Cinema
The Red Shoes
Emeric Pressburger · 1948
Synopsis
Victoria Page, a young dancer, joins the company of Boris Lermontov, an impresario who allows his artists no attachment outside dance. He gives her the lead role in a ballet drawn from an Andersen tale, in which red shoes prevent their wearer from ever ceasing to dance; the music is by a young composer, Julian Craster. The success is immense. Victoria falls in love with Julian, and Lermontov demands that she choose between love and dance.
Context
The Rank executives, who had hated the film at a private screening, saw no commercial future for it; the shoot had lasted twenty-four weeks instead of fifteen, and the cost had almost doubled. It was released in England without a gala or any real launch campaign. Its reputation came from America, where it stayed more than two years at a single New York cinema, and it ranks among the most profitable films in British cinema. It won two Oscars, including the one for music, which made Brian Easdale the first British composer so honoured. It transposes the Danish tale published in 1845 and places at its centre a seventeen-minute ballet.
Who it is for
Two hours thirteen minutes, in English with subtitles, including a long ballet placed in the middle of the story, which breaks with the rest of the film.
Prizes and reception
Martin Scorsese led the fundraising for its restoration, presented at Cannes Classics in 2009.
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