Hit Me With Your Best Shot - The Red Shoes

Look, I'll just come right out and say it: I don't know how to talk about Powell & Pressburger's The Red Shoes. Whenever I try, I'm suddenly utterly incapable of forming words, let alone coherent sentences. It is one of the most beautiful films ever made, and its influence can be felt far and wide, in films as different as Raging Bull and Center Stage. It is a landmark film for many reasons, but when it comes the how it films dance, it is so brilliant that all I can do is sigh. The only way to explain it is to see it. Words cannot do it justice. This is one film where the old "a picture is worth a thousand words" maxim comes into play, for I do not think enough words could possibly be written about this film, which flashes 24 pictures of pure Technicolor perfection at you per second for 133 minutes (how on God's green Earth did Jack Cardiff not get an Oscar nomination for his cinematography here?!?!?).

I mean, take this shot from the ballet sequence (all dance on film begins and ends here. There is no topping this. Everyone should just stop trying):

Even in terrible quality, it's gorgeous. You know the story of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, right? Basically, girl puts on pretty pair of red shoes, cannot stop dancing, dies. Everything about this shot is so perfectly ethereal - as Moira Shearer's Victoria Page dances her part in the ballet, she keeps going even as the other fair-goers around her drop from exhaustion. Even the posters fall down. But our heroine keeps dancing. On and on. And on and on. And the colors. THE COLORS. Good GOD but they are wondrous.

The brilliant thing about The Red Shoes the film is how it parallels the fairy tale story. Victoria Page cannot stop dancing. Not for the love of her life. Not for anyone or anything. When Lermontov, the director of the ballet, asks her why she wants to dance, she gives the only response:

"Why do you want to live?"

Lermontov answers, of course, that he simply must, but it's a rhetorical question. To dance, for Vicky, is to live. There isn't one without the other.

Which is why, if forced (and CURSE YOU, Nathaniel, for forcing me to), I have to pick this as the film's Best Shot:

When Victoria first hears the audience's applause, this is what we see. Waves crashing on the shore of the stage. It's such a perfectly impressionistic moment, and the film is full of moments like this (especially during the ballet sequences, which could never EVER actually be reproduced on stage). But beyond the perfect metaphor of the shot, note that we have our three main characters in a triangle. Victoria in the foreground, with Lermontov and Julian in the background, almost overtaken completely by the image of the waves. They're the only two people watching that matter to Victoria, but what really, truly matters to her is the dance. And the audience's response. As a performer, I can speak to that high, and it is indeed like ocean waves - you let that applause wash over you like the most lovely ocean water, and try not to get completely swept up in it. You want to stay as grounded as you can. But there will always be people in the audience whose praise you crave, and even in the heat of the moment, as you're swept up in the love of the entire audience, you can spot them clear as day.

Basically, this shot is perfect on every possible level. As is most of The Red Shoes, but this is the one that means the most to me.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Fantasia

Curse you, Nathaniel!

Choosing a best shot from Fantasia is (as I mentioned earlier), a fool's errand, even when you're allowed to pick one shot from each sequence. Not to mention the fact that I haven't seen the film since I was a child, and even then I tended to fast-forward through the entire middle (the entirety of Rite of Spring and portions of Pastoral Symphony, both of which have exciting moments but are far too long for a child's attention span). On top of that, the purpose of choosing Fantasia is to celebrate the centennial of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which has always been my least favorite section of the movie.

And on top of all that, I have been super busy this week.

But rewatching some of the sequences over the past week, I've been reminded just how freaking gorgeous Fantasia is. Practically every frame is a work of art, even in the sequences I dislike. I mean, Disney itself has marketed just about every frame from The Sorcerer's Apprentice in one form or another, and for good reason. It's possibly the most iconic piece of animation in the Disney canon. Which is exactly why picking anything from Mickey's big moment would be way too easy. But upon watching the sequence again, I was struck by this moment:

Foreshadowing the last sequence in an anthology film? Has any other anthology film ever done that? Because, come on. Even if Yen Sid (heh heh) is conjuring a butterfly, in the beginning it totally looks like the malevolent terror Chernabog, the mountain/demon star of Night on Bald Mountain and scourge of countless childhood nightmares.

Fantasia - Dance of the Hours

For this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Nathaniel has chosen Disney's Fantasia, which poses a near-impossible task. Whole sequences of Fantasia are true works of art - how can you choose just one shot from the whole film as "best"? I haven't seen the whole film in years (since I was a kid), but I remember a lot of it vividly. Given the nature of this blog, it should come as no surprise that my favorite sequences are the Nutcracker Suite and this one right here:

I defy anyone to hear "Dance of the Hours" and not instantly see those dancing ostriches, hippopotamuses, elephants, and crocodiles. What I love about this sequence is how the animators constantly play with expectations. The piece starts with the ostriches, who are appropriately light and graceful, but far more flexible than you might expect. Next come the hippos, and boy do they not move according to expectations, even if all that effort tires them out. The elephants are like the hippos, only more playful. But it's those kooky crocs who steal the show. Much as I love this piece, it never really captures my attention until they show up, with their silly capes and mile-wide mouths. They should be the villains of the piece, but because of their goofy grins, they end up being far more funny than menacing, to the point that you're never sure if they want to eat the hippo or romance her.

Animator John Hench apparently resisted working on this segment because he knew nothing about ballet, so to appease him Walt Disney gave him season tickets and backstage access to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. The end result is a perfect blend of ballet technique and animalistic movement. Little things like the way the ostriches walk, the literal shifting of weight in the hippos and elephants, and the way the crocodiles slither and curl up all speak to the real-life animals that inspire them, but are incorporated seamlessly into how they dance.

Taking full advantage of the possibilities of animation, the laws of physics are given a big ol' heave-ho, allowing the lead ostrich to be thrown up very high in the air very quickly, and then float down with enough time to do at least a hundred changements. It also allows the crocodiles to lift the hippos in any number of different, exciting, sometimes funny ways, like just using their tails!

Fantasia has lots of dance in it, but this is the only sequence that really uses dance (ballet specifically) as its driving force. It's also arguably the most fun, which should quiet all those people who decry ballet as boring. There are plenty of comic ballets, just as there are comic operas. Plus, if you picture people performing this instead of animated animals, it's still pretty great. Actually, seeing as how the whole thing is even structured like an actual ballet (the various ensembles each dance separately, followed by a pas de deux, then a grand finale with everyone dancing together), I would love to see some adventurous ballet company attempt this. They'd need some wires and some crazy costumes, but it could be a lot of fun.

Favorite Moment: the crocodiles' entrance, at first menacing, until they throw back their capes and have the silliest look on their faces - in perfect unison, of course (at 7:50 in the clip); and hippo's run-and-jump onto the croc, who attempts to catch her (at 9:10 in the clip) - because some (poor) partners really do feel like that when you try to lift them.
Length: Approx. 11:50