Cannes Classics: Special Screening of “The Red Shoes”

Cannes Classics has invited Martin Scorsese to guest emcee tonight’s special screening of the restored masterpiece by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, The Red Shoes. The event will take place in Salle Debussy, in the presence of the distinguished American director and Thelma Schoonmaker-Powell. The 1948 film The Red Shoes, based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about enchanted slippers, is the story of the talented young ballerina, Victoria Page, who auditions for and is admitted to the Ballet Lermentov – where Mr. Lermontov, aware of her great potential, gives her a lot more dancing than she ever bargained for!

At the screening, Martin Scorsese waxed nostalgic about the film, and then got serious, analyzing its relevance to the creative process. In 1950, when he was an eight-year-old boy, his father took him to see the movie, and now, over a half century later, he was onstage presenting a magnificent restoration of it. All these years, the film’s magic has played in his heart. The dialogue between Anton Walbrook and Moira Shearer, when he asks her, "Why do you want to dance?" and she replies, "Why do you want to live?" epitomizes the mystery of the creative obsession. As all artists know, they create not because they want to, but because they have to.