermontov, something 'you never do', apparently, and how mortified everyone seemed. It's enough of a nightmare for stage actors to suddenly find themselves performing in disjointed five-second snatches for the camera, and it sounds as though the transition from ballet to cinema is even more difficult - didn't she say they had the wrong type of floor in the studio, or something? And if it's true that she had trouble getting back into 'legitimate' ballet (especially galling since she'd had misgivings about doing the film in the first place), surely the failure of her stage career would in itself would have been a good reason for having another go at film?

I once watched this with a middle-aged woman who's a big fan of ballet (and old films, for that matter) who thought it was a load of rubbish, and singled out the ballet arrangements, and that dress and tiara, for particular scorn. She also thought Moira Shearer's legs were a bit chubby. I just told myself she didn't 'get' it, but to be honest when I'm in the wrong mood even I think this is a really silly film. I know the film is idolised around here, but you have to admit that it takes a certain kind of sensibility, and a certain mood, to be able to see The Red Shoes as something other than high camp.

Shearer didn't strike me as that bitchy in the commentary, just honest about her experience on the film, which is a whole lot more interesting than the fawning and back-slapping you normally hear from cast and crew. 'Oh Mikey was just wonderful...I loved doing this bit...so grateful to have been a part of it...thank you for buying this DVD, etc'. It's telling, and kind of sobering, that people involved in the making of a great work of art sometimes look back on it with more bitterness than anything else. If the whole thing was primarily an unhappy, even humiliating, experience for Shearer, then it's only natural that she should feel narked about this being the 'thing she's remembered for'. From her point of view, the film was just something rather unpleasant and unrewarding she did in 1948, and then had to spend the rest of her life being reminded of while her ballet career went nowhere. And I don't think she generally gets much of the credit for the film's greatness, with so many other geniuses crowding the stage. The Red Shoes is less an exaltation of her than of the skill of P&P, and I get the impression that's very much how you guys see it? So I'm not sure Shearer had that much to be grateful for!

Anyway I think she's brilliant, better than any other cast member (I say that as a big Walbrook fan), and as far as I'm concerned she can be as ungrateful about it as she likes. Or at least, she could if she wasn't dead...

[Tommaso]

And I don't think she generally gets much of the credit for the film's greatness, with so many other geniuses crowding the stage. The Red Shoes is less an exaltation of her than of the skill of P&P, and I get the impression that's very much how you guys see it?

Well, I can only speak for myself here, but I always thought that Shearer is one of the film's greatest attractions, but in the same sense that Maria Casares is for Cocteau's "Orphée". That is, she simply is the ideal person for the role and for the dance, but nevertheless this is not a 'star picture'; Shearer just uncannily fits into the whole of the film in such a way that I cannot imagine any other actress taking her part without significantly changing the whole impact of the film. And I totally agree: she's brilliant and at least the equal of Walbrook, if not more. But although she is not only a great dancer, but also a very good actress, I'd say that it took the sets, the music and Powell's direction to make her shine that much. What perhaps often is too little mentioned is that the film's impact is very much due to the perfect work of all the many people who contributed to it: it's very much a collaborative effort, like the work of the dance troupe it portrays, despite of the looming presences of Lermontov and Powell.

[Tom Amolad]

It's interesting that in Goring's near to next picture, Barefoot Contessa, Mank has him play an artist who's so obsessed with Ava Gardner he kills himself for her.

I've managed never to see The Barefoot Contessa, but Goring must have made a habit of killing himself for Ava Gardner: he did it in an even nearer-to-next picture too.

[Sloper]

Shearer just uncannily fits into the whole of the film in such a way that I cannot imagine any other actress taking her part without significantly changing the whole impact of the film.

Yes, it's one of those great performances that nevertheless leaves you unsurprised that the actor in question didn't have much of a film career besides this - cinema history is littered with examples of that. The Dargis piece quoted above reminded me of that line at the beginning, where she retorts to Lermontov, 'Why do you want to live?' Shearer says it in a very non-actorly way; I tend to feel that most actresses would have put more passion in the line, which would of course have ruined it. Somehow she manages to be like that all the way through, avoiding the clichés you would normally expect in such a role, just playing it very simply and un-fussily. It makes a nice counterpoint to the wide-eyed obsession of Lermontov and the earnest, youthful energy of Craster. And oddly, I think it's the element in the film that always leaves me unconvinced by the ending. This woman just seems far too self-assured and sorted-out compared to the other characters - dancing because it's her vocation, not because she's possessed, whereas Craster and Lermontov seem to create in a sort of mad frenzy - and I just don't feel the ground is properly laid for her climactic leap. In a way I wish they'd ended it with Craster just storming out of the theatre, and Vicki stiffening her upper lip and pirouetting off into the ballet.

The last shot of Walbrook's face in the darkness is one of the most moving images in cinema to me: blank, drained of emotion, reflecting back the death of his creation. It works on so many levels at once, as does the whole fantasy element of the picture, and the narrative and the characteriztions, and the milieu. He flawlessly expresses the paradox of creation and destruction.

That last speech of his, to the dismayed audience, is pretty incredible too. The way he forces the words out in such agony, and then - rather than going out and seeing the real vicki, dying in Craster's arms - just watches the empty space on the stage... It's the foaming-at-the-mouth insanity that comes out in that halting speech, that makes you realise he isn't just some evil, manipulative impresario, but a man bent on creating something perfect, if not in real life then at least in his mind. I love Walbrook's mouth. Anyone can do crazy eyes, but his mouth always seems to have a few flecks of spittle around it, and somehow it helps him to get away with things that would seem excessive in anyone else's hands.

[Agee B]

Yes, it's one of those great performances that nevertheless leaves you unsurprised that the actor in question didn't have much of a film career besides this - cinema history is littered with examples of that. The Dargis piece quoted above reminded me of that line at the beginning, where she retorts to Lermontov, 'Why do you want to live?' Shearer says it in a very non-actorly way; I tend to feel that most actresses would have put more passion in the line, which would of course have ruined it. Somehow she manages to be like that all the way through, avoiding the clichés you would normally expect in such a role, just playing it very simply and un-fussily. It makes a nice counterpoint to the wide-eyed obsession of Lermontov and the earnest, youthful energy of Craster. And oddly, I think it's the element in the film that always leaves me unconvinced by the ending. This woman just seems far too self-assured and sorted-out compared to the other characters - dancing because it's her vocation, not because she's possessed, whereas Craster and Lermontov seem to create in a sort of mad frenzy - and I just don't feel the ground is properly laid for her climactic leap. In a way I wish they'd ended it with Craster just storming out of the theatre, and Vicki stiffening her upper lip and pirouetting off into the ballet.

The major (and, to me, crippling) flaw of the film is the Craster character, as played by Goring. His composer-lover is so--for lack of a better term--nelly that I cannot help but always wonder if the film would work better for me if the film's central triangle had comprised of the Helpmann and Massine characters, with Goring as the sticky point. That the prissy Craster could ever work up enough passion in Shearer (or, really, any hetero woman of driven make) to render her romantically torn (let alone to the point of suicide) when the hot-blooded Walbrook towers from the other end of the balance, is ever too much for me to swallow. (To analogize, it would be as if Gone With the Wind had attempted to sell Howard's Ashleigh Wilkes as a worthy competitor to Gable's Rhett Butler for Scarlett O'Hara's affections, minus all of the complex, maddening, wonderful, contradictory impulses played up in Vivien Leigh's incredible performance.) In this respect, I agree with Ms. Shearer that the film's plot is silly and ridiculous.

Shame. So much of the rest of the film is absolute brilliant genius.

[HerrSchreck]

These complaints indeed remind me of the sniffing of so-called hi-art ballerinas for the lack of realismin the Red SHoes narrative, drippingly reminding all who'll listen that "The world of ballet is nothing like that."

Well, duh. It's Hans Christian Anderson-- and cinema, to boot. The credits make this clear. The first clue that this is not real life is the fact that there are No Bad Guys. That's a big hint right there.

I always doped Craster's lacklustre personality as central to the film-- a personage deliberately muted as Goring's hair was in real life to give room and deference to Shearer's-- as it plays into his fear of losing Vicky to the world of dance, and specifically to Lermontov. This insecurity comes into play during the aforementioned carriage ride, where expresses the deepseated belief that Vicky is his partially as a result of her youth and inexperience. He lives in the world of art and theater almost at the expense of his own personality. He's equally a piece of narrative compositional punctuation-- like guiding the eye thru a frame to the central linchpin of the image in a product advertisement or fine art painting-- as he is a character; certain elements operate simultaenously as signposts as well as individual elements on their own.

I think that Craster's narrative temperature is rendered just right and by men who knew exactly what they were doing-- a narrative with an ensemble cast that has so many extremely colorful and eclectic characters in supporting roles, many of whom are hugely memorable owing to the fact of their mirroring their real life celebrity personages, and with such strong principal characters as Vicky and Lermontov-- and with this gigantic headcount spread against one of the most colorful backdrops of high-volume color and decor in all of filmdom, with dance sequences that are characters unto themselves, the director and writer must be careful, as these various elements modulate in and out and vie for the attention, with the strength of the principal constants that are always onscreen, less it turn into a mush of high volume screaming. I think it's all pretty much pitch perfect.

As for Shearer's claim that she took the part because Valois begged her to "get rid of this terrible man who won't stop bothering us to convince you to do the film," (slight paraphrase), as well as the supposed detrimental effect of the film on SHearer's ballet career, the BBC says (from Shearer's obit):

In 1946, Moira Shearer was just beginning to do the big classics at Covent Garden, in her words, "every classical ballerina's dream".

To concentrate on her stage career, Shearer initially refused the lead role in film director Michael Powell's new movie, The Red Shoes.

After a whole year of resistance, she finally succumbed to Powell's overtures when Ninette de Valois, the founder and head of the Sadlers Wells Ballet, advised her to take the part.

Shearer would not regret her decision. The film, by far the most popular ballet film ever made, made Shearer one of the best known ballerinas in the world.

(...)
She made her debut with the International Ballet in 1941, and joined the Sadlers Wells Ballet School the following year.
In 1946, she not only danced the leads in Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and Coppelia for the first time, but also created one of the roles in Frederick Ashton's masterpiece, Symphonic Variations.

In advising Shearer to take part in her first film, Ninette de Valois was not acting entirely unselfishly. She hoped the movie would be great publicity for her ballet company, which was planning a coast-to-coast tour of the United States.

And so it proved. Shearer was already famous in the States, when she toured the country with the Sadlers Wells Ballet, first in 1949, and then again in 1950. Moira Shearer married journalist and broadcaster Kennedy in 1950, and they had four children. She stayed with the Sadlers Wells Ballet until 1953, when she hung up her ballet shoes, but continued to act.

She was Titania in the Old Vic's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Edinburgh Festival in 1954, and toured as Sally Bowles in I Am a Camera in 1955.

So it doesn't sound like the film proved anything but a boon to her career-- she stayed in the company until she decided to hang up her shoes. IN fact it sounds like, after getting married (and having four children, which would be tough on any ballerina career) with the well-known writer Ludo Kennedy right after the Red SHoes, Michael Powell use of her in the film granted her entry into a world of straight acting that might otherwise been a tough slog for her. I can't see how it hindered her.

The reason you rarely hear huge stars complaining on commentaries is because they are so fortunate, it's terrible form to unload in front of plebes much less fortunate who endure great misery, as well as other actors and actresses who endure far worse for absolutely awful films that grant them no exposure. Most film shoots are terribly stressful, and directors slapping actors and shooting guns and psychologically abusing their cast to get what they need out of them is not entirely uncommon. Complaining for decades that a director was simply occasionally "unkind" to you (who doesn't have an occasionally unkind boss?) after bringing you into what turned out to be an immortal classic that made you a beloved household name (and not only in the cinema but in your first passion, in her case ballet, which is extremely rare for a first film) would be like going to a poorhouse and complaining that, after you won the 500 million dollar lottery, the man who handed you the giant cardboard check made you walk up the steps to him, rather than coming down to you with it.

to be honest when I'm in the wrong mood even I think this is a really silly film. I know the film is idolised around here, but you have to admit that it takes a certain kind of sensibility, and a certain mood, to be able to see The Red Shoes as something other than high camp.

I don't admit that because I'm oblivious to that sentiment-- even when I was a young guy in my college-age art-purist phase. I don't see anything campy about it, I can watch it in any mood-- I always find it inspiring to the core, and entrancing to the utmost.

I think there's a sentiment playing into my irritation with Shearer, which connects to the way I feel about three or four P&P films, which is best stated by the saying about Blimp: (paraphrasing) "I'd be suspicious of anyone who actively dislikes The Life And Times of Colonel Blimp." What these films mix are high art with openly displayed, deeply felt feeling and sentiment. There are some who feel that deep, obvious feeling cheapens high art, which they want like a good martini, very dry. Wanting to remove this openhearted, almost fairytale sincerity and fullcolor urgency from P&P's best would be like trying to improve Marlene Dietrich's voice or fix her nose, or give Louise Brooks a more voluptuous body and slightly shorter neck, or give Peter Lorre better teeth, or whatever. You either know that one comes with the other, that the glory comes because of the idiosyncracies, not in spite of... and love the whole entirely and fully. I know I do! I can watch Red SHoes anytime and any place, and it's a tonic and a sedative-- as well as a stimulant-- to all the most critical areas of my soul. There's nothing corny about love-- and lust for life and creation. If you feel your own feelings in great torrents, with all the bigness that P&P do, then their films are a rare relief-- like home. And home is very far away from camp, which is far out in the woods and gets taken down after your little silly trip.

[Sloper]

Thanks for the info on Shearer's post-Shoes career - I was probably on the wrong track with the 'going nowhere' comment earlier.

I did sample a few bits of the commentary the other night, and it was Goring who said Powell was unkind to Shearer. Maybe she was more vitriolic elsewhere, but on the commentary she mostly sounds quite jovial about it all.

[Robert de la Cheyniest]

Well certainly I don't need to convince anyone on the forum to go see this but I just saw it again at Film Forum tonight and the restoration is simply unbelievable! I agree with Schreck that I thought the original CC was pretty damn good but this new resto just completely blows it out of the water and should be seen by...well...everyone on the planet. Chills were sent down the spine at multiple moments, the colors are just eyewateringly gorgeous.

My only complaint is that I just wish the screens at Film Forum were bigger...

EDIT: Fixed because it was late and I was tired. Thanks Particle Zoo =]

[Particle Zoo]

I agree with Schreck that I thought the original CC was pretty damn good but this new resto just completely blows it out of the water and should be seen by...well...everyone on the plant. ...

Yeah that trippy technicolour...far out

[jojo]

As for Pandora and the Flying Dutchman:

New York Film Festival (September 26 – October 12)
On October 10th, the 46th New York Film Festival unveiled the World Restoration Premiere of PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (1951, d. Albert Lewin) at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center. Martin Scorsese, Founder and Chair of The Film Foundation introduced the film alongside Kent Jones from the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

The film was restored by George Eastman House, in cooperation with The Douris Corporation, at Cineric, Inc. in New York City. After an exhaustive worldwide search, no original negatives could be found. Working from separation master positives created in 1951, the film was restored photochemicallyusing the Cineric Single Pass System to re-register the color records and manufacture timed separation negatives. Sections of the film were scanned 4K resolution to perform digital dirt and scratch removal. Additionally, the soundtrack was fully restored by Audio Mechanics in Burbank, California. Funding was provided by The Film Foundation, the Franco-American Cultural Fund, and the Rome Film Festival. LINK

Sickening to hear that the O-neg is lost, but amazing to know that such all-out, expensive work was done to create an optimal digital master and preservation 35mm negative. I'm surprised that this news slipped us by. I just hope that Kino release a new DVD of this soon, as I'd love to finally see this film.

I caught a showing of the restored print yesterday in Toronto and I have to say I thought it looked pretty darned gorgeous. I have no idea how close this restoration print looks compared to how it looked originally, but the print I saw seemed fit all the descriptions I read about it. Plus, if Scorsese says it's good, then I'm satisfied that it must be true.

I'm pretty confident that with all the work and money put into this restoration, it should find its way to DVD again very soon. I'll definitely snatch this up when it does.

[Person]

Thanks for sharing, jojo. The film was a passionate labour of love for Lewin and it sounds like a magical film, so it has been very frustrating to me for many years not to be able to see it in anything but a compromised form. Hopefully, a gorgeous DVD edition will appear next year.

[Jeff]

I just have to echo the comments about the incredible quality of this restoration. It truly is a revelation. Best night I've had at the cinema in a long time.

[MichaelB]

This week's Guardian podcast includes an interview with yours truly about The Red Shoes.

I was actually there to help plug the BFI Southbank exhibition of Red Shoes memorabilia, which I see they cut out of the final podcast version in its entirety (along with virtually everything I said about the restoration and the Blu-ray) - leaving a load of fairly basic info about the film that I'm sure most of you know already.

But if you're interested the Red Shoes section starts at 19:16, with the salient bit at 21:33.

[broadwayrock]

Film Forum has a Q & A with Thelma Schoonmaker (mp3 link down the page) where she talks about the restoration of Red Shoes.

She also mentioned that Criterion will be releasing the new dvd of Red Shoes in June.

[Matt]

New DVD and Blu-ray editions announced.