Tag: Moira Shearer

The Criterion Collection – Michael Powell’s THE RED SHOES Available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray November 9th

“Don’t forget, a great impression of simplicity can only be achieved by great agony of body and spirit.”

Michael Powell’s THE RED SHOES (1948) will be available as part of the The Criterion Collection on 2-Disc 4K and Blu-ray November 9th

The Red Shoes, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Technicolor feasts ever concocted for the screen. Moira Shearer is a rising star ballerina torn between an idealistic composer and a ruthless impresario intent on perfection. Featuring outstanding performances, blazingly beautiful cinematography by Jack Cardiff, Oscar-winning sets and music, and an unforgettable, hallucinatory central dance sequence, this beloved classic, dazzlingly restored, stands as an enthralling tribute to the life of the artist.


4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 4K digital transfer from the 2009 restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features• Introductory restoration demonstration featuring filmmaker Martin Scorsese

• Audio commentary from 1994 by film historian Ian Christie, featuring interviews with actors Marius Goring and Moira Shearer, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, and Scorsese

• Profile of “The Red Shoes,” a 2000 documentary on the making of the film, featuring interviews with members of the production team

• Interview with director Michael Powell’s widow, editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival• Audio recordings from 1994 of actor Jeremy Irons reading excerpts from Powell and screenwriter Emeric Pressburger’s novelization of The Red Shoes and the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Red Shoes”

• Publicity stills and behind-the-scenes photos• Gallery of memorabilia from Scorsese’s collection

• The “Red Shoes” Sketches, a 1948 animated film of Hein Heckroth’s painted storyboards, with the Red Shoes ballet as an alternate angle

• Trailer

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by critic David Ehrenstein and a description of the restoration by UCLA film archivist Robert Gitt


1948 • 133 MINUTES • COLOR • MONAURAL • 1.33:1 ASPECT RATIO

TALES OF HOFFMANN (1951) Screens This Weekend at Webster University


“Pour out the wine for drinking is divine!”


TALES OF HOFFMANN (1951) screens Friday September 1st through Sunday September 3rd at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). The movie starts each evening at 7:30pm.


This a film version of the 1881 opera by Jacques Offenbach “The Tales of Hoffmann”, however it is NOT just a film of a staged performance. ‘Michael Powell’ & Emeric Pressburger work their usual magic here. The opera dramatizes the three great romances in the life of the poet-hero presented in a series of flashbacks. Hoffmann’s tales depict the struggle between human love and the artist’s dedication to his work. Hoffmann loses each of the women he loves but gains instead poetic inspiration — the ability to transform painful experiences into art.


TALES OF HOFFMANN is an anthology of fantastic and romantic adventures, recounted by the fableist Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville) and featuring Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes), Ludmilla Tchérina, and Ann Ayars. The film has been singled out by both Martin Scorsese and George A. Romero as a major influence on their own work. “Tales of Hoffmann is a 1951 dance/operatic tour de force in Technicolor the likes of which you’ve never seen” Kenneth Turin, LA Times.  The film will be shown with subtitles.


Admission is:

$6 for the general public
$5 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$4 for Webster University staff and faculty

Free for Webster students with proper I.D.

Advance tickets are available from the cashier before each screening or contact the Film Series office (314-246-7525) for more options. The Film Series can only accept cash or check.

The Webster University Film Series site can be found HERE

http://www.webster.edu/film-series/