Iconic British Films: ‘The Red Shoes’ (1948)
Art, Suffering, and Death.
Lermontov: “When we first met … you asked me a question to which I gave a stupid answer, you asked me whether I wanted to live and I said “Yes”. Actually, Miss Page, I want more, much more. I want to create, to make something big out of something little — to make a great dancer out of you. But first, I must ask you the same question, what do you want from life? To live?
Vicky Page: To dance.”
— The Red Shoes (1948)
I have a confession to make. I had only ever seen the 1948 film The Red Shoes once before, about 40 years ago when I sat with my mother and grandmother and we watched it during an Easter Bank Holiday. It was a film that was shown a great deal over the holidays by the BBC back in the day. The TV holiday schedules always had The Red Shoes somewhere awaiting you.
I remember watching it in a rather desultory way as The Red Shoes was not my choice of film entertainment and I found it as a teenager too old too melodramatic with its technical collages and close-ups of the stars very old-fashioned and cloying. It was a bad film experience for me. Watching it then was the last time I saw the film until I switched on the television two nights ago and saw the film’s ending on BBC4.
