The Ballet

“Powell and Pressburger find as much drama and beauty backstage as on — their delirious spectacle culminating in the 17–minute ballet of the title, based on Hans Christian Andersen's morbid tale of ballet slippers that drive the wearer to dance to her death. Shearer, a performer with Sadler's Wells Ballet (later the Royal Ballet), took a year before agreeing to make her film debut at 21. Her auspicious bow in the seventh art would become ballet's most memorable depiction in film.” — The Village Voice

The Vision

“Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger created a vision in The Red Shoes, one that has never really been matched,” said Martin Scorsese, founder and Chair of The Film Foundation. “There's no question that it's one of the most beautiful color films ever made, and one of the truest to the experience of the artist, the joy and pain of devoting yourself to a life of creation.”

The Melbourne Link

“There are very strong links with The Red Shoes and The Australian Ballet. Leonid Massine, principal dancer for Diaghilev in the original Ballet Russe company, and founder/choreographer of Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, is one of the stars of The Red Shoes. The Original Ballet Russes (a rival company, actually, under the direction of Colonel Wasilly de Basil), toured Australia, stayed in Melbourne during the war years, became the Borovansky Ballet, which morphed into The Australian Ballet we know today. All Melbourne based.

“Robert Helpmann, who for some years in the 80s was artistic director of The Australian Ballet (and brilliant choreographer of The Display ballet, amongst others) also has a starring role in The Red Shoes. The character of Boris Lermontov, played by Anton Walbrook, is modelled on Sergei Diaghilev (and Alexander Korda).

“The late Richard Franklin, an enthusiastic champion of the Technicolor process, always maintained The Red Shoes was the perfect Technicolor film, technically and aesthetically.” — Ross Campbell

The Restoration

The Red Shoes has undergone an extensive full–scale restoration undertaken by the UCLA Film Archive and The Film Foundation, in association with the British Film Institute, ITV and Janus Films, and was funded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Film Foundation and the Louis B. Mayer Foundation. The restored version had its world premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and opened commercially at New York's Film Forum to a triumphant reception for both the technical brilliance of the restoration and the re–discovery of the greatest dance film ever made.

The restoration began in 2006. Earlier, in the 1980s, the film had been optically copied from flammable nitrate and acetate materials, including vintage Technicolor dye transfer prints, nitrate and acetate protection master positive copies, original soundtrack elements, and — most important of all — the still–extant three–strip Technicolor camera negatives.

These original nitrate three–strip camera negatives have been utilised for this restoration to obtain the highest possible image quality. The negatives, which were damaged and suffered differential shrinkage, were scanned at 4K resolution; the three strips were re–aligned, frame–by–frame, producing perfect colour registration.

The new digital negative has been used to strike beautiful new 35mm prints at Cinetech Labs, one of which premiered in Cannes, and one of which was acquired by Chapel Distribution for screening here at The Astor. These newly–restored elements ensure that the film is now properly preserved for posterity