The Red Shoes

by Pamela Hutchinson

Endlessly fascinating, dark and bright, The Red Shoes (1948) employs every branch of the cinematic arts to sweep the audience off its feet, invigorated by the transcendence of art itself, only to leave them with troubling questions. Representing the climax of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's celebrated run of six exceptional feature films, the film remains a beloved, if unsettling and often divisive, classic.

Pamela Hutchinson's study of the film examines its breathtaking use of Technicolor, music, choreography, editing and art direction at the zenith of Powell and Pressburger's capacity for 'composed cinema'. Through a close reading of key scenes, particularly the film's famous extended ballet sequence, she considers the unconventional use of ballet as uncanny spectacle and the feminist implications of the central story of female sacrifice.

Hutchinson goes on to consider the film's lasting and wide-reaching influence, tracing its impact on the film musical genre and horror cinema, with filmmakers such as Joanna Hogg, Sally Potter, Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma having cited the film as an inspiration.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 2023

Reviews

[Cate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Archers' sexual politics are essentially bohemian, the Ballet Lermontov is composed of happy singletons, and if The Red Shoes has a message, she argues, it is that it was family life, with its suffocatingly mean horizons, which rang the death knell of creativity.

Andrew Moor discovers a 'site of radical resistance in the Ballet Lermontov, which opposes heteronormative conventions, and emphasises the film's blatantly homosexual origins. That goes back to both Hans Christian Andersen and the affair between Diaghilev and Niiinsky as recounted by Nijinsky's wife, as well as to Walbrook's portrayal of Lermontov and Massine's camp Grischa.

In Romola's memoirs she reports Diaghilev equating genius with a rejection of heteronormativity. The older man believed that: 'almost all great geniuses in the past were homosexual, or at least bisexual,' and that 'love between the same sex, even if the persons involved are quite ordinary, because of the very similarity of their natures and the absence of presupposed difference, is creative and artistic'.

The Nijinsky-Diaghilev love triangle is reconfigured as both heterosexual and asexual in the film; the love between Julian and Vicky is innocent (and conventional), and Boris is jealous of Vicky in a way that you [Julian] will never understand". If ballet, in Richard Dyer's words, offers queer viewers a vision of heterosexual love 'so ethereallv idealized that it becomes rather unreal... the spectacle of heterosexuality paraded as glittering illusion', then The Red Shoes undermines the idea of marriage as a happy ending. It does this partly by portrayıng a supposed love triangle that is only an illusion of romance."

[Matthew Elfenbein · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is an excellent history of the production, creatives, and lineage surrounding the classic story and film. An interesting point was that The Archers were making a film in which the ballet was not performed for a diegetic audience but rather for the cinema audience. This led the filming to resist cuts to audience reactions, which also came off as over-produced and fragmenting of the ballerina bodies and choreography. [return][return]This is also a great treasure trove of other films, books, and ballets. I will be referencing this book for years to come.

[Jennifer Grozelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a little too wordy for me. I learned that they shot the death scene first though.

[Russio · Rating 4 out of 5]

At its best when it reveals the multiple complex readings of the amazing film, particularly in the last two chapters. I wanted more.

[Althea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Read traveling Minnesota to Ireland for school, after Christmas break.

[Harvey Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-crafted introduction which provides the context and lift you need to leap in your interpretations and responses to this incredible film.