Emeric Pressburger made music and fantasy part of the storytelling in his films with Michael Powell. The Red Shoes shows why we value him: he makes artistic ambition convincing, even when the dialogue grows too grand.
Fi1m perspective
Moira Shearer dances in The Red Shoes (1948) with a conviction that the film’s speeches about art cannot quite match. We were moved by Victoria Page’s ambition because Shearer’s dancing made the need to keep working feel urgent. Pressburger and Michael Powell give the dancing time to explain her commitment without making her producer’s demands seem reasonable. We would recommend their film to anyone, including those who have never found a reason to care about ballet.
The collaboration began with The Spy in Black (1939); from 1942 they shared equal writing, producing and directing credits as the Archers. Pressburger supplied original stories and handled much of the scripting, producing and editing, with particular care for structure and music. Cinematographer Jack Cardiff was among their collaborators, but the films’ vivid colour should not distract us from how carefully the stories are built. In The Red Shoes, the 17-minute ballet gives performance room within a story about the cost of performing.
Their 1940s work found several uses for that freedom. A Matter of Life and Death (1946) uses fantasy and contrasts between black and white and colour; Black Narcissus (1947) turns towards the psychological pressures of nuns in the Himalayas. They are useful companions to The Red Shoes for anyone interested in how the partners made inward struggles visible. The partnership wound down after the mid-1950s.
Our reservation is what happens when Pressburger and Powell insist on having their characters spell everything out. In The Red Shoes, the declarations about art can sound too grand for conversation, and Julian Craster’s romantic scenes struggle beside the dancing. Marius Goring keeps the personal stakes clear, but the need to explain Victoria’s choice constrains those scenes. For all Pressburger’s skill at construction, there are moments when we can feel the screenplay steering people towards statements rather than letting them speak. Start with The Red Shoes, with a little patience for the speeches.
Biography
Emeric Pressburger (born Imre József Pressburger) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director and producer. He studied engineering at the universities of Prague and Stuttgart before working as a journalist in Hungary and Germany and as a scriptwriter in Berlin and Paris. He settled in Britain in 1935.
From the late 1930s he collaborated with director Michael Powell. From 1942 they shared equal credit for writing, producing and directing films under the banner of their production company The Archers. Their best-known works include 49th Parallel (1941), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). Pressburger received an Academy Award for best original story for 49th Parallel.
