The Red Shoes (Powell & Pressburger, 1948):
Stoke Newington Town Hall, Church St, N16, 8pm
This is a new venture at a new venue for the Flicker Club. Here is an introduction to the film club from their website: The
flicker club is a boutique cinema club that redefines the film-going
experience by creating a unique way of rediscovering cinematic
treasures. We screen movies adapted from short stories or novels and
thus celebrate the power of the written word and the silver screen. The club invites surprise special guests from the worlds of
entertainment and literature to read the source material before showing
its big-screen incarnation. The
flicker club are thrilled and delighted to announce that we will have a
regular home for 2012 in in the beautiful art deco council chambers of
Stoke Newington Town Hall.
Chicago Reader review:
'Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Trilby-based ballet film
(1948, 133 min.) has been the cult property of dance freaks for far too
long. A look beneath its lushly romantic surface reveals a dark, complex
sensibility, and that surface, rendered in the somber tones of British
Technicolor, reflects a fantastically rich cinematic inventiveness.
Moira Shearer is the ballerina who, following the outlines of a Hans
Christian Andersen tale, trades her life for her art; Anton Walbrook, as
her impresario, is perhaps the most forceful embodiment of the shaman
figures–magical, outsized, sinister–who haunt Powell and Pressburger's
work. The Red Shoes remains the best known of Powell and
Pressburger's 18 features, yet it's only the tip of the iceberg–beneath
it lies the most commanding body of work in the British cinema.'
Dave Kehr
Two things fascinate me about this great film: firstly, no one mentions that it could all be the feverish dream of one of the central characters; see if you can spot the key moment I mean. Secondly, the character of Lermontov, superbly played by Anton Walbrook, who is one of Powell & Pressburger's greatest creations. Enjoy.
Here are extracts featuring the aformentioned Lermontov.
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