It had been a while and we had forgotten how big it was, and subsequently couldn't then watch anything else. I'd forgotten how tragic it is. It's like a box of mirrors this film, casting reflections everywhere. What do I mean by that? Well one thing is that the plot of the film is also the plot of the Red Shoes ballet, and that the shoe-maker is Lermentov, because he traps her into a world of ballet and she can't escape - she can't take the shoes off. (And what's quite subtle in the ballet is that she does start off with a boyfriend, who tries to prevent her from wearing the shoes, then later he's at the dance with her, but he loses her and is literally carried away by a malevolent crowd.) And I'd forgotten that Lermentov (Anton Walbrook in surely one of his two best performances - yes, we all know what the other P&P one is) is so controlling that he's actually an evil bastard. (Though I have to add that Crastor is a jealous bastard who has no right to stop her from dancing for him.)
I also think that by extension, Lermentov is Powell. Powell was behaving quite dictatorially then. The lovable designer (Albert Basserman's last performance) may well have been based on their previous designer 'Uncle' Alfred Junge, who had created a stairway to heaven and a Himalayan palace, but he was summarily dismissed for younger blood in Hein Heckroth. And - in an exact mirror of the film - former composer Allan Gray's score was rejected and he was replaced by Brian Easdale. Interestingly, Emeric once wrote that Lermentov (who he wrote for Walbrook) "is something of Diaghilev, something of Alex Korda, something of Michael and quite a bit of me". But many had stories of Powell's bullying and at times sadistic reputation, so I'd have to say that in the worst way, Lermentov is Powell.
But I can't think of any modern director who could film The Red Shoes Ballet in the same brilliant way.
As we know, Jack Cardiff was robbed of his second Oscar, but to us, he won it. (The actual winners were Joseph Valentine, Winton Hoch and William Skall for Joan of Arc.) The film though did won the Oscars for it's astounding art direction - Hein Heckroth and Arthur Lawson - and Brain Easdale's music, as well as being nominated for Picture, Screenplay and Editing (Reginald Mills).
It was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic which for a film about ballet is quite puzzling. We can see the war-torn Brits probably loved the colour exotic Mediterranean locales (and Moira Shearer's bottom). And it's funny how tastes change. At one point, Lermentov is served an enormous grapefruit half, which he then douses with white sugar, Shearer is served a glass of orange juice, and she does the same thing. Both food items could only be dreamed about in rationed and poor Britain then.
The brilliant cast also includes Marius Goring, Robert Helpmann, Leonide Massine (who plays the shoe maker, and for a non-professional actor is particularly good), Esmond Knight, Austin Trevor.
Pressburger originally wrote the script alone after viewing preparations for a new ballet that was being put on - he was assisted by a young novelist called Keith Winter who helped with things like English names. This was before Powell's time, and the war shelved production. When the Archers purchased the script from Korda seven years later, Emeric completely re-wrote it. His goal was to show how a work of art was actually made so that the audience would say "ah, that's what all the fuss is about!" and he really succeeds - I love the scene when Crastor plays his new music to the principal collaborators and how enthused they immediately become.
And thanks to Kevin Macdonald - here's his grandfather in the short sleeved blue shirt!
The little harbour where the party celebrates a birthday is in Villefranche-sur-Mer, where a hidden underground medieval street hid the Resistance from the Nazis in WW2.
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