The Red Shoes: Relaced and Restored

Even in this age of Blu-ray and appreciation for all things high-def, many take for granted how complicated but vital a great film restoration can be. Buzzed about at this year's Cannes Film Festival as one of the most miraculous to date is the UCLA Film & Television Archive's restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 masterpiece The Red Shoes, starring Moira Shearer as a gifted young ballerina forced to choose between her love for composer Marius Goring and a career as lead dancer and muse to ballet company impresario Anton Walbrook. In association with the BFI, The Film Foundation, ITV Global Entertainment Ltd., and Janus Films, the restored 35mm print—which Film Foundation founder Martin Scorsese has praised as one of his all-time faves and the most extraordinary use of the three-strip Technicolor process—dazzled a packed house at the DGA Theater last night. (The Red Shoes screens at NYC's Film Forum from November 6 – 19.)

Thelma Schoonmaker—Scorsese's three-time Oscar winning editor, and widow of Michael Powell—introduced the screening with a test sample showing a practical comparison of what had been done to correct for mold damage, shrinkage and surging color. Suffice to say, no superlatives can do justice to what was easily the most impressively eye-popping revitalization these eyes have yet popped for. Following the screening was a swanky afterparty at nearby Nobu 57, where I had a chance to speak briefly with Mr. Scorsese, Ms. Schoonmaker, and filmmaker (and fellow guest) James Toback about the event:

Martin Scorsese:
"I first saw it when I was eight, and it stayed with me over the years. Even when it was shown on television in black-and-white every Christmas, we still had the magic of the film. Over the years, I began to realize it had more to do with wanting to create something artistically, and that drive. That's the thing that really carried me through the years, meaning, that's why I never get tired of the film. Then, of course, you add to that the beautiful way it was made. It's a pleasure to watch."

Thelma Schoonmaker:
"Marty's daughter is going to be 10 [this month] so he had been waiting, waiting, waiting for her to get old enough to show it to her. And you know, Woody Allen brought his daughter, and she's 11."

[On the aesthetic challenges of reaching a relative state of perfection:] "That was very carefully watched. We didn't want it to look like video which sometimes these things do, so we worked very, very carefully. It's about controlling highlights and contrasts and all kinds of things. We just had such a phenomenal team. Everybody who was in it loved it, and was giving much more than they should. The main thing was to make it look like film, and film of the period—not pump it up and do all the things they do with bad transfers these days. I've seen some horrendous transfers that just make me want to kill. [laughs] I saw one of a film David Lean made right after the war, and it looks like some modern movie. They just completely ruined it! We kept watching prints and making sure we didn't make a mistake."

[On the future of film restoration:] One of the problems is that digital is not stable. I hope you've got that point. You would have to take this restoration and migrate it to either another drive or another system that's come along. Who's going to be there to make sure it's done right if I'm dead or Marty's dead? That's the thing that's so frightening. The digital thing is wonderful, but it is not stable."

[On the film's personal value to her within Michael Powell's oeuvre:] "This one is so important because it's about the world I live in, the world of entertainment. It is so honest in showing the jealousies and ego clashes and all the things that go into working in the world of art. It vividly lays it down in such an honest way. It's so wonderful how you're always backstage. You're not seeing things from sitting out front, but you're in it. You understand the incredible love of it, and yet the sacrifices you have to make when you're in it, and we all do. Our personal lives suffer very badly, and this movie just nails it, doesn't it? It's also about being willing to die for our art, which my husband did. With Peeping Tom, his career was ruined. He died for that film. This happens to many, many great artists. It's such a beautiful symbolism of that. It's so real, and ballet dancers to this day still think it's the best portrayal of [that world], even though the dancing has gotten much better."

James Toback:
"I see it every couple of years. It's always emotionally powerful. There are stretches of the movie that kind of flatten out, and then it has that jolt of tragedy at the end that never fails to get to me. It is very beautiful, the restoration. Love and death, music and high style are among my favorite phenomena in life and they're all on display. I think it's clearly the inspiration for Visconti in style—this sort of unembarrassed high emotion and operatic inflation without any self-consciousness. No one would do that today, and yet it works with great power."

[Related podcast: Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones speak to GreenCine Daily from Cannes '09.]

Posted by ahillis at November 4, 2009 7:15 PM