The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger) with Pamela Hutchinson - Criterion Collection Spine #44

"Why do you want to live?"

In this episode of Why This Film?, I'm joined by film critic and author Pamela Hutchinson to explore The Red Shoes, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 backstage melodrama and Criterion Collection Spine #44.

The Red Shoes follows Vicky Page, a rising ballerina cast as the star of a new ballet built from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, in which a pair of enchanted red shoes dance a woman to her death.

Pamela Hutchinson is a writer, critic, and film historian specializing in silent and classic cinema. She's a columnist at Sight & Sound, the founder-editor of Silent London, and her writing has appeared in the Guardian, Empire, the Criterion Collection, and many more. In 2023, she wrote the BFI Film Classics book dedicated entirely to this film, drawing on Michael Powell's personal archive to trace how the film came together. There's no one better suited to help unpack why this film still holds power.

Together we move through the film scene by scene and discuss:

• The real Nijinsky and Diaghilev romance
• Boris Lermontov - Collector of Souls
• The blood and injury hidden beneath ballet's grace
• Powell & Pressburger's partnership
• Is Vicky's death a choice or the red shoes' spell?
• The 17-minute ballet sequence

Whether you're discovering The Red Shoes for the first time or returning to it, this conversation explores why a film about the price of greatness has haunted artists for over 75 years.

Pamela Hutchinson

Silent London

BFI Film Classics: The Red Shoes

The Curse of Queen Kelly

Hollywood ManeStays - Not a pin, not a clip. Just Better.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:25

It's about the dark side of art. It's about the terrible things we do for art, and yet it seduces us with that very terrible idea, partly by making a work of art that in itself is so brilliant it would turn anybody's head.

Ron 0:40

Hello everybody, my name is Ron, and welcome to Why This Film, a podcast where we explore the artistry, cultural impact, and legacy of movies in the Criterion Collection. Each episode, I sit down with experts in Cinephiles to ask, why was this film chosen for the collection? And why does it still matter today? In this episode, we're stepping inside Ballet Lermentov, where devotion to art asks for everything with the Red Shoes. Criterion Spine number 44, the 1948 film from directors Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressberger. The Red Shoes follows Vicky Page, a young dancer discovered by the impresario Boris Lermentov, and cast as the star of a new ballet built around a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, in which a pair of enchanted red shoes dance a woman to her death. My guest today is Pamela Hutchinson, a writer, critic, film historian, and curator specializing in silent and classic cinema and women's film history. She is a columnist at Sight and Sound and the founding editor of the silent cinema website, Silent London. In 2023, she wrote the BFI Film Classics monograph on the Red Shoes, the book that gave me my thesis for this very episode, which makes her the ideal person to help me understand what exactly this film is asking of its characters and of us. And with that, here is my conversation with Pamela Hutchinson. When you wrote this BFI Film Classics book for this film, The Red Shoes, where do you start? A film that's so well known, where do you even begin? I mean, it's a quick read, but it's chock full of so much information. Really impressive how much you fit in this tiny book, but where do you start with something like this?

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Well, I mean, I was approached uh and they said, Would you like to write the BFI film classic on the red shoes? My initial response, my first act of scholarly uh work, was to sort of raise a glass and cheer. I was so delighted because I've genuinely loved this film since I was a little girl. I didn't consider myself a Powell and Pressburger scholar at that point. I I went back and reread some texts on Powell and Pressburger, and then I just really had to start following all my weird obsessions with the film because it is such a well-loved film and it's such a well-written-about film. So I sort of had two prongs to my research. One was the fact that the BFI do have the Michael Powell archive. So there was an awful lot of material from the making of the film, Michael Powell's notes, all this kind of official stuff that is in the archive at the British Film Institute, where I could find out a lot about the different variations of the screenplay, all the commentary that Michael Powell made about making the film, see storyboards, see designs. I mean, it's just mind-blowing and so beautiful. And I was interested in the the ending and why it both seems like the best ending in the world, and also the horrific thing that seemed to like throw female creatives into a deathly trap. But I was really interested in the relationship between the film and ballet. So I wanted to find out more about Mora Shera, who, because she had some kind of negative comments about the film, sometimes I don't think people have really sought out her in-depth opinion of the film and found out why it is that she felt that way. And it all sort of came together through following sources that weren't film history sources by going to the Royal Ballet School and going to the archives there and talking to experts. I began to find this other whole story about the film, which is not to say that the story of collaboration and Paul and Pressburg are making a masterpiece in itself is an amazing story. But just this other little side note really, I really really enriched my understanding of the film and how it's had this lasting impact on generations of young people, of dancers, creatives, artists of all kinds.

Ron 4:06

It clearly started with a love for the film, and then you just dove headfirst into a lot. It's so incredible that you had all those different resources that you could pull from and you could start to see those connections. You mentioned Mora Shearer. How did they land on her? Because they make a conscious choice here. They went with a dancer who they were hoping could act. It feels like an impossible combination to cast. Someone with this level of skill in dance and someone that could act. How did they find her? How did they land on her?

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Well, I'm not so shocked that Mora Shira can act, or that, you know, that a ballerina can dance because they do visual storytelling, they do performance, they know how to control their body and their facial expressions to a certain extent is part of it, you know. But still, someone who could act for film and so on. That is that is an amazing thing they found. They wanted other things too. They obviously wanted someone beautiful, and Mora Shira was distractingly beautiful, and that's sort of how Michael Powell was put on to her. Someone said, You have to come and see this girl, you know, thinking you're gonna put a girl in a movie. She she you probably want someone really beautiful. But what they didn't necessarily expect to find, count on, perhaps even desire, was someone with such a force of personality, with such self-assurance, who embodied Victoria Page in so many ways. The Victoria Page that Maurice are plays is this very, very headstrong, determined woman who has a really strong sense of who she is and what she wants out of life. And that was Mauricera. She was so determined and she was so self-possessed. And this is something that I think brings an awful lot to the film. When we think about ballerinas in films, and particularly in films before this one, there's this idea of the sort of ethereal beauty or the little Cockney Charmer who puts on a fritty tutu and falls in love, and there's all these sort of romantic and wispy associations. But Victoria Page is a well-off woman who is sure of her own talent and what she wants to do with her life, and she is more than prepared to face up to all these intimidating men in the ballet world. And and Morashira was just brilliantly placed to play that role because she had that inner strength and she she'd had her sort of struggles in the ballet world, so she knew she knew to stand up for herself.

Ron 6:16

What I would do to be called distractingly beautiful. That's that's that's a different tier of beauty, isn't it? You start mid-sentence when they see you distractingly beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

I think it's true. It's very difficult. Like I talk a lot about like classic film, and there are all these people in the films who are very good looking, and you talk about it in a way you don't want to be objectifying. It's obviously true that Morashira was beautiful and it comes across well on screen, but sort of having talked to people, there are these anecdotes. She was the kind of person where you couldn't help but say, and she's beautiful too. Like it's just completely what I say, distracting how gorgeous she is. And of course, red hair is great on Technicolor.

Ron 6:53

Well, the Technicolor is talk about distractingly beautiful. You could watch it on mute and probably be just as entertained. Well, not maybe not quite, but you could be entertained just just visually. It's such a gorgeous film.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

I mean power and press burger, yeah.

Ron 7:06

Yeah, so yeah, no, Power and Press Burger, that's that's right.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

I was just gonna say they ri they really knew how how to create beauty, and this film is just the apotheosis of that. I mean, just if anybody wants beauty, they should buy a ticket for the red shoes.

Ron 7:18

So who was responsible for what between the two? How does that partnership work?

SPEAKER_03 7:23

Well, I could tell you, Ron, but I'd have to kill you, you see. So it's always been a bit of a mystery. And basically, Emmerich Pressberger wrote screenplays, Michael Powell annotated them. Michael Powell was the director, he did direct, but Emmerich Pressberger was always there with him. And then at the end of the filming, Michael Powell went off hiking and Emmerich Pressberger supervised the edit. But between that, they had such a sympatico working relationship. Something that we see in the film when Boris Lamenthoff and Victoria Page first sort of begin to know each other, and particularly when he sees her dancing in Notting Hill, realize that they have a kind of creative spark between them. So there's an idea that Emmerich Pressberger might have, and an idea that Michael Powell might have, but the ideas they have together by feeding off each other's ideas was even more exciting than that. And so one of them puts something in motion and the other person pushes it further, and then the other person tweaks it a little bit. You can't really categorically say where one begins and what ends, but you can say that they were separately a very talented screenwriter and a very talented director. And together they were this magical thing, which is the archers. And I'm just so grateful that they met each other.

Ron 8:38

I think we as people like labels. So we like this person wrote, and this person directed, and this person produced. Well, why can't they just all work together collectively to make something that is a stunning masterpiece? Isn't that okay too?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

One of the themes in the film is about collaboration between different artistic disciplines. But I would say even more interestingly, one of the themes in the film is about this idea that creation itself, artistic creation itself, is some kind of enchantment. I really wanted to highlight in the book, but people don't need to read that. I'm just saying it's it's something I was keen on, like the moments where they present the moment, you know, moments of artistic invention as a kind of enchantment, choosing the right shoes, when Julian first sees the score and starts hearing music. You know, these things happen as if they're in a fairy tale spell. This is a this is a film that will tell you that the creation of art is something that cannot be explained. And yet, here we are, and we will do what we can.

Ron 9:32

We're gonna try to explain it. So you just said the word fairy tale, so that made me think of Hans Christian Anderson. See, he wrote that original fairy tale of the red shoes. It's a pretty dark story. It's strange. What survives from the fairy tale that makes it into the ballet or the film itself?

SPEAKER_03 9:50

There's an awful lot that makes it. There's a depiction of events from the fairy tale, the red shoes, at the beginning of the red shoes ballet that they make within this film. It's halfway through the film, we see the ballet, and it it begins to dramatise events from the Hans-Christian Anderson fairy tale, and it's rends with um dramatising a version of events. It's not quite as gory as the original. But the fairy tale is sort of about someone who has an idea, an ambition, a desire to be sort of better than they are, who gets into this magic trap of doing more than they should, of having this kind of vanity, perhaps a kind of sexual energy, but particularly just this idea that she wants to get away, she wants to not be poor, she wants to dance and wear these red shoes, and she's a little bit proud, she's a little bit ambitious, and it's her downfall. And so this overarching idea of the red shoes symbolizing this kind of dangerous ambition that survives into the film. And also just this idea that you might have compulsion. The shoes are magic, they make you dance even when you don't want to dance. An ambition or an artistic ambition in particular compels you to do things even if you know they're bad for you or bad for other people. The little girl in the fairy story kicks an old lady to death. She doesn't want to keep dancing, she wants to rest, but she has to go on. And so it's this sort of what the red shoes seem to represent is the fact that whatever happens, Victoria Page will keep dancing. She has to dance until she is stopped because it's so much more important to her than anything else. So what survives with the red shoes is all the essence of the red shoes and some very nifty footwear that shows up very beautifully on Technicolor.

Ron 11:25

You make many very wonderful observations in in the book. And one of them is you speak about the idea of amputation and what the shoes actually mean to real ballet dancers, the injuries, the damage the art does to the body. That's such a fascinating and dark conceit for what looks on the surface like you know, we're watching a Technicolor fantasy. We get some glimpses behind the scenes, but we don't really hear a lot in this film about the damage that their bodies are taking.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

It's kind of a ballet horror, body horror kind of aspect to the whole story. Why are ballet shoes red? They're red because ballerina's feet bleed into their shoes. Pink shoes at the end of a show are red. So dancing on point looks like the most delicate, featherweight thing in the world. Ballerinas seem to like trip across the stage without any friction. But of course, you're you're literally dancing with your feet on a block vertical. It is impossibly painful. It will distort your feet and uh you will have blisters, you will have bleeding, you will have broken toenails. There's also something really intimate about this relationship that ballerinas have with their shoes, which is yes, you might sweat and bleed into them, but you wear them out in certain patches if you do certain steps. Ballerinas often talk about the idea that their shoes know the steps. I mean, you'll get through several pairs of shoes dancing certain ballets, but the ones that you discard will be contorted in certain ways because you've danced in certain ways. You know, when people talk about shoes and women liking fancy shoes and this idea of like buying Christian Loubertin or Mano Loblanic shoes, we're talking about this beautiful adornment that you wear for a party and they're sort of intact at the end. No, no, no, no, no. Exchange of bodily fluids happens with Ballerwina shoes, right? And terribly dangerous things. So this all feeds into the blood that you see on Victoria Page's legs at the end of the film. Sorry, spoilers, it is from 1948. I do think that ballet films changed after the red shoes, and you do go from the violence inherent in the red shoes, even if it's not always as explicit, as you say, it's not always that explicit uh all the way through to the the grotesque gore of Suspiria by Dario Argento, um The Black Swan, the Darren Aronofsky film, which really gets into the sort of body horror and how uh ballet dancers might feel about their body. And we begin to explore all these ideas. You're you're dancing for long hours, you're sweating, you're fatigued, your feet hurt, and yet you look like a vision of ease and delight and grace. Grace is what you personify, but it takes blood, sweat, and tears.

Ron 14:02

So there has to be somebody that leads these people going out there and abusing themselves for the sake of the art. And in this film, it is Anton Walbrook who plays Boris Larmentov. And it's understood that he his character is modeled after Sergei Diagolev, if I said that correctly.

unknown 14:19

Yes.

Ron 14:20

He was the real impresario, which by the way, impresario is a new word for me in the last few weeks.

SPEAKER_05 14:25

It's a great word.

Ron 14:26

It's a if only I could fit that into regular vocabulary. He was it's modeled after him, the real impresario behind the ballet ruses. How closely does the film track him? Or do Power and Pressberger just use that as an inspiration and morph him into this character of Lermentov?

SPEAKER_03 14:40

So Sergei Diaghelev was a really famous man. And he's one of the inspirations for Boris Lementov's character, but also something that would be very well known to people is very directly the inspiration for the plot of this film. And without like there's a whole sequence in the book where I go through the various screenplays. I'm not going to like reiterate all that, but this film does originate in the early 30s with Najinsky's widow wrote a book about his life, and Alexander Korder bought the rights to that because he wanted to make it a film. The story that involves Sergey Agilev is that Sergey Agilev was the impressario of the Ballet Ruse, Najinsky was the lead danseur, and they were in a love affair. They were having a romantic relationship, and when a sexual relationship, and when Najinsky got engaged to a woman, Sergey Agilev threw him out of the company. Now, mentally, emotionally, Najinsky never recovered from this. It's a terribly sad story, you know, and it was well known that this was something had happened. And there were constant references back to that in the red shoes, and there's just this idea that people who are devoted to their art can't let romance, love, relationships get in the way. That if you are genuinely married to your art, you can't be married to anyone else. No, Boris Lermantoff, one of my favourite characters, he's so handsome. I would follow the man anywhere. He's a dangerous idol, he's a beautiful monster. Like how I can't tell you how much I love him, even though I know I should not.

Ron 16:06

But he has charisma.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

He's he has he's made of charisma. He's got charisma stitched into his embroidered satin breakfast coat, you know. He's wonderful, and he does reflect a certain kind of single-minded personality. So he's Powell, he's Pressburger, he's Corda, he's all kinds of people. He he is obviously very closely related to Sergei Diagolev. Um uh like a phenomenal force in ballet culture.

Ron 16:32

Great mustache, too. Uh, I want to talk about the score, and it almost didn't happen the way that we that way that we hear it. Alan Gray composed the original music that wasn't working for the people that were making the film. And they brought in Brian Easdale. He had scored Black Narcissus. They pull him in, he finished the score for the Red Shoes in six days and won an Oscar for the first British composer to ever win an Oscar for best score. How does that happen?

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Well, I mean, that's a great story in many ways. First, you know, our first British Oscar for score was so we're delighted. It's awful, isn't it? It's awful. What an awful thing to do to someone you've worked with so many times. You one of the things that the film shows us on screen and off-screen in the story of its making is that ruthlessness is part of art is art, right? And Michael Powell sort of seems to revel in this because when he tells the story about, he makes it sound like it happened almost exactly in the same way as Julian is brought into Rescore the Red Shoes. He even sort of says the scene, sets the scene as if it's exactly the same. He sort of aligns himself, if not with Boris Lermantoff, but with the ruthlessness of the man. This is a film about collaboration. And the ballet Lermantoff is all about collaboration, and that sounds wonderful, but it's competitive collaboration, right? So, and I think it must have been the same with the archers, you know, you had to earn your place. You weren't necessarily going to be scoring all the films just because you'd scored all the previous films, you know? You had to earn your place in the team, or you're gonna end up on the bench. And I have used a sports metaphor for the first time, and I hope I didn't do it wrong.

Ron 18:05

I'm gonna pull that social clip just for you. I will just send it for you, and you can post it anywhere that you'd like. Everyone look, it's my first sports reference, my first sports metaphor. You heard it here before.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Finally, she understands really important things. But you know, I mean, I think so, you know, you know, I mean, some people, other people were dropped in the making of this film, replaced by other people, and all we can say is what remains is excellent. So, you know, it's the same in the ballet Lermatov as it is in the archers. If it's not right, it will get dropped. If you are not devoted to the cause, aka you get married, you're gonna get dropped from the ballet Lermantoff. And if we think we can have a better artistic point of view, a better worker, better talent, yeah, we're gonna ditch you too.

Ron 18:49

If you look at it through that lens, and then you look at the competitive collaboration that takes place in the film itself. I mean, Julian replaces somebody. Yeah, Vicky replaces somebody, and it's because those two are willing to sacrifice for their art. Or they have just as much, if not more, talent than the person that they're replacing. And Boris, he's not afraid to look for that replacement for the sake of the art. Grisha, Grisha quits at one point, and Boris doesn't die deny.

SPEAKER_05 19:20

Three times.

Ron 19:21

He knows he's coming back, you know, right, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Yeah, and of course, he's played by the chap who replaced Nijinski in the Ballet Ruse. So, I mean, this stuff goes deep.

Ron 19:33

Very, very much life imitating art, art and imitating life kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before we jump into the film itself, this line sets it up perfectly. It's a bit of a cheeky line, and I use the word cheeky purposefully. Now all the archers had to do was fill out the rest of the cast and create a full-length technicolor melodrama, as well as a truncated film ballet, a form that had not yet been invented, in the space of time, usually allotted to produce a far more conventional rabbit from a far more ordinary hat.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

I am cheeky, aren't I? But I'm correct. Yeah, I think you know what I mean. I think that's British sarcasm. Yeah, it's not much, but they will do it. I mean, in every story of Power and Pressbook and making a film, pretty much could be boiled down to they were meant to make this kind of film, and instead they made something much larger, deeper, more beautiful, profound, and amazing and technically ambitious. It's always those stories that, oh well, it started with a request from the Ministry of Information and it became a heartbreaking masterpiece of life and death. But you know, I know where I'm going was meant to be about like, you know, helping Britons be more frugal. And instead they created a myth that endures in my heart, at least forever and ever and ever. So yeah, they knew when they talk about rabbits and hats, they were the only people who knew where all those rabbits were. Like no one else could locate those rabbits. They were right in the corner of the hat, you know, like they were hard to find. Only Paul and Pressboker can do that. Really, it is a tremendous achievement what they did.

Ron 20:55

Doesn't Boris have a line about rabbits in a hat at some point in the before the ballet's about to start?

SPEAKER_03 21:00

There's something about like, yeah, yes. Someone says, Oh, you pulled a rabbit out of a hat, and he said, Well, there has to be a rabbit there to begin with. That's what I'm referring to, absolutely. And they would just they would take they would take a simple idea, or might be a simple idea. You know, Alexander Corda wants to make a film by Najinski. You know, 15 years later, oh, here's the red shoes.

Ron 21:18

Well, let's jump into the red shoes, shall we? Let's get into it. So the film opens with Julian Craster, played by Marius Goring. He and some friends from school attend a ballet, and a song called Heart of Fire is played, scored by his professor, Professor Palmer. And uh he walks out furious the moment he recognizes that the music is his and stolen. I like the idea of the here's a new word too. Is it balletamain? Ballet.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Balletamain, yes. I don't know if I've heard it said out loud, but yes, people who are manic manic about ballet, yeah.

Ron 21:50

I I find it interesting that you have those people that are next to Julian and his group, and Julian and his group, they are there for the music. They are the music lovers, and they're at odds. They're having a bit of a dispute. Just before we bring a ballet dancer and a composer together in the forms of Vicky and Julian, so you have these two sides at odds, and then we bring them together. I just I think that's just solid just writing and and story crafting. I think that's just great.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

And of course the ballet of men, she says, You're sitting on my cloak, which is a deathless line, I think. And just so wonderful. They're getting on each other's nerves, quite literally. They're literally sitting on each other's cloaks in a figurative sense, but also literally she is wearing a cloak to the ballet, even though she's in the cheap seats eating her sandwiches. And and the fans are divided between dance and music. But if you're going to be a true genius of the ballet, the film will tell us you need to be able to combine all of the disciplines. So you need to look beyond. They have got like a narrow focus, and this film is going to teach us to see the complete. I'm going to say something tricky now. Gesamtkunstwerk. The complete work of art. Okay. Using every discipline.

Ron 23:09

You wrote that in here somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

I didn't.

Ron 23:12

But I didn't know how to pronounce that. I just I just said in my mind as you're reading, I just said I read German word and then just kept just kept going.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

Gesamtkunstberg, I think. But hey, don't say that without your false teeth in, because if you go horribly wrong.

Ron 23:27

So Julian's introduction in the film is defined by his work being stolen from him before we know anything about Julian. So that opening choice, is that telling us anything about how this film treats authorship or ownership between artists? Because this comes up again with Julian's editing scores, Boris talking about how he owns the rights to the red shoes. So if they put it on again, they have to pay royalties. Is this film saying anything about that, about ownership and authorship of art or between artists?

SPEAKER_03 23:55

It's interesting. I mean, without going too much into something I said I wouldn't talk about, in earlier drafts of the screen play, Julian Kraister is a working class man with a slightly a bit of like class consciousness in this upper class world of ballet. So he has to find his way. Even though he has the talent, he has to find his way. And there's a bit of a culture clash about class and money between him and Victoria Page and pretty much everyone else in the story. Now that's pretty much dissolved in what you see in the final film. But yeah, this is a lesson he's going to learn. He has this sort of, you might call it naive or childlike, you might think it's fair. His sense of justice is I wrote that. I should own that. No one should take that away from me. Which, you know, in one way is completely fair. But as Boris points out to him, it's much more dispariting to have to steal than to be stolen from. Julian Kraister, the assumption is, is rich and is better off than everyone else because he has the ability to write like that. He doesn't, he shouldn't need reward or credit or royalties. I mean, you and I may disagree with this, but he has something that's more important than that, is that he can keep he can write Heart of Fire, he can write the red shoes, he can write his opera, he has the talent. So yeah, he sort of has to be told like the um the ability to create art is what is going to sustain you your whole life. It's what your life is going to be about. It's not going to be about those few bars. And the important person knows, Boris Lermantoff knows. And yes, Palmer gets eased out of the ballet Lermantoff, you know, onto the eyes.

Ron 25:20

Yeah, he slowly vanishes away from the story as and you kind of forget about him as an odd because you're on the ride with Vicky and Julian and Mr. Lermantoff. So you kind of forget that Palmer was there at some points of the film. He knows he doesn't show up again.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Well, that's it. I mean, it's like the A Star is Born or something to show the irresistible rise of the overnight sensation, the young angenou. We have to realize that some people get pushed out of the world of show business at the same time. You know, you what go someone goes up, someone goes down, right? Victoria Page has to take over from someone, and even when she leaves, someone has to take over from her, you know. It's it's ruthless. And uh it's the way of the world. Yeah, it's the way of the artistic world at least. I'm sure you'll be podcasting forever.

Ron 26:04

As long as I can continue to get wonderful guests such as yourself, then I will keep doing it. In the audience is Victoria Page, Vicky Page, played by Moira Shearer. She didn't have to bust down the doors and rush up the steps to get to her seats. She's in a bit of a different level of seating. And she's introduced and she's wearing a tiara, and we'll see that tiara multiple times. It's like she's visiting royalty. And she's next to her aunt, whose name is Lady Neston. So is there some sort of I don't know that that title suggests?

SPEAKER_03 26:31

Yeah, she's an aristocrat.

Ron 26:33

Irene Brown is who plays uh Lady Nestin. And Lady Nestin is in trying to invite Palmer. Reminds me of middle school, you're past the notes. Invites Palmer and the company's impresario. I just wanted to say the word again, Boris Lamontov, played by Anton Walbrook, to a party that evening. And at that party, I love this scene. Vicky approaches Boris, and it's one of the more memorable exchanges, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Still as far as go, I think it might have been worse.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Do you?

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Very nearly was a great deal worse.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Oh.

unknown 27:01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Where it appears to be treated to a little dancing exhibition. But now I understand where to be spared that horror.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Mr. Lavantoff, I am that horror.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

It's a bit later, apologies, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yes, a little late, I think. But you're not sorry I didn't dance, are you? May I ask why?

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Because my dear Miss Victoria Page. My dear Mrs. Page, if I accept an invitation to a party, I do not expect to find myself at an audition.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Yes, you're quite right.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Why do you want to dance?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Why do you want to live?

SPEAKER_02 27:55

I don't know exactly why, but uh I must.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

That's my answer too.

Ron 28:03

It's one of those classic tropes where I don't know who I'm talking to, so I'm gonna put my foot in my mouth. He tells her he was spared the horror of watching someone perform that light, and she answers, I am that horror. Now that word to me is very interesting because quoting your line back to you again. The horror of the red shoes is preeminently psychological. Vicky must dance with her demons to achieve greatness. Is this line at the party planning that seed by using that word horror twice before we get anywhere near the red shoes ballet?

SPEAKER_03 28:32

Yeah, it's clever. It's very sort of posh upper class British lingo. Oh, what horrors? Well, you know, the scones are cold, you know, that sort of thing. Um we know better.

Ron 28:41

We know what's coming.

SPEAKER_03 28:42

Do you have your heroine, your beautiful Angenet Ballerina, say, I am that horror? That's not ballerinas say in ballet films. They say, Oh, I just want to dance, sir. And I'm so humble, sir. So this this woman, she says, I'm a horror, and then she obviously tells him like her whole ethos of life. Boris Lemotoff is in a really bad mood because he knows that his work succeeds, that needs the patronage of rich people like Lady Nestor, right? He needs to sort of be nice to posh people, titled people, needs to go to parties.

Ron 29:15

But he doesn't want to- He doesn't want to be at that party.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

No, and he certainly doesn't want to see someone's niece doing her little audition because it probably happens to him quite a lot, and they're normally awful. And of course, this you've seen this scene in films before. He doesn't then say, go on, show me what you can do. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't he doesn't agree to the audition there and then. He has this conversation where he understands that her psychology, her psychological makeup is the same as his driven artist.

Ron 29:45

I I think maybe it's her class background that she's not intimidated by him and she she seems different to him than what he's used to because she doesn't it seems like they're on an even level when they're having that conversation. I think it's not just the same level class-wise. I think they're on the same level with how they're thinking about the art.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

In a way, she's socially superior to him. He works for a living and she's an aristocrat, right? That's true. You know, she's also deferential to him because he's a man and he's a very talented man, and she's he's a man in the field that she wants to work in. She would like to get a job from him. So, you know, it it there's a pushback on that. But the fact that she answers him honestly and with this dead, brilliant line, he says, Why do you want to dance? and she she throws it back at him and says, Why do you want to live? And it's all he needs to know. You know, and it's a bit like that thing of recognizing that you have someone who could be your artistic collaborator. The moment when she says that to him, he understands something fundamentally about her, just like when he sees her dance in Notting Hill and they lock eyes. It's like not only are you, you know, I'm a ballet impresario and you are a ballet dancer, but we share something, an understanding of what art can be and how we can make it. And you know, if you you know, you know, if you're ever doing creative collaborations with everyone, anyone, it's not just about, you know, someone's good at their job, it's like are you on that same wavelength? Is a sort of very sort of banal way of putting it, but you know, do you really understand what it is you need to do? Are you equally committed to this act?

Ron 31:14

That's why I don't have a co-host.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

Exactly.

Ron 31:16

That's why there's no co-host here. That's why I'm by myself.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

It could be only one, you know, one day you'll find, you know, maybe someone he's he's he's up to your standards. But you know, don't settle for someone who's possible standards. Exactly. Don't settle for anyone who's below your standards because they'll drag you down.

Ron 31:34

Well, he offers her, I don't know what he offers her exactly, because we have another scene that we're coming up where we're we end up in Lermatov's apartment. But then after that, Vicky shows up to the company, not really sure where to go, just like Julian. But before we get there, Julian writes Boris a letter. And I watched it again this morning because I was checking my notes and I'm like, does he actually say that he wrote Heart of Fire in the letter? Boris does say you did write Heart of Heart of Fire is your work, isn't it? And I don't know if that's because like Julian plays for him. So then Boris kind of knows that's that's him. That's the kind of that's the level of talent that it would take to write something like that.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Yeah, he he he has he knows enough to know when he hears him play that yes, this is the man that wrote it. He is sophisticated enough about music as he is about all the other arts to recognize greatness. He can't create it himself, but he can recognize greatness. And so he sees Julian as like, well, I'll hire you in a junior role because one of these days I'm gonna make you write me a ballet.

Ron 32:32

Yeah, he Julian has a he goes to try to get the letter back, and of course, of all the letters Boris is going through, there's one that's open, and it happens to be happens to be Julian. Boris claims he already read it. He seems, I don't know, unexpectedly sympathetic to Julian.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

And your letter Mr. Krasner. If you take my advice you destroy it immediately. And forget all about it. I know that's why that's why it is worth remembering that it is much more disheartening to have to steal than to be stoned from.

Ron 33:29

That's something that a mentor would say to somebody that they're trying to help along in the industry. In the audio commentary, someone describes Boris as a collector of talent, of people, and maybe even their souls. I hear that, and I feel like that makes him out to be predatory. Do you view Boris as predatory?

SPEAKER_03 33:48

He's predatory in a way. He is he is predatory. He's like a vampire, right? He wants you to work for him, he wants your work and your talent, and he will take it. So, for example, if someone had criticized Palmer's score, he wouldn't care about that. But if he could see someone who'd written the bits that he liked, he would just say he will throw Palmer aside and take Julian. But yeah, he wants to take him. He wants him only to write for the Ballet Lermantoff, right? He wants this. It's hard to we will probably talk about this later. What does Boris want from Vicky and Julian? And he wants he wants their artistic souls, he wants their complete devotion to the ballet Lermantoffe. It could stand in for all kinds of other things. But it's not entirely kind. He can be kind to Vicky, but only really because he sees that he needs to. It's quite easy to rule with a rod of iron, I think. And that's w how he treats Julian, you know, as a sort of over-enthusiastic schoolboy who will do extra work for a merit badge.

Ron 34:48

Or even says I can't pay you that much. I mean, it doesn't matter to Julian. He's trying to find his way. It doesn't matter if he's only going to get paid X amount a week or whatever he tells him.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

Yeah. And then m money won't be the thing. It will be the prestige of working for the ballet lemontor.

Ron 35:02

Well, yeah, of course, Julian even mentions I wonder what it's like to wake up in the morning and be famous. He has that line, I believe, when they're on the balcony, when he and Vicky are on the balcony together later in the film. So it's not so much about the money. The money comes as it's like the bonus to having that fame. What what did I miss out on the times of life where like ballet was so popular like this? I mean, people are busting down doors to get in and like, oh, I'm famous because I wrote a score for ballet. Did I not read enough as a child? What am I missing here?

SPEAKER_03 35:30

I think I think you're too young to remember the 40s. Um yes. Yeah. Obviously, I remember them very well. I don't know what's like in America, but very much knowing about ballet, understanding ballet, going to the ballet, very much as sort of considered to be quite an upper class thing in the UK. Hence I know nothing about it. However, but no, it became really popular. So the ballet ruse were very popular, and like ballet was very popular in the 20s. And in the 1930s, there was a sort of a bit of, as I say, ballet mania in the UK. And there was this book, this children's book, which I have read, kid you not, probably about 111 times, called Ballet Shoes by Noel Streetfield about these young girls who these orphans who go to um drama school, and what the youngest of them is a Russian ballerina. Well, why why are they all from different nationalities? Oh, yeah, because they've been collected, actually. They've been collected. It was hugely popular, and it got little girls wanting to take ballet lessons. And then during the war, we had places like the Saddler's Wales Ballet, and they were which were out to sort of democratise ballet anyway, but they were also performing in much more accessible venues because there was a war on. Ballet was much more democratic in the 1940s. Plus, people were thinking, because of the resurgence in ballet in the 1930s, they'd been thinking about how can we create English ballet? Because even English ballet had been giving all their dancers Russian names or French names, and it's French and Italian ballet and Russian ballet that was dominating. So there was this movement to create the great British ballet, and Mauriceira at Saddle as well as part of that, along with Margot Fontaine. Yeah, you know, there's a line from a dance critic that I quote in the book about, you know, ballet being as popular as and in some cases involving cueing. Like, you know, British people like to cue. I'll say something about spam as well. Ballet is as popular as spam. Like, and then you're just like, you know, so there was a lot of popularity of ballet. That said, when Julian Kraser says fame, he is thinking about fame in the classical music world, right? Whatever that means, it would be exactly the same now. He doesn't mean he wants to be on the equivalent of dancing with the stars, he means he wants to be renowned for his work, recognized as the true artist. And this was a real problem for Namura Shera, who only ever wanted that kind of fame, and then she was in a hit movie, and people wanted to ask her silly questions in magazines and talk about how pretty she was, which is obviously such a dumb thing to talk about. So, yeah, when he says fame, he means classical music fame and renown. He wants to be as famous as Pete as Palmer, right?

Ron 38:04

You're not allowed to sell yourself short anymore and say, I don't know a lot about the ballet, and then give an answer to a question at that level of information. You gotta you're not allowed to do that.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Well, I've I've read about this, I've researched this, I've talked to people about it. What I mean is that like I do not in my life generally very often go to the ballet. I like it. I have been, I think I went to one last summer. I go occasionally. I am not what you might call a regular ballet goer.

Ron 38:32

You know, watching this film, reading your book, doing all the research, I had I had a brief moment where I thought, shit, do I like the ballet? Do I like the ballet now?

SPEAKER_03 38:43

You know, you know who had that experience? Jack Cardiff. He thought the ballet was for a word I probably shouldn't say, you know, effeminate people. And then he made the red shoes and he was like, No, I'm a hardcore ballet fan now. This is amazing. So the cinematographer and you, same journey.

Ron 38:59

I mean Yes, Jack Cardiff and I, we have so much in common.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

I I highly recommend if you do like the red shoes, go and try and see a live ballet as soon as you can. Uh, or just do what I do and watch lots of movies about them. Watch Robert Alton's the company.

Ron 39:14

Boris asks Julian to play something on the piano, and it's just in the most borus way possible, just eating his breakfast, not really paying close attention, doesn't give visible sign of approval, and hires him on the spot as a coach for the orchestra. This is where I've this is where in that commentary I heard Boris's uh Julian and Vicky entering Boris's orbit through seduction, sacrifice, and luck. There's nothing overtly seductive happening. It's two men and a piano. So what is he, what is Boris doing in this scene that earns that type of description of seduction?

SPEAKER_03 39:49

Seduction. Let me talk to you about seduction in Anton Walbrook. Okay, so this man is devastatingly handsome, right? Okay, very handsome, former matinee idol, come to Britain and played all these wonderful roles. He's very handsome. What is seductive? Boris Lermantoff, I mean, Michael Powell said that Walbrook played Boris Lermantoff quite gay. So, hey, two men in a hotel room and a piano. What could be more romantic than that? But I don't think that conventional romance is what we're talking about. We're talking about the seduction of a whole new life. Be part of the ballet Lermantoffe. It's already the credibility off the charts, right? But very specifically in that scene, look at what Boris is wearing, this beautiful dressing gown, embroidered satin. Look at what he's eating. It's still rationing in Britain at this point, and he's eating this feast of exotic fruits for breakfast. Lots of sugar. Lots of sugar. There's a lot of sugar in this film. Fresh fruit, fresh fruit and sugar, two things that people in Britain were not um were not overburdened with in 1948, let me tell you. So it it is just like escape. Julian Kraister is a not very well-off student with no recognition. The seduction of the Ballet Lermantoff would make his head spin. So it's seduction. It doesn't have to involve sex. You know what did um Palan Pressberger say their working relationship was like a marriage without sex?

Ron 41:08

See that you could have said that earlier when I said, How do they work together? Well, they were married, but they weren't sleeping together.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

It's a meeting of minds.

Ron 41:16

So skipping ahead a little bit, because we do get the whole introduction to the company. We meet Grisha, we meet the man who does the set design and the costume design, we meet Robert Heltman, who plays one of the other uh male dancers in the company. And Vicky shows up and it's like, I don't know where to go. Can someone help me? Mirrored with Julian also showing up, was like, he told me to be here, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing exactly.

SPEAKER_05 41:41

Yeah.

Ron 41:42

Um, and this is where I said that Vicky is invited, but not really given a job. It was like just, well, you can just come and practice because we seem to be on the same wavelength. So I I imagine she's just going to be going to classes. But Boris obviously sees something in her because he lets her dance in a matinee.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Yeah. You're right. Okay. So it's part of the seduction is to sort of slightly neg people. I won't say that was a brilliant piece of piano playing, Julian. And I won't immediately let you into the corps de ballet, Vicky. In fact, I'll let you off to go and dance somewhere else at this sort of pokey place where they don't even have a piano. But that's when he wants to watch her. He doesn't want to watch her in class, he wants to watch her and her home turf in the rainy, you know. Okay, well, here's another sports metaphor that my husband uses a lot, which is like, I'm sure you can do it on the big match, but can you do it on a wet Wednesday and stoke? And effectively, he goes to watch her on a wet Wednesday and stoke, and like she is surrounded by mediocrity.

Ron 42:38

Well, the the record skips, they're trying to change the re the track of the the song that's going to be playing for the dancers, and that skips. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:46

And she's truly brilliant, and he locks eyes with her, and she's so desperate for that bit of recognition. This is like the seduction game. And then as soon as she turns around, he's gone.

Ron 42:54

Right. Empty seat. So back at Covent Garden, he quite mercilessly chooses his few two dancers, I think, that are going to come with them to Paris. And in Paris, this the company star, who is Arina Boronskaya, announces at a dress rehearsal that she is engaged to be married. And Boris says nothing. Nope, that's a big mistake, Arena. Not in not in not in the Larmentov ballet. No, you will not lead a life outside of the ballet. It seems strange to me at first because when she and well, just how she announces it is kind of strange. We're in this room practicing and dancing, and all of a sudden she just comes out with the fact that she's engaged to be married. So is it policy that she needs to leave the company? Because everyone immediately comes to her and they're saying goodbye as much as they are congratulating her.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

I mean, it's his act of violence to throw her out. But I mean it's it's pretty much impossible to be married and be a ballerina at that point. Um Morishira herself, she tried it. When she got married, she married a politician called Ludovic Kennedy, and then she tried to carry on dancing while she was having children. He said, You can't do it. And it was frowned upon as well. I mean, if you try and do it, it's difficult. But also the idea is that you can't be one or the other. This is a time when women were expected to give up any kind of job when they got married. What's really remarkable is that, yeah, they're saying goodbye, but Boris Lemotoff shows no affection towards her at all. He's like, You have betrayed me.

Ron 44:16

Is that because he lacks control over the situation?

SPEAKER_03 44:19

He lacks control. That's completely it. He she's done something outside the ballet, outside his control, that's gonna cause him a problem. He can't give the affection that she needs. He's a put out. But he just can't give that back. So he can't say goodbye. He can't say, you know, happy for you. It's like you are meant to belong to me. I've collected your soul, right? That's the predatory nature of him. And now she's taking her soul back. And how how dare you betray him like that? So, in a way, he feels like they are married, but they have this inseparable bond. And yet she has chosen something over the back Ballet Lermantoff, and that's just an unforgivable crime. And that's what happened with Najinsky and Diagolev.

Ron 44:59

I think my read, initial read on the film, was way off because when I first watched it, there's a line that is almost a throwaway line that Grisha gives when Vicky first shows up. He says something like, Well, go over there with all the other girls that Boris has decided to be, I forget the exact terminology. And I thought, oh, is Boris having a sexual relationship with all these people? Like he's collecting these sexual partners. No, that is not what's going on here. It's it's more of I'm using you for your art and now I can't, so I'm gonna throw a little fit, I have no control, and be gone with you. I can replace you.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

I mean, one of the things you have to think about, I think, and I think you're you're you're really spot on that you think, oh, is the is this what he's doing? Because in a in an earlier ballet film, it would be about that, about you know, the seducer. Would a depiction of a gay ballet impresario look like in 1948, in British film in 1948, right? Well, it's not going to look like a happy, healthy gay man with a happy boyfriend and maybe a few flings. You know, it's not going to look like that. It's not even going to necessarily, because of squeamishness, censorship, misunderstanding, misconception, and prejudice, it's not even going to make sense. And so often when you have characters in in classic films that are queer-coded, their behavior doesn't make sense. There are clues that they have a slightly strange attitude to human relationships, that they seem unmoved by women, even if they also seem to desire them in a certain way. They behave in ways that don't make sense according to all these sort of heterosexual rules that we have. Like, well, obviously there's this chap and he's collected all these women to work for him, so probably he's a sexual predator or a serial seducer, a lithario. So, in many ways, Chris Lemontoff, I think, is quite clearly a gay man, and yet it's a depiction from 1948, so that's never going to make complete sense. There's always going to be things that counteract that or confuse that. And also, for him, whatever he does in his private life, his romantic life, nothing is important as important to him as the bonds with his creatives in the in the ballet. He has this passion for Victoria Page and previously Varena. So there are so many readings of how Boris Lermantoff feels towards these women. And they all often, like, if you're thinking literally, can't contradict each other. But this film has got so much meaning in it. All these things exist at the same time. It's based, best we forget, on a gay love story, like a gay love tragedy. A very well-known one.

Ron 47:27

He summons Julian and tells him the story of the red shoes. I love this scene as well, where he goes through it's a small monologue where he tells the whole story of the red shoes.

SPEAKER_02 47:36

The belly of the red shoes is from a fairy tale by Hans Anders. It is the story of a girl who's devout an ambition to attend a dance in a pair of red shoes. She gets the shoes, goes to the dance. At the end of the evening, she gets the shoes.

Ron 48:38

In the end she dies, and he says it very cavalierly and sends him off to rewrite the score. And he does, as he's telling the story, he's embracing very passionately the statuette of in his of the cast of it's actually the cast of the real dancer, Anna Pavlova's foot.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

Yes, Anna Pavlova's amputated foot. I mean, there's amputation again. It couldn't be more phallic, and yet also it is it is the brutality of the amputated foot. A dead ballet dancer. Ballet dancers die, ballet heroines die. They're often ghosts for half the film. Death and ballet. Oh, I'm sorry, we haven't got time enough to get into the connections.

Ron 49:12

Is that how Boris sees the dancers inside the ballet where he's at the end in the end they die? Is that a peek into his psyche on how he feels about these lead dancers in his ballet that they can come and go and it's not going to affect him? Because I don't he says that cavalierly, but then later in the film, I mean he's distraught when Arena is getting married. He is incredibly pissed whenever he finds out that Vicky and Julian are together. So I'm not sure it's it's like maybe that's one of the contradictions of oh, in the end she dies, you know, whatever. I can find it, we can find a new. But then being upset when people are coming and going out of the company because of their personal lives, it's a bit of a contradiction, I guess. I'm I feel like I'm contradicting myself in it. No, you're not.

SPEAKER_03 49:54

You're not, I think you're completely correct. Like I think you know, he's affecting to not care, and yet he cares so deeply. And this is idea of being a collector of souls, right? If you're a vampire and you're feasting on someone's blood, you want the blood to keep flowing. So, I mean, to skip ahead, I think he he dies inside when Victoria Page dies. He's so deeply connected to her. Even if the relationship has got uh you know an imbalance of power, their souls are enmeshed, right? Much more so than and than than Vicky and Julian's, and even that's quite powerful. Vicki and Boris, that bond is incredible. So yeah, he affects to not care. And he knows that yes, these women die at the end of the films. And there's a little bit of dramatic irony there, because we know probably that something terrible's gonna happen at the end of this film. We probably have lots of ideas about how the film is going to progress, many of which will be contradicted. But yeah, yeah, it's a ballet. Women will die tragically at the end, or even halfway through. And this sort of cavalier attitude to that, as you say, it's fooling nobody.

Ron 50:54

He goes to watch a performance from I wrote this down stage left. I don't even know if that's right. I have no idea. It's like, what am I doing here? I'm putting stage directions in my notes. Like, that's ridiculous. I have no idea. And I believe it's Grisha who says that Arena is in top form tonight. The film does a great job of depicting that he's saying what he's about to say because he knows Vicky can hear it. He's almost like grooming her starting now because he could he saw the talent earlier in her own matinee that she danced.

SPEAKER_02 51:23

Look at our Baronsky. She's in wonderful form tonight. I'm not interested in Baronskar's form anymore. Nor in the form of any other prima ballerina who is imbecile enough to get merit. Oh, come now, but he's out finished. You cannot have it both ways. The dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love will never be a great dancer. Never.

Ron 51:57

And he's a jerk to Arena. They're on the tr they're about to get on the train to go to Monte Carlo. And he just he she is wants to, it's almost like she has affection for him, as if he was a mentor to her. I mean, they needed each other for them to both be where they are. And he's very, very cold to her. But that line where he's talking about how you can't rely on the doubtful comforts. I I love that doubtful comforts of human love. Is that him at his peak of manipulation?

SPEAKER_03 52:25

I mean, yeah. I mean, he would do worse. He will do worse. But yeah, that's it. That he wants he is throwing away one woman in order to collect another, but warning her, you can never. You have me, you don't have anyone else. I mean, if you're I love I love how this film's now being translated into American because you said he's being a jerk to Arena. Um no, it's great. I love it. It's like he's a jerk.

Ron 52:47

What was what's the better term?

SPEAKER_03 52:49

Brute is what they say in the film, isn't it? He's a monster. He's a monster, a brute, but yeah, he's a jerk. He's a jerk to her, he's awful to her, he is very dangerous, and yet he's also very seductive because Victoria Page wants nothing more than to be the lead ballerina. She wants to work with him. She sees that he's a genius, and so she is, as you say, seduced. Yeah.

Ron 53:10

And he knows it. And they're off to Monte Carlo. And when they get there, Vicky is summoned to I had, like, where is she summoned to? She's got a she's dressed for a romantic evening and that damn tiara's back. And then she has to climb an absurd number of stairs, by the way, in Monte Carlo. Where is she summoned to? Like, is this where Boris is staying in this villa somewhere?

unknown 53:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:32

Is that where she's on the villa? He's saying it's now like one of the richest, the most expensive private residences in the world. Uh, this house, it's a real house. Um, I went down to Monaco, but I couldn't get weirdly, Ron, couldn't get very near it. Couldn't get very near it in my hide car. Yes. She assumes, because she understands the world of cliche, she understands how show business works, that he's invited her to a sort of candlelit supper, where he'll probably be charming and say to her, Well, you're going to be my next big thing, and sort of maybe sweet talk her. So she dresses in her best and then she arrives, and it's a casual meeting, and Julian's there in his striped t-shirt, and you know, she but the thing is, it's meant to be that she looks ridiculous with her tiara and her blue satin cape on, but because she's damn Moira Sheera with the poise, it doesn't look ridiculous. She's just that person where it's like, there's not everyone else wearing this, and you know, in the same way that Boris wears quite extravagant things, and he always looks right. So they're quite similar in that, you know. She thinks she's being summoned to a private meeting where maybe she'll have sweet talk.

Ron 54:35

Yes. Okay. This is where I this is part of that contradiction we're talking about, where I thought she's dressed like it's going to be a romantic evening. It's a am I reading too much into this, or is because of the tiara, I can't I keep thinking about that tiara. Is this staged like a coronation? I mean, she is she is given that principal role as the dancer. Is that tiara in dress meant to stage like a coronation of sorts?

SPEAKER_03 54:58

That's a really interesting way to look at it. I mean, the tiara, you're saying you don't wear your tiara on weekdays?

Ron 55:03

Not unless I'm meeting with Boris Larmantov.

SPEAKER_03 55:07

Right. So, I mean, the tiara, I think, is sort of like the accoutrement of an upper class woman. She is aristocratic. And so if she's going to a ball or an opera or a ballet, she's going to wear it. I think that's really interesting. I think it makes her look like a princess. And I hadn't really thought of it in terms of coronation, but you know, a princess being a character from a ballet. They are a young peasant girl or a princess or something, all these sort of tropes of the fairy tale. So I thought of it in those terms. But yeah, she is expecting to have her crowning moment. You're going to be wonderful in this ballet, darling. No one could dance it like you. You're going to have a very important role and are going to make you famous. All this is a sort of emollient talk that she thinks she's going to um have, you know, plastered all over her ears and twinkling off the tiara. But no, she she walks into a sort of conference.

Ron 55:55

And Julian is asked to rewrite parts of the No, wait, is he asked to redo parts of it? I guess, because then later he's asked to do just just rewrite the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

Yeah, and that night on the balcony. Yeah, because he he does he's asked to write some of it and he just rewrites the whole thing. He's a bit shy about saying it. And they're like, well, just don't orchestrate it then. You know, you've written an entire ballet when you were asked to write some passages, and that's still not enough. You know, you always have to demand more, demand more. That's how he keeps people working for them.

Ron 56:24

That's uh parallel to Brian Eastale being called in to rewrite the score as well.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

It is, and it's just it's how a lot of creative people work, and it's just a pattern that I recognize hugely. And if I were in the ballet world in the fictional 1940s of the red shoes, I'd be falling over myself to work with Boris Lermatov, and I'm so ashamed of it, but I also I cannot deny it. Like I would I would just be up for that, for that challenge.

Ron 56:50

Well, you better not have a partner because you're not allowed to have a life outside of the Lermentov Ballet. So you better. I'm sorry to sorry for your husband, but it's over. It's over.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

Yeah. Well, you know, hey, who knows? You don't know. He might be a Boris Lermatov type.

Ron 57:03

That's true. That night on the balcony, she and Julian they're talking about the red shoes as people, not yet as collaborators. They're up-and-coming members of the Lermentov Ballet. And immediately afterwards, this is I I love this little scene too where they're going down the line of the red shoes, and Boris is selecting those red shoes that she'll literally wear. The live to dance, dance to live logic that takes hold of Vicky. Does that something that takes place over the course of the film, or do we see it show up on screen at some point? Because I don't think we're quite well, this is just my personal opinion. I'm not sure we're quite shown exactly how far she's willing to go yet at this point where they're on the balcony talking. We've heard her say it, but I don't know if we've actually seen it quite yet. Is there a point where we see it on screen?

SPEAKER_03 57:47

Well, I mean, she says it as I as hey, but it's one of those things, it's a bit like you're an addict even before you've taken your first shot of heroin. You might be dabbling in drugs, but then if you inject a full Boris Lermatov, you're done for. So she's she's gone into, for her own particular compulsive behavior, the worst possible environment. She's she's just agreed to be in the ballet, and yet he's already put her on the front page of the newspaper. Things at this point, things are going faster than they possibly could. And those shoes are chosen with this magic enchantment enchanted sound. Things are going faster. So something is taking over here. So it's magic. When Julian first hears the bars of the red shoes in his head, all this kind of thing happens. The fact that she is dressed like a fairy tale princess in this magical palace, something's happening that is beyond the control of a young, talented dancer accepting her first lead role. Right? Nothing about this is straightforward. From this point on, particularly, the magic of Monte Carlo, things are taking hold. The only point where you'll see something that really demonstrates that circularity, like you've got to dance until you can't stop, that sort of final moment when the shoes take over her. But all these things I think are all clues to that, what's going to happen and what is happening within her.

Ron 58:59

Boris actually has Julian play the ballet score for Vicky while she eats her meal. She's not leaving to eat, everything is provided for her. This again is that high level of control that Boris has over anything that makes its way into his orbit. And he actually takes visible pleasure in watching Julian and Vicky bicker and clash over the tempo during rehearsals. Competitive inspiration. There you go. Yeah. Eventually Julian tells her to dance at however she likes prior to the actual performance. But the commentary track draws a striking comparison here that's that in controlling every part of Vicky's life this way, Boris is essentially treating her as though she's, quote, carrying his child. Does that framing of her essentially carrying his child, does that hold up for you, or is there a different way to describe what he's actually doing to her here?

SPEAKER_03 59:44

I mean, it's in it's an interesting way to put it because he's taking care of her body by making sure she has her glucose in her injuries and refusing to let her drink water. I think it is something very bizarre. But only because he wants her to excel, right? Only so he so it's it's both like that and yet it's not quite as nurturing and holistic as that. It's not like you should be happy and healthy, look after yourself, rest, darling. It's it's just you've got to be the perfect, you know, birth mother for the ballet I want. I want the girl in the red shoes from you, and I want it to be the best it can possibly be. She's she becomes this kind of vessel for him to achieve his artistic goals, but also that suggests a level of nurturing, which I think is slightly beyond his skill set.

Ron 1:00:25

There is a point where I do feel like he is very supportive, and it's right before they perform the ballet because Julian and Vicky, they're stricken with nerves right before the premiere. Grisha loses the shoes, he doesn't know where they are located.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:39

Grisha man.

Ron 1:00:40

Sergey. Sergey is played by uh Albert Basserman. He is the costume and set design.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

Yeah. The dua! The dua.

Ron 1:00:51

Yes, the door won't close. So he's having his own issues, and Boris is completely calm, cool, collected. Everybody's falling apart around him, and he alone stays completely calm. He actually does give her a bit of a pep talk when he says, you know, you're just dancing for us. You don't have to worry about the crowd. And he even hums the music for her, and he's oh yes, when I hear the music, I have it. My read, that was my first read of he's being supportive. Then I started thinking about it a little differently, as I'm prone to do, and I get to have to spend way too much time with with a film. Is that maybe it's just his own hubris. He's calm because he's made every decision and he's put every person in what he thinks is the right spot. He's convinced that he's too big to fail. Do you how do you feel about that read?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:35

I think Ron, and you better write this down. I think again, you're completely correct, right? I think that's completely it. He he has done his job, which is I've got these talented people. And the fact that he's got them so keyed up into a state of just almost distress. He's doing his job, they're ready to perform. Is he being kind and supportive to Victoria, or is he just giving her the crumb that he knows she needs? And this idea of her is an automaton. We see this in some of the other ballet expert excerpts that we see in his film, and it comes back in the Taylor Hoffman, but there's an idea of which he's just kind of like winding her up, winding them all up, but particularly her, and watching her go. And he's correct, she can do it, she is marvelous, she excels herself.

Ron 1:02:16

Yes, to say the least. I I mean if you've ever led a group, if you've ever led a group of people through a stressful time, you know that you have to be the sense of calm because everyone's looking to you. Like you have to be that leader that, hey, I'm calm, you should be calm. But I don't get that. And and maybe on the inside you feel, oh God, I'm terrified as well. I don't get that sense from him at all. I get that sense of, hey, I've never failed before. Why start now?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Ron 1:02:41

I don't get the sense that he's just being calm for the sake of the group. If he was, then the film would maybe show us that he's also nervous in some way, but it does not.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:48

They don't. And he's he's not trying to make them calm. Like I've tried to get students through an exam in and I say, no, you're fine, you've got this, you just remember these things. And that's because I want them to go out there and do good creative work. Because I want them, I want them to share that calm. But that's not what he's doing. He's not saying it's not a big deal, it's just opening night.

Ron 1:03:06

Right. I tried to give him a lot of credit whenever I first watched it. And I thought, you know what? No, forget that. I've seen this film multiple times now. Let me look at it a little differently.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:13

I mean, I'll always give him credit because I'm completely in love with him, Ron. So it's fine.

Ron 1:03:18

The ballet sequence itself. This is the meat of it. I've I actually listened to another podcast you were on. You were on the Writers on Film podcast, which is wonderful. And you had mentioned that I think you said your partner thought that the film was building up to have the ballet at the end, because that's the formula of most films that you watch. Of we have the big sequence at the end, we're building to it, not the red shoes. There's a 17-minute ballet sequence in the middle of this film, and Vicky dances the fairy tale in full. The film abandons any pretense of a theater audience because we get to watch it. We don't watch it from their seats, we get the dancer's point of view instead. I'm quoting you again, that she needs to dance the way that she needs to live, and that she wants to dance for Boris. Can you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:04

Yeah. I mean, it's like she's had that shot of heroin now and she really likes it. I've not I'm not talking about heroin in relation to this to this film before, so forgive me if this goes awry. But yeah, it being she has this ambition. She doesn't just want to dance, she wants to dance brilliantly. She's not besatisfied, and More Shira was exactly the same, right? She wasn't psychotic in the way the Victoria Page is, but you know, that ambition, doing this brilliant performance, doing everything that they've been welding up to, it unlocks this understanding in her that she is now, she now must dance. She isn't someone who would like to do well at dancing, but also has a boyfriend. No, no, no, no, no. She now realizes that she is this driven artist, and she is imagining the ballroom and the birds and the flowers that Julian promised her, but she's also locked in this nightmare. And this psychological horror of this ballet is all about, I think. It's not about necessarily this idea that there's a love triangle that the posters for the red cheese put on, and it's not about anything that's being done to Victoria, I think. I think it's about how Victoria is beginning to understand how she feels about her own talent and her own life choices, and that she just wants to keep dancing. And she'll sacrifice everything else in her life to the sort of thrill that she feels on stage, dancing, performing, being the best that she can be. I mean, you can read it in lots of ways, obviously, but there's a lot of like fear of sex, which might be to do with the fact that she's rejecting the idea of marriage in some ways, or she's feeling ambiguous about that. But there's and there's gen genuinely this scene where she's surrounded by demons and they all lift her up to succeed. She has to, as I say, you know, it's a cliche, but dance with her demons. She has to embrace the darkness, the side of herself that will sacrifice the doubtful comforts of human love, perhaps let down personal relationships, perhaps isolate her from the people that she loves because dancing is going to be it from now on. Till her feet bleed, till her heart breaks, till she loses her life, she'll dance.

Ron 1:06:04

We could probably spend an hour breaking down frame by frame of this 17-minute ballet. There's so much going on here. We are not going to do that for the sake of both of us. We haven't got the time. So you mentioned demons lifting her. Are there other parts of the ballet where you see the horror show up on screen?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:19

Oh, I mean, if we're just talking about the idea of horror, so there's sort of a famous thing where uh Jack Cardiff said to Michael Powell, Oh, we've got a problem with the dancer's makeup because from a distance they look Beautiful, but if you see ballerina makeup up close, they look like these exaggerated masks. And Michael Pell didn't agree that they should change the makeup for the close-ups. He basically goes all in on it. So halfway through this ballet, you see Victoria Page in close-up with this extremely exaggerated, like demon-like makeup, because that's what sort of stage makeup looks like. And her face is sweating. She's sort of looking shocked and she's sweating. And when did you see a pretty young upper class girl in a 1940s film sweat? I mean, maybe in the river, I don't know. But like, yeah, it's it's it's it's the horror of like this is a living, breathing woman in who, in some ways, is not pretty because in right now she's not pretty. This, what we're seeing now, this is horror. This is something repulsive. It's not horror in the conventional sense of like demons and murders and things. And it's the real flesh and blood woman. And now every ballet film afterwards can't resist showing us a little bit of sweat and so on. It's great. I mean, there's so many things in the ballet, but I just want to say one thing about the ballet so anyone's listening, just in case you're worried, like 17 minutes, you will not be bored.

Ron 1:07:35

No, no, it doesn't feel like 17 minutes. I mean, the movie doesn't feel like two hours either, it really moves. Uh, the camera never leaves the stage for this sequence. We get the dancer's perspective. Scorsese called it the moment the whole movie stops. Are Power and Press Burger inventing something that hadn't existed on film before? Is this the first we've seen something like this?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:52

Michael Powell, and this is true of Pressburger too, but he says it, he says, my memory goes back to the earliest films and my imagination goes far ahead of today. They're using a lot of old-fashioned silent film techniques and tricks. Um, and obviously silent films are all silent, and obviously there's a whole tradition of experimental film. In the middle of a feature film with dialogue, a narrative feature film. You don't stop and have a huge ballet, a dream ballet. You do after this, you know. The dream ballets of the um Broadway stage do get into films now. Gene Kelly saw this and jumped up and down and made MGM let him put an art dream ballet in an American palace. It's not a musical, and yet it does everything that a Hollywood musical wants to do, this level of spectacle and attention to detail. Yes, it changed the way that films were made, often imitated, maybe never bettered, actually. Although, I mean, things like you know, the whole Broadway melody sequence and singing in the rain. I mean, I will watch a film that stops for a ballet any day of the week. I love that.

Ron 1:08:54

So Jack Card of cinematography on the sequence, there was split reception. Some that were huge fans of the ballet. At the time, they they claim that it didn't actually capture Mora Shearer's skill as a dancer. I know Mora Shearer has has also voiced some displeasure with her own performance, but maybe that's just her being harsh on herself. I don't know, because I think it's beautiful. But what do I know? Scorsese, on the other end, he praised it to the point where he's borrowing some of these techniques whenever he makes Raging Bull, where he puts the camera in the ring.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

Yeah.

Ron 1:09:23

Where do you come down on the two camps?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:25

We say well, I like Ron. I like a nice gesamtkunst for me, so I love it. So the thing is, it's brilliant combination of pretty great dancing, quite simple choreography from Robert Heltman, but it's it's what's needed for the for this. Dancing, art, the backdrops, amazing cinematography, lighting, but also these techniques. The film will be speeded up or slowed down, and the music. So it's this total collaboration of all the arts. So yeah, if I'm Martin Scorsese and I want to make a film, I'm inspired by this because it's brilliant. But if I'm a ballatomain, particularly someone who might be critical of Mora Shira for being quite young in her career, for dancing in what I'm sure you you saw was too Russian a style.

Ron 1:10:06

Yes, yes. I rotated down as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:08

I mean, she thought it was obvious. And some people, you can't really see the footwork, and you can't see the footwork, and you can't see it properly because they're slowing down the film so that they saw through the air, or they're editing, and even the performances were hampered by the way they had to film it on concrete. Dancing on point on concrete. Yes. Who would you should do that? And also just for like a few minutes at a time and pause to reset the light, lights which were brighter and therefore more punishingly hot than any ever before. So, yes, it's not a great way to perform ballet, and it's not a great way to watch pure ballet, but it is amazing cinema, and that's why I love it. Me and Scorsese, we agree.

Ron 1:10:46

Um, I'll let him know. He had he and Marty and I are pretty close. It's beautiful. We I we could spend another half an hour on the on the ballet, but let's move forward because it is a triumph.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:55

More things to come.

Ron 1:10:57

Boris rebuilds the company's entire repertoire around Vicky as his new star. I love the little sequence where he's circling her name and on the poster, and he's like, no, she needs to be center. This is the star.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:09

And she's called Victoria Page. She's not given a Russian name.

Ron 1:11:13

What's the sign what why is that important?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:15

Because that's what used to happen. And you know, Margot Fontaine had a French, was given a French name. She was called Margaret Hookham, Peggy Hookham. Like, she is herself, and she is at the top billing, and it's amazing.

Ron 1:11:25

See? Would have never known. So thank you for that. You're educating me as we go through here. Which is the point.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:30

You should have read the Lady Bird Book of Ballet as often as I did when I was a little girl.

Ron 1:11:35

See, I didn't go that deep into my research. You're you're at the archives researching Bower Press Burger. I'm reading, I'm reading your book and listening to audio commentary. That's as far as my research is going. In the meantime, Vicky and Julian have fallen in love, which Boris does eventually discover. The film is, and is this a gap between the original screenplay or or all of the other screenplays that came before it? Because I feel like we're missing a section where we see Julian courting Vicky, and it's almost like surprise they're together now. Is there something that was missing?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:07

Yeah, there was a lot. There was a lot. There's a whole bit where he thinks it's funny to break on break into a yacht, and then when he gets there, he realizes it's it's her aunt's yacht, and that's a bit awkward. Oh, that's fun. Like they're together. And there's a long and there's a beautiful night. We see them coming back from this wonderful night they've spent together on the back of the wagon. They they go to a monastery and drink beer and have a kind of spiritual marriage. There's a lot. And at this point, the film is like, we're not interested in such literal things. They're in love. That's all it needs. It's almost as if that happened as soon as they were on the balcony and they were on the front page of the newspaper. It's almost like this is just inevitable. They're just going to fall in love. And we don't need to know about it. It's like as in a fairy tale, the boy meets the girl, they fall in love, they want to get married. In the screenplay, there was all this stuff about what that life was like when they were married, which we do see, but we see this tiny sort of silent vignette of that, rather than this scene where they're talking about bills and how they want to set up a ballet school, you know, and we know where they live and all that kind of thing. Yeah, it's it's just inevitable. And there's this idea, some people try and describe the film as like it's between this young woman who has to decide between marriage and her métier, right? Between ballet and love. Well, the film's clearly got a decision, partly because it can't be bothered to show us the business of love and marriage. It can be bothered to show us in painstaking detail the bad LA world. It is definitely the secondary consideration. Julian hasn't got a hope, right? We are we aren't interested in how they fall in love, including the most romantic speech is one he makes about looking back on their affair as if he was an old man, it happened long ago. It's just a consequence of these two young, beautiful redheads being in this ballet ballet company together, right? You know, it just must happen. And it obviously does cause complications.

Ron 1:13:51

But before I watched the film, I was like, Well, what's it about? And IMDB says a young ballet dancer is torn between the man she loves and her pursuit to become a prima ballerina. And I and then I watched the movie, I said, Yeah, for 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:04

Yeah, that's not really what is.

unknown 1:14:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:09

Sorry, that's the man I love. Gosh, how do you forget?

Ron 1:14:12

Boris, when he discovers this, he's heartbroken. He is heartbroken, but he's not romantically pursuing Vicky, but yet this discovery of this relationship seems to genuinely wound him. So what is he really losing here? It's discovered that they've been together since the red shoes. So what is the issue?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:31

So I mean, Victoria Park Page is not entirely in fall to him. She has other things in her life. I mean, it's pretty much just that. He might lose her, she might leave. And you know, I think I mean, I think if I had to be literal about it, I'd say that Boris Lemotoff is a gay man, but he is somehow in love with her. I think that there is something about his bond with Victoria which becomes which A is very, very serious and sort of transcends romantic love. But also there is something romantic about it. She is this beautiful woman who's in his care, in his service, in his thrall, however you might put it, you know, he does love her in a certain way. It might be in a controlling way, in a non-affectionate way. But yeah, he has been deceived and he does not have the total control over her that he thought he had. But yeah, I mean, there's something between those two.

Ron 1:15:27

There's a very short sequence where he's calling to make reservations for two. And I thought, okay, maybe he is falling for this woman now. And then when he finds out that nope, she is romantically involved with someone else, he himself is off the deep end now. He's almost making up things that he's seeing when she's performing. Oh, did you see that? She smiled at Juliet. No, she actually didn't. Just like when he found out Arena was engaged and everyone thinks she's and top form tonight, and he says, no, she isn't. It's like they're tainted. These dancers are tainted now because they have a romantic relationship. We're a life outside of the ballet.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:01

Who is who is brought down by dividing their focus with this sort of human relationship, this this affection? I mean, yeah, maybe it's Victoria, maybe it's Julian, but it's Boris. Because he now can't see his work straight. He can't see exactly what's happening. He can't see that Victoria Page is perfectly capable of dancing. That, like, even if she were to wink at the conductor, she'd be fine. That she's good. He can't see it. He is the one who can't reconcile these human emotions and his work, really. It's him that has the problem.

Ron 1:16:30

Well, the way that he chooses to divide the two, I think because he knows that Vicky can't live without the ballet, he instead decides to go after Julian. He calls Julian into his office and he tells him his newest score is childish vulgar and effectively baits him into quitting. And there's a reading of Boris in the notes I made that wonders whether his jealousy is sexual at all. But we did just talk about that, about his what your read of his relationship to intimacy is. I mean, really, he's in love with the ballet. That's that's his love.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:02

Yeah. I mean, he wants everything, he wants total control. And perhaps at some level, he's like, well, if someone's going to have sex with Victoria Page, it's going to be me. So what why would it be this young man who I'm so much superior to in every way? He's only just he's a new upset composer, he's a hothead, he doesn't really know his field yet in the same way that I do. So why would she be with this person? If she's going to do anything with anyone, it's gonna be with me. Boris Lermatov, look at me. I'm Anton Woolbrook, did you know? I'm more beautiful than the days long.

Ron 1:17:32

Well, Vicky, there's a there's a moment here on a train where Vicky gives Boris an ultimatum. If Julian's out, she's out too. And of course, as is expected, he reacts like a spoiled child and she quits. And Boris has built his career on discovering exactly the right dancer for exactly the right role, and yet here he's faced with the prospect of losing Vicky, and he behaves nothing like that calm, controlled figure that we've seen up until now. It's the first time that we've actually seen someone that had the guts to defy Boris. I mean, Grisha does to a point, but he's not really seriously defying it.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:05

It's tantrums. It's it's an artistic temperament. It's meant to be entertaining. The spotlight, toujours sur moi. Grisha is there for the good times only. We love him.

Ron 1:18:15

Is that why he acts is that why Boris acts in the way that he does like a spoiled brat about it? Because he knows Vicky's serious.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:21

Vicki is made the choice. He knows because they're the same person, you know. He re he recognises the strength of her decision making. You know, if he wanted to make a decision, no one could change his mind. It might not be romantic or sexual, but it's like his guts have been torn out. It's terrible. There's only one worse thing that could happen, and that's what does happen at the end of the film. Um he can't he can't handle this. He doesn't have a replacement either, you know.

Ron 1:18:48

He seduces Arena back.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ron 1:18:53

Well, what's interesting then is you have to think that if she's back, then did she leave her husband? Does she ever get married? He already didn't like Arena because she was want her in that role because she was in a personal relationship. She was engaged. He seduced her back to the ballet in the same way he attempts to do with Vicky later, which is you cannot have both. I want you back in the ballet, but you cannot be with this man.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:14

Yeah, I mean, he knows that she wants it, right? That she wants to be back dancing. Arena, I mean. And uh same that he'll know with Victoria. So he knows he can have her. And there is something in the original uh screenplays about the state of the relationship between Arena and her husband, and there is something, and I think possibly something to do with Boris maybe intervening or hearing a bit of gossip, that they weren't on good terms or something. You know, I think you don't need to know that, but what do people think about Shobi's marriages? We all know that they're quite delicate, right? When you hear that a famous star or dancer has has got divorced after three years of marriage, you don't throw your hands up in shock. So, yes, I think there's a sort of cliche there that we can rest upon, which is maybe they're having difficulties already, but I think there is something about that in one of the earlier screenplays. Yeah, I'd have to go and check that. In my copious notes.

Ron 1:20:06

Which I'm sure you have plenty of. You touched on this earlier because Julian's career is now taking off. The the film hints at that. He has a new opera, it's set to open at Covent Garden. Vicky's dancing career is stalled, obviously, because she has left the Lermatov Ballet. So the idea of Julian thriving and Vicky not in this marriage, or what we assume is going to be a marriage, is the film suggesting. I think they're married because they're sharing a bedroom. You're oh, you're right. Right. Not the two separate twin.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:34

Sorry, just in the same sharing a bedroom. Dispatches from 1948. They're married to you.

Ron 1:20:40

I apologize. I apologize. I have to know what I'm talking about here.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:44

Maybe in America, Ron, but I wouldn't fly in. We live in sin.

Ron 1:20:48

We live in sin here in America.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:49

Yeah.

Ron 1:20:50

Is the film is it making an argument about like is it suggesting that this is just what happens when a dancer stops dancing, or is it making a more pointed argument about which of the two partners gets to have the identity inside of the marriage?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:03

I mean, there's a few things going on. I mean, as a woman watching the film, and as many, many millions more than you can count of young women who've seen his film, they've been like, well, he obviously gets to keep his career and she can't. And that's the patriarchal system that we live in. There is also something about the fact that he can write an opera at his piano, and if she wants to dance, she has to be part of a company, a tour and company dancing every night. There's this way, you know, that it's difficult for her to do that. And she won't settle for any anything lesser than the ballot lementov, right? She keeps going to class, but she can't um commit to another ballet trip. So it's to do with the nature of her art as well as anything else. You and just found out they're married, so that would be a shock, obviously. But um, yeah, yeah. We can't have that.

Ron 1:21:52

Talk about living in sin. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:54

Not if you're one of the Victoria Page uh family. But yeah, so she's she she she can only open her drawer and look at her shoes at night. The symbol of everything that is, you know, the essence inside her, she can't sleep because the thing that she has to do in order to live, she can't do. And so in this relationship, yeah, there's some literal stuff in some of the screenplays about how she doesn't like living in um Battersea because it's uh it's so sordid, but really, you mean she's she's dying inside.

Ron 1:22:20

She goes on holiday to Cannes, and of course, uh Boris is about to grovel. He is about to write a letter to her. I think it starts with my dearest Vicky. I feel an apology is coming. He knows he needs her, but when he finds out she's going to be in Cannes visiting her aunt, she's on holiday alone. That's important to mention. She's coming to Cannes alone. And Boris finds her and persuades her to, in his words, put on the red shoes again. He tells her nobody can live two lives and her life is dancing. It's manipulative, but as we've come to find, he's not really wrong. So is this manipulation truth or both at the same time?

SPEAKER_03 1:23:01

Yeah, it's truth. I mean, if he really cared about it in a holistic sense, he's like, what can we do to make this work? You know, how do we how do you arrange things for your husband? He's like, no, come here and dance. Yeah, he cares not for the state of the crazy marriage, right? He doesn't need to keep this going, he just wants Paige back. So uh if this means she divorces him, if it means she just doesn't see him for a while, he just wants her back. So he's not trying to like come up with a solution for her work-life balance. He just knows that she's at a low ebb and he can get her back. All he really needs to do is dangle the red shoes in front of her. He gives her a few compliments. No one could dance it like you, no one ever will, but mostly he just needs to dangle the idea of dancing to live, living to dance in front of her, and just like a junkie, she's back on again.

Ron 1:23:45

Yeah, he even does say we have not performed it without you, because there is not a red shoes ballet without you in the shoes. And Julian's opera, it's set to open in is it Covent Garden? I think he's opening in Covent Garden the same night that Vicky is set to dance the Red Shoes again. I think in there in Monaco.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:02

Yes.

Ron 1:24:03

And she's listening on the radio and comes to hear that Julian's taken ill and they will not be performing. He will not be there to conduct and and perform. And he abandons it. He leaves his dream to come, he rushes to her and demands that she leaves. Like, we need to get out of here. He's like trying to save her almost. Like, hey, listen, this is not good for you. And Boris and Julian, they're arguing over the value of art versus love right in front of her. It's like a tug of war, and each of them have a hold of one of her limbs, and they're trying to pull her their direction. And Vicky is anguished. It's heartbreaking to see her this way, having to choose right then and there. We've not seen Boris acting this way before. He's looking like he himself is is a little bit of desperation from him. Again, not that calm, cool demeanor.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:55

For God's sake, leave me alone, both of you. Please, Julian, wait until after the performance.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:00

It'll be too late then. You are already too late, Mr. Kruppst. Tell him why you've left him. I haven't left him. Oh, yes, you have left him. Nobody can have two lives, and your life is dancing. Vicky, you can dance anywhere else in the whole world. Would you be satisfied with anything less than the best? If you would, you would never be a great artist. Neptune never will. And would you make her a great dancer as well? Never. Why do you think I wait a day after Aces? You sets her away from me for a chance to win a back? Because you're jealous of her. Yes! I am. But in the way that we never understand.

Ron 1:25:34

And and Vicky is ushered toward the stage and she changes course, runs outside, hops a balcony, and jumps in front of an oncoming train. And and Powell, Powell has talked about deliberately keeping Vicky in the red shoes at the moment of her death.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:48

Because the symbol's more important than anything else.

Ron 1:25:51

Yes. And and saying that without them, the ambiguity over why she died disappears entirely. So odd question coming your way. Did Vicky throw herself over that balcony or did the shoes do it?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:02

The shoes did it. The shoes did it. It's not a story about a young woman who couldn't choose the two things that make her happy in life and then throw that same commit suicide. It's just not that. It's just not that. That's not the story. She would either be unhappy dancing, or even more unhappy married. If she stayed married, she might kill herself. But no, this is the it's the it's the the red shoes do it. There's there's enchantment. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only explanation. I don't think she is going to go back to Julian, even though she does love him. I mean he's he's he's not the one for her. You know, I think that when he leaves his own opera to go and save his marriage, it's like, well, she would never do that. She didn't leave her opening night. He's left it, you know, sh her will to dance is everything. So it's a kind of symbolic death. But yes, to me that's the magic. And gosh, I remember how I felt the first time I saw it was a little bit more.

Ron 1:26:57

I was just going to ask you what your reaction was the first that you saw. I knew too much that it wasn't a shock to me, but was were you shocked when you when you saw it? Did you have a visceral reaction?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:06

I was shocked. You're used to things having a happy ending.

Ron 1:27:09

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:10

And I think I was too unsophisticated as a child that I wouldn't didn't know whether like her being a successful ballerina would be uh a happy ending or her going back to her hobby would be happy ending, but there'd be a there'd be a resolution. And there's no, this is a tragedy, it's terrible. It's just he is her will to live is going to kill her. So I guess, you know, like her death wish, you know, her will to live, which is the one thing that will destroy her, you know, it could be that it stands in for a lifetime of dancing and dancing and dancing and never being happy and going to her grave an unfulfilled woman because she's given her life over to dance. But what we see is the young woman destroyed at the peak of her skill and on the brink of her second fame, and she's gone, and it's not, I don't think it's a conscious decision. I mean, you see the shoes take over. She danced with the red shoes, and this is the price that it takes, I think, out of her. And it's awful, it's so awful. And obviously, Julian's distraught, and all she says is just take off the red shoes. She doesn't want to die like that. She doesn't want to die this sort of half woman.

Ron 1:28:11

I love the analogy you make about it being a drug. Like the drugs will eventually get you. Yeah, and the drugs got her. Yeah. The film ends with a spotlight on an empty stage because Boris comes out and announces to the audience that Miss Page is unable to dance. No kidding, Boris, you think? And the company performs the ballet anyway, with a spotlight. On the empty space where she would have stood. Are Powell and Pressburger also refusing to let anyone ever dance in that part again? They do that in honor of Vicky Page, but no one will ever dance that ballet again, I imagine.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:43

It's in honor of Vicki Page. They did the same when Anna Pavlova died. They played the ballet with a spotlight. And it's really interesting. God, we could talk for 17 hours about spotlights and the importance they have, but they do represent in some way the kind of e ego of the artist. And it is the most haunting thing because these people all live to dance. And so they're grieving while they're dancing and they're seeing the absence. And you realize what it's taken out of them. And of course, you know, my hot take, my contentious theory is that, you know, Boris up in the box watching something terrible happens to him there. He sort of lets out this sign his head falls back. It might be that he dies, but something inside him visibly dies for sure. And it's, I think it's a part of his soul that was entwined with Victoria Page. Much as we can put all these labels on, like, oh, he was coercive, he was manipulative, he had an ego, he's he's angry because people aren't doing what it says. There's some soul connection between these two people, which is just fundamentally very powerful. We see Julian Kraister crying distraught. Believe me, that man is heartbroken, but something far more profound happens to Boris when he watches the absence of Victoria Page on his stage. I didn't mean to touch a rhyme. It's a horrifying moment.

Ron 1:29:57

I don't think it's a hot take though, because as much as we've talked about it, they were they were connected from the start. Their first conversation, they realized that they were one and the same. It's just they operated in different positions in the ballet.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:10

Yeah.

Ron 1:30:10

That they are going to be intertwined and connected. And now that one is gone, maybe the other is gone as well. So we close every episode. The guests gets the opportunity to give their answer to why this film, so why the red shoes? It seems like a ridiculous question. Why does it deserve its place in the Criterion collection?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:28

Such an intimidating question, Ron. And I think it invites a very objective response. So I'm just going to give two really subjective answers before the real one. And they're just sort of me, Pam, I want to say that I love this film. I admire this film because it shows the international collaborative brilliance of the British film industry at its very best. And it always has been this very international, particularly at this time, so immigrant-based film industry, and it's just wonderful. And I love this film also because I know everybody loves the red shoes, and you love the red shoes, but this is a film for the girls. Young girls watch this film and have such a phenomenal reaction to it. I did it. I've seen young girls watching this film for the first time. I've seen grandmothers introducing their granddaughters to it. Young people, young dancers specifically, historically maybe girls, but everyone. Young people get something so powerful and terrifying and also nourishing from this film. But I also think that this film, why this film? Because The Red Shoes is a film about art. And it's about the dark side of art. It's about the terrible things we do for art, and yet it seduces us with that very terrible idea, partly by making a work of art that in itself is so brilliant it would turn anybody's head and force them into making perhaps dangerous decisions. It is the most alluring and terrifying vision of what artistic expression can do for the human soul. It will never be fatigued. It is just a deathlessly wonderful, horrific thing.

Ron 1:32:01

Thank you again to Pamela Hutchinson for taking the time to speak with me and educate us about the Red Shoes. If you'd like to support the show for as little as $3 a month, you can do so by selecting the support the show link in the episode description. You can follow the podcast on Instagram for updates and check out whythisfilm.com for additional resources. Next time I'll be joined by Domino Rene Perez to discuss Lone Star. Thanks again for listening. Please be sure to follow, share, and keep an eye out for the next episode.