THE RED SHOES @ 60

[rg]

as a colleague pointed out THE RED SHOES is 60 this year.

here are two scans of publicity stills of fleeting moments from the movie - they capture two subjects of the montage detailing Victoria Page's rise in Lermontov's company. Shearer may be among the swan maidens surrounding Helpmann and Tcherina; she also shown at the center of the SYLPHIDES grouping, leaning on Helpmann's arm.

[garybruce]

I was just telling a friend that in the 100 year history of movies, there are only two movies about ballet--The Red Shoes in 1948 and The Turning Point in 1977. I don't classify White Nights as a ballet film and eliminate documentary and live performance efforts from consideration. Both chose melodrama to tell their tales; both focused on women as the central figures.

The former was more powerful in its impact, as it compelled hordes of American girls to enroll in ballet schools. It also managed to combine glamor with the intricacies of a company's daily operations, not to mention perpetuating the myth that ballet is an all-consuming profession. Its use of color cinematography - those blues and reds! - trumped Turning Point's drab color palette; its use of a short ballet in its entirety to illustrate the movie's larger story also trumped the bits of classical ballet thrown at us in Turning Point, used entirely as window dressing.

Certainly the world of ballet deserves another movie. You would think Balanchine and Nureyev would each rank one movie.

[dirac]

We would have to add “The Company” to that list, as well, I think. “Center Stage” is no masterpiece, but it’s also a ballet-centered film. There's also "Nijinsky" with George de la Pena and Leslie Browne, and the curio "Spectre of the Rose."

Its use of color cinematography - those blues and reds! - trumped Turning Point's drab color palette; its use of a short ballet in its entirety to illustrate the movie's larger story also trumped the bits of classical ballet thrown at us in Turning Point, used entirely as window dressing.

Well, “The Red Shoes” had a director of distinction, Michael Powell (with an assist from his Archers partner Emeric Pressburger) and a great cinematographer in Jack Cardiff. Herbert Ross was a very good journeyman director but not someone with a lot of visual imagination. I think some of the excerpts in The Turning Point were well chosen, although the movie as a whole was a disappointment, especially considering the people involved (Ross, Nora Kaye, Arthur Laurents, all talented people with a real grasp of the subject matter).

“ The Red Shoes” ballet-within-a-film is pretty long, but there’s relatively little real dancing in it. Moira Shearer said later that she liked her dance sequences in “The Tales of Hoffmann” better, because she could really dance. It’s fascinating to watch, though. The other dance excerpts in “The Red Shoes” are very good, and I always get a kick out of the bit of “Swan Lake” that shows us what Shearer sees as she spots her turns – and there’s a cameo from Marie Rambert, no less.

Thank you for the pictures, rg. The DVD of “The Red Shoes” has some nice memorabilia, provided by Martin Scorsese from his own collection - he loves the movie.

[aurora]

We would have to add “The Company” to that list, as well, I think. “Center Stage” is no masterpiece, but it’s also a ballet-centered film. There's also "Nijinsky" with George de la Pena and Leslie Browne, and the curio "Spectre of the Rose."

There is also Dancers from 1987.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092822/

I haven't seen it in forever, and I don't remember it being terribly good. I wouldn't mind seeing it again though, just for the dancers in it.

[dirac]

Thanks, aurora, I forgot about "Dancers." Yes, it's worth seeing, of course, but I was a little disappointed by the performance of Giselle (Ferri & Baryshnikov). It also has a very young Julie Kent, exquisitely beautiful. (She doesn't dance, but boy, does she ever talk.)

[Giannina]

60??!! Holy moly!

Giannina

[atm711]

...and there's 'La Mort du Cygne'...the grand-daddy of them all (grand-mama?); older than 'Red Shoes' by at least 10-12 years....

[Helene]

Julie Kent's talking in "Center Stage" makes the movie, in my opinion.

Of course, there is the entertainment value of Ethan Stiefel riding his motorcycle onstage during the Susan Stroman travesty.

Here's the list of cast members for "Center Stage"; check out the ABA Student roster:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210616/fullcredits#cast

Some of the dancers in "The Red Shoes" have extensive acting credits; others have only the film or dancing roles in other movies:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040725/fullcredits#cast

The dancing roles are listed as "Corps de Ballet (uncredited).

Moira Shearer's IMDB bio lists a 1972 appearance as "Host" for the Eurovision Song Contest

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0790452/

[sandik]

An interesting tangential note (well, at least I think it's interesting) -- the art director of Red Shoes, Hein Heckroth, also designed Kurt Jooss' The Green Table.

[dirac]

Julie Kent's talking in "Center Stage" makes the movie, in my opinion.

I was referring to the unfortunate nasal whine she had at the time of "Dancers," which comes quite close to wrecking the movie and was apparently the subject of some concern on the set, but I guess it was too late to do anything about it. Fortunately the problem was cleared up by the time of "Center Stage," much to this filmgoer's relief.

An interesting tangential note (well, at least I think it's interesting) -- the art director of Red Shoes, Hein Heckroth, also designed Kurt Jooss' The Green Table.

That's right. I forgot about that. Heckroth won an Oscar for his work on The Red Shoes, along with Arthur Lawson who also worked on the set design.

[Sacto1654]

What's interesting about The Red Shoes was that for many serious balletomanes at the time the movie came out in 1948, it was in many ways telling in a fictional way the story of Serge Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, especially in the where Boris Lermontov is close to an analog for Diaghilev and Vicky Page is almost an analog for the tragic life of Vaslav Nijinsky. Is it small wonder why they ran that disclaimer about "any similarity to real-life persons or events are purely accidental" so prominently at the start of the movie?

I do like the unusual storytelling and the excellent use of color, especially with the full Technicolor restoration done some years ago.

[carbro]

I do like the unusual storytelling and the excellent use of color, especially with the full Technicolor restoration done some years ago.

Given Ms. Shearer's gorgeous, flame-colored hair, I would think color quality would have been a very high priority of the filmmakers.

[dirac]

There are several stories in this week's Links about the newly restored version of the film that Martin Scorsese brought to Cannes, and one of them noted that the film will be re-released on DVD and Blu-Ray. It's Scorsese, so we can trust him to be faithful to Powell's vision. Won't be quite the same as seeing the new version on the big screen but should still be spectacular.

[sandik]

What's interesting about The Red Shoes was that for many serious balletomanes at the time the movie came out in 1948, it was in many ways telling in a fictional way the story of Serge Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, especially in the where Boris Lermontov is close to an analog for Diaghilev and Vicky Page is almost an analog for the tragic life of Vaslav Nijinsky. ...

And the appearance of Leonid Massine!

[bart]

Thanks, dirac, for the Link to Scorcese's article.

He mentions something I also remember: that it was run fairly frequently (in black-and-white, of course) on American television in the 50s. (At least on the non-network stations in New York City.)

The following was a complete surprise to me, but somehow encouraging and rather heart-warming.

Among my colleagues – Coppola, of course, Spielberg and Brian De Palma and pretty much everybody who was beginning to make films in the early 1970s – whenever we spoke about a film and we couldn't remember the title, it was invariably something we had seen on television in black and white, written, produced and directed by Powell and Pressburger.

[dirac]

What's interesting about The Red Shoes was that for many serious balletomanes at the time the movie came out in 1948, it was in many ways telling in a fictional way the story of Serge Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, especially in the where Boris Lermontov is close to an analog for Diaghilev and Vicky Page is almost an analog for the tragic life of Vaslav Nijinsky. ...

And the appearance of Leonid Massine!

True, although there's no tragic ending in that case, thank goodness. I'm sure that the Nijinsky story was in the minds of the filmmakers but doubt if they were making any special connection with the presence of Massine, who was a huge star at the time.

Yes, bart, it's the only ballet-centered movie that's also an established classic of interest to people not otherwise interested in the art form.