The colours of the film were in fact built around her hair colour and skin. Moira Shearer, with her alabaster skin and flame red hair, was such a unique beauty. To Lermontov, ballet is a religion, and he is the image of the total creator, the artist as God, who creates using human materials. ![]() The figure of Lermontov is one of which Martin Scorsese says that it haunts his dreams. And there are, of course, the red shoes, those magic shoes that force their wearer to dance eternally.Īnton Walbrook is brilliant in his portrayal of Boris Lermontov, the director of the ballet company. It feels like his otherworldly, symbolically charged designs and vibrant colours lure us into Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, on which the film was based. The dramatic effect of the ballet attire is further enhanced by the theatrical set decoration, the beautiful work of Hein Heckroth, the art director and costume designer, who was also a painter. The film uses colour like you’ve never seen before. The stunning ballet costumes and layers of pan make-up transport us to another world, a world of dark fantasy. Part of what makes The Red Shoes so memorable is its aesthetic. The result is something very rare, a movie made by real artists with real artists. Using real dancers was one of the revolutionary ideas of the film, which brought together some of the finest dancers in the world, like Leonide Massine, Robert Helpmann and Ludmilla Tcherina, and casting a real ballerina in the leading female role was in fact Michael Powell’s condition to make the film. ![]() ![]() Victoria Page, played by Moira Shearer (a leading ballerina herself-she has such a dance posture and flawless execution), is a prima ballerina torn between the love for her husband and the love for dance. Through its magical use of colour, aesthetic, characters, design, choreography, camera movement, music and the extraordinary passion it transmits, the film was majestically woven into a cinema masterpiece, a compelling parable of the destructive demands made by art upon the artist: you live and die for your art. Created by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and their incredible production team, The Red Shoes (1948) changed the landscape of the world cinema. But The Red Shoes is much more than that, it’s pure cinema making and an extraordinary portrayal of the obsession of creativity and of the artistic world. It’s probably the best ballet film ever made.
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