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I saw the restored The Red Shoes this afternoon and the experience was breathtaking. The lush palette of Jack Cardiff has been magnified opulently but not so much that it submerges the story. As so many reviews have noted, the red of Moira Shearer's hair and luminosity of her creamy skin are more beautiful than ever. I was struck by the blazing scarlet of the red shoes themselves that made them pulsate with life. The ballet sequence was more engrossing than ever with Powell and Pressberger's imagery freshly cleaned up in the restoration. I also found Walbrook's and Massine's performances more compelling than ever; somehow Massine's character had more depth and Walbrook's Lermentov was scarier with his blue eyes fiery with megalomania, obsession and rage.

I urge everyone to see this gorgeously restored The Red Shoes. It's a very special experience of a film that we probably won't see made again in our lifetimes.

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Did they restore the sound track as well? The trailer didn't sound as clean but maybe the movie did?

I noticed in a snippet somewhere, someone goes to offer her a drink during a rehearsal break and someone swoops over and says something along the lines of "Are you crazy? Do you want to spoil your breathing?"

What were they worried about?

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Did they restore the sound track as well? The trailer didn't sound as clean but maybe the movie did?

I noticed in a snippet somewhere, someone goes to offer her a drink during a rehearsal break and someone swoops over and says something along the lines of "Are you crazy? Do you want to spoil your breathing?"

What were they worried about?

Amy,

The soundtrack didn't sound better, but about the same on the Criterion dvd.

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I saw the restored The Red Shoes this afternoon and the experience was breathtaking. The lush palette of Jack Cardiff has been magnified opulently but not so much that it submerges the story. As so many reviews have noted, the red of Moira Shearer's hair and luminosity of her creamy skin are more beautiful than ever. I was struck by the blazing scarlet of the red shoes themselves that made them pulsate with life. The ballet sequence was more engrossing than ever with Powell and Pressberger's imagery freshly cleaned up in the restoration. I also found Walbrook's and Massine's performances more compelling than ever; somehow Massine's character had more depth and Walbrook's Lermentov was scarier with his blue eyes fiery with megalomania, obsession and rage.

I urge everyone to see this gorgeously restored The Red Shoes. It's a very special experience of a film that we probably won't see made again in our lifetimes.

Thank you for telling us about it, MakarovaFan. I hope the revival comes my way.

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The film returns for a second run at the Film Forum in New York City, beginning Feb. 19. Here is Anthony Lane's review (preview?) in The New Yorker (2/8). It's the second film in his review.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cine...rci_cinema_lane

Yet this is not, in the end, a film about ballet; it is a hymn to the risks of investing all that you are, and have, in the fugue and fury of the imaginative act. Look at Vicky as she dances solo, to a crummy gramophone, in a tiny London theatre on a rainy afternoon. She is not yet a star, but Lermontov has come to observe her; we see first his face, watching fiercely, and then hers, staring back—a milk-white death mask, filling the frame, with red and black dashes swooping from the corners of her eyes, and lips gleaming like the poisoned apple in “Snow White.” It is the most striking closeup in the history of cinema [ ... ]

Lane mentions something that strikes me as very true about the best films set in the world of artists:

t treats art not as sedative or diversionary but as hard and supercharged, quite lethal to the danceless rhythms that most of our lives obey.
As in Powell's and Pressburger's earlier Tales of Hoffmann, the life of artists is a matter of life and death. The various versions of A Star is Born, etc., bear this out.

Any additional thoughts about this film? Or about the success of this revival?

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By a lucky accident,(while channel surfing) I have just finished watching the restored Red Shoes on the Turner classic movie channel. I was completely awed by the magnificent colors, scenery and details not only in the ballet sequence,but also throughout the entire film. In the final scene when Shearer is backing up towards the open terrace, the red shoes (that are pulling her) you can see that they are slightly darned. All of the characters seem to be more defined, I especially enjoyed Massine ( I would loved to have seen him dance live). Shearer too, her beautiful quick clean footwork and her flawless alabaster skin. Lermontov, because of the high definition, becomes more sinister,since you can see the expression in his eyes more clearly. I highly recommend seeing this new restored version.

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Criterion has now released the latest restoration on Blu-Ray and I ordered a copy from Deep Discount. Anyway, it is a visual spectacular. Image and soundtrack are magnificently rendered. However, the clarity of the images remove a little of the illusion. You can clearly see the makeup on the actors faces - the ladies look period glamorous but Marius Goring looks a bit tarted up in some closeups. Also, Powell and Pressberger used painted backdrops for some scenes and the added clarity shows some slight buckling and ripples in the backdrops that would have been smoothed over in lower definition transfers.

However the wonderful is even more wonderful now - from the moonlight on the Mediterranean to Moira Shearer's red hair. Still a visual stunner.

The restorers used the original three strip color negative and had to correct warping and distortions caused by mold attacking the original. They also compared their results against the best celluloid copies out there. Soundtrack (mono) was also digitally remastered. Highly recommended. My only complaint is that the blu-ray takes a while to load and play in my Panasonic player.

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I watched "The Red Shoes" this weekend and it was magnificent. The film was compelling.

Moira Shearer's dancing was stunning. I was surprised by Ms. Shearer's commentary, in which she indicated that she did not want to do the film, and was pursued for over a year by the producers. From watching her dance, I can finally understand the commentary on these boards about line and artistry, which I have been unable to grasp fully based on my experience with current dancers only. (I have been working on obtaining extreme flexibility and hyperextension because I have always been awed by the hyperextended splits and 180 degree penches, among other things, which I see on youtube.com and dvds.) Watching Ms. Shearer dance, I really believed that the red shoes had a life and drive of their own, and were moving the dancer's body, rather than the other way around. Massine was fabulous, too.

What is the background of the dancer who played the part of Irina, who announced her intention to marry during a rehearsal of "Giselle", and of the dancer who played the part of Ivan, who was Vicky Page's partner?

Did Diaghilev have a reputation for behaving like Mr. Boris Lermontov or was this entirely fictional?

On tiny stages, such as that of Rambert's dance company, where Ms. Shearer danced "Swan Lake" in the move, how are ballets staged for live audiences? Is scenery used? Is the corps cut down in size?

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there must be innumerable links to THE RED SHOES on the web, some of which would be by serious dance watchers, who may address some of the points you note here. a look back at some posts might also be helpful.

as for the character about whom you ask, the other, older ballerina in THE RED SHOES, here's a link to imdb's mini-biog of Tcherina, which i suppose is also one of many references to this dancer who also starred in THE TALES OF HOFFMANN also by the same team that made RED SHOES.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0853481/bio

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So glad you enjoyed the movie, puppytreats. It's a great, great favorite of mine. If you are interested in more background information about the making of the film and the selection of Shearer to play the role, you might want to read the relevant chapters of the director Michael Powell's autobiography "A Life in Movies." Shearer was fearful that she would forfeit her position in the company by decamping to make a movie (still not a wholly respectable art form back then) while de Valois wasn't happy because Powell was open about not wanting Fonteyn. The notes in the Criterion DVD edition are also helpful if you decide to buy a copy.

The role of Ivan Boleslawsky was played by Robert Helpmann of the Royal. When I was a kid seeing the film for the first time I was taken aback - I had no idea who he was and he was not my idea of a premier danseur.

I would say that Lermontov is based more on the popular idea of Diaghilev, but the story is based on the relationship between Nijinsky and Diaghilev - which ended no less tragically, in a sense, than the story of Vicky and Lermontov.

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I saw a pristine version on the big screen tonight at SIFF Cinema in Seattle.

I was again astonished by Shearer's dancing, Helpman's partnering, tours, and batterie, and Massine's demi charatere genius. Also the tempi at she and Tcherina danced the selections from "Swan Lake" and "Giselle."

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Also the camera increases a dancer's speed, although Shearer was plainly very fast.

The restored version has been showing up on cable again. As FauxPas noted earlier in this thread, high-def doesn't do much for some of the actors, but the colors are marvelous.

Marius Goring looks a bit tarted up in some closeups

He was too old, and now it just shows more. Everyone involved knew he was a little too senior for the role, but Michael Powell wanted someone who would support Shearer, a natural but also a neophyte, and he knew he could trust Goring not to upstage her. It's also helpful when the camera is far from Helpmann.

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I can understand why she wouldn't necessarily want to see it over and over. I believe she was ambivalent about the outsized place the movie took in her career - for ever after she was always "Moira Shearer, Star of 'The Red Shoes.'" As has been mentioned on this board previously, she was dissatisfied with the representation of her dancing, and she also thought she could have danced better. Nor was she wholly pleased with her own performance, good as she is. I think she was probably being over-critical of herself, not surprising in a dancer. :)

I also wouldn't take everything she said about the picture at absolute face value. For example, she always insisted that she never wanted to do it and had to be pushed into it. I think that was true - up to a point. If she had been putting her ballet career at risk I think she would have flatly refused, but I suspect she was more eager to do the film than she let on, possibly even to herself. Powell certainly thought so. It was a great opportunity, but risky for her too in all kinds of ways.

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Whatever she might have felt at the time in later life she always insisted she never wanted to do the film:

''I just wish,'' Miss Shearer said, ''I had been a more rounded performer at the time I made it or that I would have done it two or three years later, when I think I would have done justice to it. Still, I've seen 'The Red Shoes' a couple of times in the past 10 years, and I must say that for all the creakiness of the dialogue and situations, it has a certain period charm.

''And, yes, I must admit, it's given me some good things. It's true, 'The Red Shoes' has made me remembered, which my ballet and theater career would not have done. So, I'm grateful in a sort of backhanded way. I've lived with the specter of 'The Red Shoes' for 40 years. I suppose I'll go on living with it. But isn't it strange that something you've never really wanted to do turns out to be the very thing that's given you a name and identity? Ah, well - life is full of such ironies!'

Here's the complete article:

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/10/movies/moira-shearer-still-chased-by-red-shoes.html

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What's puzzling is she also later made comments that the experience with Powell in The Red Shoes was so horrifying that she never wanted to work with him again. Which really isn't borne out by history, as she worked with him in more films after The Red Shoes.

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