1948 Movie
Dir. Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell · United Kingdom · English, French
A fantastical, transcendent Technicolor classic that stands as the definitive ballet drama
While today’s moviegoers would likely pick Black Swan as the ballet film of choice, there is one film classic that brings the title of the best ballet film in contention. That is The Red Shoes. It first divided critics of film and ballet alike, but as time went by, the spectacular drama from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger deservedly garnered acclaim for the brilliant, novel ways of bridging the gap between art forms. Of course, the most obvious of these is the lush, stunning 17-minute dance sequence that first incorporated dynamic camera movement to the choreography, and captured Han Christian Andersen’s story to its essentials. But aside from just depicting the dance, The Archers reconfigured every other single aspect of film to bend toward the movement without breaking the beauty of every shot– the scoring, the casting, the production design, and the ballet-within-a-film plotline. It’s because of this that The Red Shoes garnered a legacy of being one of the best ballet films, one of the best British films, and even one of the greatest films ever made.
A fledgling ballerina falls in love with a brilliant composer, but the jealous head of the ballet company plots to drive them apart.
"No wonder Britain, still rationed in color, food, and feeling in the wake of an exhausting war, could not cope with what the movie proposed. Catch it here now, and you will not just be seeing an old film made new; you will have your vision restored."
— Anthony Lane
"The three principal dancers, Moira Shearer, Leonide Massine and Robert Helpmann, are beyond criticism."
— Variety Staff
Aspiring composer Julian Craster exposes his professor’s plagiarism directly to Ballet Lermontov’s impresario, Boris Lermontov. To answer this wrong, Lermontov hires Craster. He also casts ambitious ballerina Vicky Page as the lead for his new ballet, leading her to be torn between dance and her love for the ballet’s newest composer.
Usually, we use this space to acknowledge the most outstanding aspects of a film, good or bad, but honestly, this is one of the films where all aspects are equally great.
Black Swan is great, but could never transcend the heights this film reached. Pure cinema.
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Isabella Endrinal is a curator at A Good Movie to Watch. She's now free from the corporate night shift. Previous articles have been published in outlets such as NANG Magazine. She's currently catching up on some classic films… if she isn't coping with the fact that the Haikyu anime will end soon.
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