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Abstract(s)
The Red Shoes (Michael Powell; Emeric Pressburger: 1948) expresses the burning need for art, revealing anguished artists struggling for a transcendent pirouette. Other films have given us ballet, but generally as an interlude, but in this film the characters live for ballet and nothing but ballet; one of them even dies for it. Indeed the theme of the film is artistic dedication, even unto death. The script is adapted from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale: “The girl whose shoes danced away with her, through the streets and over the hills and far away to death itself”. One can note two plot lines in The Red Shoes: the first is a traditional Hollywood romance about a young ballerina who becomes a meteoric sensation and falls in love with the composer of the ballet that was inspired by her; the second, that looks more menacing, involves obsession, manipulation and control. In this paper we aim to analyze The Red Shoes taking in account: (i) The film is an atypical musical that goes well beyond the confines of a “backstage musical” into areas richer, deeper, and darker than any such film had ventured toward before—or would after; (ii) the acting, taking artistic expression through dance so seriously, is taken by several of the foremost and most legendary ballet dancers of its era, and this fact will be crucial for the ballet history, namely concerning dance interpretation.
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Keywords
Red Shoes Film analyses Dance analyses Ballet script Fairy tale