Powell and Pressburger make a dancer’s ambition feel urgent, seductive and dangerous. We would recommend The Red Shoes to anyone, despite dialogue that occasionally sounds too pleased with its own seriousness.
The difficulty with films about artistic obsession is getting us to believe that the work deserves so much upheaval. The Red Shoes clears that hurdle whenever Moira Shearer dances, and we would happily recommend it to someone who has never cared for ballet. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger take Victoria Page’s ambition seriously without making her producer’s demands seem reasonable. They also give the dancing enough time to explain why she might submit to them. The trouble comes when the characters have to explain the same things in words.
Anton Walbrook makes Boris Lermontov’s devotion to ballet difficult to dismiss. A merely bullying producer would make Victoria’s predicament too easy; Walbrook gives him enough conviction that we understand the appeal of being taken seriously by him. His possessiveness becomes more alarming because the devotion is persuasive. Shearer keeps Victoria from disappearing beneath his opinions, and her assurance as a dancer is essential: we believe that she has something worth protecting before the dialogue tells us how much it matters.
Jack Cardiff’s Technicolor photography gives the ballet’s artificial world colour strong enough to hold our attention on its own. Production designer Hein Heckroth supplies settings that can escape the practical limits of a stage, making the passage into fantasy seem inviting before it becomes unsettling. Heckroth also designs the costumes, and their place within those settings feels carefully judged. The visual extravagance helps us understand the attraction of Lermontov’s world.
The central ballet goes further, letting the performance show Victoria’s inner life rather than merely displaying her skill. We were frightened by it, because the dancing stays precise while the space around the dancer becomes increasingly unreal. Reginald Mills’s editing makes those changes feel continuous, so we follow the movement instead of stopping to work out how one setting has become another. Brian Easdale’s score gives the passage its musical coherence without making it feel safe. It is a sustained piece of storytelling through dance, and Shearer keeps it human even when the surroundings cease to be.
The dialogue is the reservation. Powell and Pressburger occasionally give their characters declarations about art that sound too grand for conversation, particularly when the dancing has already made the point. Marius Goring’s Julian Craster has a harder time holding our attention beside Lermontov, and the romantic scenes can feel constrained by the need to put Victoria’s choice into words. Goring keeps the personal stakes clear, but we sometimes want the film to let Shearer move again.
In the backstage genre, a performance often serves as the reward for getting through the quarrels. Here it makes the quarrels harder to dismiss, because we have seen what all that discipline can produce. The film takes seriously the frightening prospect of giving another person authority over something we need to do. Walbrook’s conviction is essential to that idea, but it is Shearer’s dancing that makes us understand the temptation.
Give it an uninterrupted evening and a screen large enough to follow Shearer’s dancing. There is no need to arrive knowing anything about ballet. The other jobs can wait until the dancing is finished.
