The Red Shoes

As a ballet obsessed child The Red Shoes was a much beloved movie of mine, although not as much as Singing In The Rain, and my lasting memory of it was the vivid colours, the 15 minutes ballet segment and the company director Lermontov being very Mephistopheles-like. My local independant cinema screened a restored print recently and I went to see it hoping to relive my childhood. Instead it all got a little murky!

Lermontov: A dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts ofhuman love can never be a great dancer.

With the simplicity of the childhood Lermontov was a creep, Julian was the friend (separate beds) and Vicky was just fantastic and the red pointe shoes moved her feet in the end. However, my recent re-viewing changed one vital element. Vicky is still amazing, she is determined and lovely, talented and polite. Julian is still bland as her lover/husband, but Lermontov was a revelation to me! He was suave and distant but the underlying passion and vision was like an ocean next to Julian's well. The man lived his life in pursuit of an ideal and in Vicky saw the possibility of it's realisation, he asked her she was capable of dedicating herself to it as he had and having promised and later renegaded on this promise he trusted that she would remember herself. All he did was hold the door open for her return and it was Julian who forced her to choose. He is by no means likable or blameless; he has sublimated his connection to other humans on a personal level, is harsh and but is a wonderful example of an artist holding to the highest standards in order to fulfil his vision.

Lermontov: When we first met...you asked me a question to which I gave a stupid answer, you asked me whether I wanted to live and I said "Yes". Actually, Miss Page, I want more, much more. I want to create, to make something big out of
something little - to make a great dancer out of you. But first, I must ask you
the same question, what do you want from life? To live?

Vicky: To dance.

• Brian de Palma and Martin Scorsese have both said this is their favourite film.

• Jack Cardiff, the cinematographer, broke the rules laid down by Technicolour to create the wonderful and vivid colours.

• Hein Heckroth was both production and costume design and both are spectacular.
  

• Most of those acting as dancers were professional actors rather than actors with some knowledge of dance and Robert Helpmann, who danced as lead dancer of the company, chorepgraphed most of the work. Leonide Massine is the exception, he choreographed his own role of the Shoemaker.
  

• Moira Shearer was second to Margot Fonteyn at Sadler's Wells at the time she was approached and was not struck on the idea of working in film; it took her a year to agree to it.
  

Lermontov: Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on


Pictures from:-
1.http://www.silverwhistle.co.uk
2. Ibid
3. http://www.bard.edu/