The Red Shoes (1948)

So, we all agree this is a musical; but why is this genre?

Most musicals end up being somewhat fantastical but are generally avoided by the genre literature.

Are Busby Berkeley's musicals, or An American In Paris genre films?

This, however, has additional credentials, what with the Hans Christian Andersen's tale as the base inspiration (for both the ballet and the story line,) the many allusions to fairy tales (Victoria in full princess costume walking up Lermontov's Montecarlo chateau's stone staircase seems a scene most Cocteau-ish, and was most certainly meant to evoke Cinderella or some such, for example.)

The end "death dance" is debatable fantasy, are we meant to think that the shoes actually danced by themselves?

There is no evidence, other than agonizing Victoria asks they be taken off (as her character does in the ballet.)

If she thinks the shoes caused her death then what we have is the fantasy of delirium or madness.

I would argue that The Red Shoes ballet sequence is a fantastic, internal, psychological sequence (the fantasy present is at the very least on the level of Buñuel's or Hitchcock's dream sequences, but probably more so... it is not a dream,) and is not meant to be read simply as the performance - why were not any of the other ones: Swan Lake, Giselle, Coppelia, fantastic stories in themselves presented in a similar or close manner?

If the genre literature covers it (and it does) then I am willing to go with it.

This Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger movie plays out like a fairly familiar backstage romance between a just starting, young dancer (Victoria) and composer (Julian.)

Lermontov, the ballet director who hires them both is presented as both art patron and fairy tale villain (his introduction recalls The Phantom.)

But although he has his faults ("He is a monster!") Lermontov is the only one who truly understands Victoria Page's artistic drive.

Never mind that Julian Craster, the romantic, male lead character is also a driven artist (he immediately starts composing in his mind when told about a new piece, he cannot sleep and gets up to compose in the middle of the night.)

He expects her to give up her artistic life, but he is not willing to give up his. from this point of view, he is the true villain.

Once the ball gets rolling and the centerpiece and highlight of the film, The Red Shoes ballet is performed, we do not simply see a ballet on stage, but a surrealistic and expressionistic fantasia where the audience turns into a roaring ocean, the performers get lost in the piece and elements from the "real life" segments are incorporated into the performance.

The character of the magical, demonic, shoemaker* becomes alternately Lermontov and Craster.

The music turns Page into a flower, a cloud, a bird, just as Craster told her it would.

The scenes we see could not possibly fit in a real theatrical stage.

Spielberg's Temple of Doom (Fantasy in Musical Films) attempts to do this sort of thing, and Powell & Pressburger's Tales of Hoffman (1951) is basically this, extended to a full feature (we also see a bit of Coppelia in The Red Shoes.)

The most basic way to read this movie is as a woman's family life vs career life, but it is much more than that.

It is really about consuming passion and about whether we have or have not choice in the matter.

When asked why she dances she responds:

- Why do you want to live?

- Well, I don't know exactly why, er, but I must.

- That's my answer too.

There's not much wiggle room in that 'choice'.

The magical red shoes that will not stop dancing become a metaphor for that irresistible, artistic & creative drive.

Films such as Amadeus (1984) muddy, and mess up that aspect.

Mozart has exactly that same drive, but Milos Forman's movie, instead of focusing on things which are clearly apparent to the audience, contradicts them by introducing unnecessary, non-historical events and fictions (Mozart's operas were not flops, Salieri did not commission the Requiem) to force it instead into a non-biblical variant of the Cain and Abel story.

Amadeus' Mozart does not need Salieri to destroy his life.

He has been doing it pretty effectively on his own in the movie, just as he (probably) did in real life.

The one saving aspect is that Salieri is clearly an unreliable narrator, he could just as easily be giving himself unjust credit for something he did not do.

All of it could simply be guilt-fueled fantasies.

Another recent film which can easily be seen as an alternate take on The Red Shoes is The Adjustment Bureau (2011).

Bureau, however denies very real conflict, or the need for true sacrifice. It fails to establish the drive itself: the two characters need an outside agent to tell them what their future plans hold for them (instead of, like Page, knowing it on instinct,) he is set to be President, and she, the most famous dancer of all time.

And ultimately, they do not need to sacrifice, the divine plan adjusts to fit their wants.

Fizzle and out.

Salieri accepts he is mediocre.

Adjustment Bureau simply wallows in this same mediocrity by not taking a stand one way or another and refusing to accept any sort of realistic resolution on what is not a fantasy driven problem.

In contrast, The Red Shoes, realistically, cannot but end in tragedy.

Faced with an un-winnable conflict Page (wearing the red shoes) compulsively dances off a balcony (the single other could-be fantastic element) and is killed by a passing train.

The show goes one, with only the spotlight in her place. No one else will ever perform this ballet.

A Cinema Classic. Essential viewing.

*Did that shoemaker inspire Prince?