How The Red Shoes changed horror

[@deathrockfairy1290]

Ballet itself features many horror stories: Giselle is about a maiden who goes insane, dies, and becomes a killer ghost. Le Jeunne Home et la Mort is about a painter who kills himself. Pina Bausch's Orpheus and Eurydike shows the hero's tragic journey to the underworld. Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance is faeries mixed with vampires. Of course, besides The Red Shoes and Suspiria, there's Tales of Hoffmann and Etoile (which is where the plot of Black Swan was stolen from). Most modern ballet horror is just not stylistic enough for me. It lacks that eerie feeling of the stage. That's why The Red Shoes is so good. There is a literal staged horror-fairy tale ballet in the midst of the film!

[@HarleyLuna31]

Wtf ?? How sleeping beauty relatedto vampires?

[@HarleyLuna31]

Dont forget Perfect Blue

[@stevedawson6979]

That’s just one perspective.

[@Tatiana-vw4yh]

I also think she said, 'I believe in destiny,' to her lover when they were hugging in the carriage. So, when she put on the red shoes under Lermontov's influence to perform, it wasn't her true choice; it was more like a 'devil's choice,' as a metaphor. She lost her identity. But once she put on the red shoes, they led her to her death, just as the fairy tale foretold. It was, in a way, her destiny.

[@Badficwriter]

Except the red shoes didn't kill her. The two men refusing to respect her drove her to it.

[@brettcoster4781]

Brilliant hypothesis about a tremendous movie (The Red Shoes), and how it influenced following films.

[@Melissa-tw2gp]

Great job! I really enjoyed this. The way you bring the music in and out is fabulous. Love the editing.

[@reflexedrose1879]

But she did tell him to take off the red shoes therefore letting him know that she did choose him. Maybe she committed suicide because she was torn between her career and love for him but when it was too late, she realized she loved him more than her dance career, hence, telling him to take the red shoes off so he would know her true choice.

[@happybat1977]

Maybe - or maybe she rejected both of them, turning away from dance (and shedding the red shoes) and away from life as a wife too (by throwing herself in front of the train). Torn between two overbearing and unreasonable men, the only way out she could see was death...

[@helvete_ingres4717]

@@happybat1977 that's an incredibly shallow reading, that it's about 'two overbearing and unreasonable men' rather than what they represent, idk how it's possible to miss as the themes aren't subtle, they're hammered home a lot. you must not be creative or have ever been passionate about anything to not understand the tension at the heart of the story

[@helvete_ingres4717]

she obvs didn't choose him if she literally chose to die - 'love' is of course the metonym for 'life' which as Lermontov says is 'unimportant'. The dialectic of the story between love/life and the transcendent capacity of art/performance cannot be resolved with the individual's soul intact, the agony coming to a head in the final scene and her feeling the only way to go beyond it is to go beyond existence, by un-aliving. Think of the prima ballerina Lermontov had before her who quit to get married (French accent, Russian name, don't quite remember) - she was a very warm and personable person, she really was a born wife and while she was a good dancer, she would never have been 'great' and so Lermontov was never happy with her. Whereas in Victoria he perceived something of the transcendent capacity of 'greatness' that also drove him and for which he forsook human warmth and love - but alas it was only half of her and she had a human side to be pulled by too. Also it's definitely worth noting that Lermontov, instead of being a dancer himself, his drive for greatness involved the instrumentalisation of another (Victoria) and it was her who would ultimately be detroyed by the tension it entails

[@reflexedrose1879]

@@helvete_ingres4717 Um, okay.

[@helvete_ingres4717]

@@reflexedrose1879 you watch films and have no desire to understand them - people are weird man

[@stressedoutsoup2608]

this was a beautifully edited video. i learned a lot from it

[@seemsfishy23]

This is incredible! Thank you so much for this wonderful analysis

[@isabelaoliveira9270]

Simply love Michael Powells and Jack Cardiff's work!

[@brettcoster4781]

And Moira Shearer's. It would not be the same film if not for her and Anton Wallbrook.

[@nebbs]

The shoes possessed and killed her, as they did her character in the ballet. I thought that was obvious, and seem to recall that being mentioned in P & P's published novelisation of the film.

[@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633]

It's from a story by Hans Christian Andersen in which the heroine is made to dance herself to death by the red shoes.

[@nebbs]

@@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633 Yes, I know.

[@NeonAtary777]

I don't think she committed suicide at the end. i think that her being torn between love and dancing and both male leads trying to make her chose between her two passions was manifested by "the red shoes" story. And her death was more metaphorical although also physical and it being a suicide don't really matter

[@Badficwriter]

I was struck that Victoria's final leap was similar to how ballerinas leap so the male dancers catch them. (It probably makes sense to see it as a metaphor for 'danced to death' rather than suicide. Although the original story includes self-harm that isn't the aim, but a tool to escape what is unbearable.)

[@Eye4dance]

Great editing & commentary, but those turns at 2:25 are not fouettés, they are simple piqué turns or "tours piqué en dedans". The famous fouettés happen in the ballroom, not lakeside, and the ballerina standardly wears black for them (at least she has for the last 70 years or so).

[@dpainter1526]

It is not necessary for a ballerina to wear black for fouettes; it just so happens that the most famous sequence which features fouettes is in the Black Swan Pas de Deux, in which the dancer wears black

[@90sFlav]

amazing, never noticed all that in my top 3 movies ever. Thanks for the explanation

[@alielsayed3549]

What a great video. Well done

[@WillPhilpin]

lovely edit!

[@young305ovoxo]

Research “The Red Shoe Club”

[@perrymccallum8931]

Watch Mika "Love Today" music video.Look for little girl with yellow dress partying with all the adults.Its toward the end at the night club scene.Look at the child's shoes.Shocking!

[@平-i4f]

Can you please list the source/film of which the ballet segment at the start come from?

[@allaboutthecookies9642]

Intriguing video… I’ve loved The Red Shoes for decades, rewatched it more times than I can count… a minor point possibly in the grand scheme of the video… I find it an interesting take that you believe Victoria Page committed su!cide at the end… I’ve always seen it as a tragic accident as she’d made her mind up to go with Julian. She got up on the railing and was waving so wildly and excitedly as he’s running toward her that she accidentally fell… Anyway, just a point of interest to me!

[@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633]

In the film it looked to me like she jumped.

[@magloyd4907]

In his autobiography Michael Powell said he told her to jump and she asked -- as dancer,? And he said yes, she did that graceful jump.

[@Badficwriter]

..I just watched a reaction video and the presenter kept complaining how careless people were, hanging over the high balconies. 😄

[@huntrrams]

Great video!

[@olivierpierre968]

Magnificent, simply magnificent.

[@martinenyx-filmstuff305]

You mispronounced the name Dario Argento. The G in "Argento" is pronounced as the G in "gene". Also, in "Debussy" the stress in one the final "y", which is pronounced as "ee" and the "u" sounds a bit like "you".

[@sthompson2839]

Seriously?

[@martinenyx-filmstuff305]

@@sthompson2839 Yes, seriously.

[@thorn262]

It's painfully obvious, that in an otherwise _very_ good show, the narrator makes not the slightest attempt to pronounce these names accurately, much less -- say -- speak French, and that, comme un pouce endolori.

[@martinenyx-filmstuff305]

@@thorn262 And it’s painfully obvious that whenever people make no effort to pronounce foreign words or names in the way they should be pronounced, it’s always, inevitably, Americans 🇺🇸

[@neilmcintosh5150]

@@martinenyx-filmstuff305 nailed it. that's the yanks for you.

[@etherealtb6021]

Great eval!

[@andreareyes9861]

💚

[@zanemurcha9742]

I thought the shoes possesses her and she ends up committing suicide.

[@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633]

That's the Hans Christian Andersen story, the source of the film.

[@2020Bookworm]

Isn't the correct term for this movie, film noir?

[@marknewbold2583]

Not this Technicolor marvel

[@thorn262]

Because TRO is rather dark, despite the colorful presentation, doesn't mean it is film noir. Though there is some feint hint of similarity to this genre, one would not call the early thirties', 'Frankenstein,' or, ‘Island of Lost Souls,’ etc, film noir.

[@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633]

Film noir are mysteries in B & W.

[@elizabethcsicsery-ronay1633]

@@marknewbold2583 This is an early use of Technicolor. It's beautiful. The colorisation of B & W films are usually dreadful.

[@bobsbigboy_]

you talk like Camden

[@al.s.3277]

Which are the movies used in the very part of the video? Do y’all know? :’)

[@Badficwriter]

The presenter says the titles as they go. You might be able to look up the words in the transcript in the information under the video.