Overrated kitsch
Anyone else agree?
I love Powell=Pressburger == one of my favorite films of all time is I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING, but I could never get into THE RED SHOES.
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MovieChat Forums > The Red Shoes (1948) Discussion > Overrated kitsch
Are you people who think it's overrated kitsch maybe mistaking The Red Shoes for a film just about ballet? It uses ballet as an example, a vehicle to make its point, but it is really about artistic collaboration and can apply equally to many forms of expression and creation.
Look beyond the ballet, especially if you aren't interested in ballet.
It's about collaborative creation and that includes things like plays, music and even films. It's about people giving their all to create something - even though that might be detrimental to their health, or even to their life.
It shows how it often takes many people to create a great work of art, or even a great piece of software or engineering. It is very rare for one person to do it all by themselves. The Archers weren't just Michael Powell or even just Powell & Pressburger. They were a co-operative of people - actors, designers, cinematographers, composers, editors and many others, all of whom were at the top of their game, working together.
There was a scene in the original script where they showed Lermontov, Ratov, Ljubov and others around a café table planning and sketching designs for the ballet of The Red Shoes. The café table can still be seen in scene where Julian is playing piano for Vicky as she has lunch.
But the film-makers realised that they didn't need to explicitly show this aspect of the creation of a work of art because that's what the whole film is doing. So they cut the scene
Steve
I love the disclaimer.
I love Powell and Pressburger...........But
Why not just give your opinion?
Overrated and garish, I agree, and overly long and pretentious. For a film about the extremes people go through to achieve mastery I'll take the sleek, uncluttered Whiplash any day. Master purveyors of high kitsch is how Pauline Kael described the makers of this film and she along with the OP are on point, IMHO.
shareAnyone who calls his/her opinion "humble," is being disingenuous. In this case, the opinion is not one of humility but humiliation. Whiplash tries to present bullying as palatable, but it just doesn't go down.
shareIMHO, is meant to be ironic not disingenuous, and that Whiplash presented bullying as palatable is your humble opinion with which I respectfully disagree. You might as well say that The Silence of the Lambs made cannibalism palatable or that The Godfather gave organized crime dignity. Whiplash didn't make bullying acceptable to me any more than Full Metal Jacket or Heartbreak Ridge did and The Red Shoes in no way made ballet palatable to me and the male actors/characters in it were singularly repellent. Hannibal Lechter had more charm. LOL!
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However, it is let down by its conventional story of a young girl who has to choose between her marriage and her career
That was still the case in the 1940s when this film was made. Women in many jobs had to stop working if they got married
Be grateful that you are living in more enlightened times
Steve
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It certainly is not overrated or kitsch.
It's that man again!!
i have to echo the negative sentiments in this thread, a very bleak movie and not in a good way
so many movies, so little time
Absolutely!
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