The Red Shoes

I've seen the original film of "The Red Shoes" a number of times over the years and just loved it. The story, ballet, music, color, actors, and the whole production are superb! Later I acquired the RCA SelectaVision CED video disc edition (two parts) in the early 1980s. The CED issue unfortunately was prone to frame skipping, occasionally syncopating the ballet sequences. Still later, I obtained the Paramount VHS hi-fi release (1987). There was no frame skipping with the VHS tape, but the tops of all the frames tended to be somewhat bent and fluttery. Alas, I found no remedies for these... more

Many of Powell and Pressburger's films explore the life of the artist and the power of the artistic imagination. In THE RED SHOES and PEEPING TOM, most notably, the writer-directors reveal the sacrifices that art sometimes demands from its acolytes. Balletophiles often praise THE RED SHOES, but one need not be a fan of ballet to be amazed by the film's emotional power and extraordinary staging. On the Criterion DVD, the saturated reds that represent the artist's blood sacrifice, and the cool aqua-blues that represent the (false) promise of life and romance outside of art, appear with... more

Amazon Verified Purchase ( What's this? ) Although the opening credits claim that "any similarity to real-life persons or events are purely accidental" don't be fooled: Boris Lermontov, the autocratic Russian ballet impresario, is obviously modelled after Serge Diaghilev. Like Boris, Diaghilev had a series of relationships with his "proteges" (like Vaslav Nijinsky or Leonid Massine), and when these proteges left his bed to marry (women), Diaghilev would get enraged and kick them out of the company. "Ballet Lermontov" like "Ballet Russes" produced a mix of classical ballet works as well as... more