STORY STUDY - CRITERION WEEK - 44. “The Red Shoes”

“Why do you want to dance?” asks Boris Lermontov.

“Why do you want to live?” responds Victoria Page.

This is an exchange that happens early on in The Red Shoes.

Directed and written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (with additional dialogue by Keith Winter), The Red Shoes centers around a ballet company. Its main characters are Victoria, a ballet dancer, and Julian Craster, a music composer. Both work for the Ballet Lermontov, a ballet production company run by Boris Lermontov. The film begins with Victoria and Julian separately showing their potential to Lermontov.

When the prima ballerina announces that she is to be married, Lermontov quickly gets the idea to replace her with Victoria. He offers her the lead role in a brand new show for which Julian is to provide the music: The Red Shoes.

The Red Shoes, both within the film and in reality, is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. The plot revolves around a pair of red ballet shoes that force its wearer to dance, even after the point of exhaustion. The details of the original fairy tale are drastically different from how the film portrays it.

A theme that occurs throughout the film is “passion.” Victoria is driven by passion to dance. Lermontov believes a dancer does not reach her full potential as a dancer if she is distracted, including love. When the previous prima ballerina announced her marriage, Lermontov is upset at the news, thinking that her career as a dancer is finished because she won’t be fully focused on it.

A later point in the film has Victoria and Julian falling in love. When Lermontov learns of this, he is equally upset at this as well.

Victoria is also at a crossroads with her love for Julian and her love for dance. Lermontov even speculates that she only wants to dance for Ballet Lermontov, the greatest ballet company.

The film also has amazing set design for The Red Shoes ballet. In fact, the entire ballet sequence is beautiful, lasting around 15 minutes.

It should be noted that even though it’s a stage production, it’s still a film, so it takes advantages of quick cuts and scene overlays, and other techniques that only film can accomplish.