On episode 146 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter are joined by AwardsWatch Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello to discuss the latest film in their Powell and Pressburger series, The Red Shoes (1948).
Welcome back to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, the boys attempt to break down, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love.
In their most popular, acclaimed film of their career, Powell and Pressburger take a look into the competitive, obsessive world of ballet and the personal scarifies it takes to make real art. With The Red Shoes, they created another lasting masterpiece, one with a trio of incredible performances, expert dialogue, a twisted ending, and one of the greatest sequences in film history involving the titular film’s ballet. Ryan, Jay, and Sophia break down their admiration for the film, the price it takes Victoria Page to become the best dancer in the world, the jealousy of Boris Lermontov, the naiveté of Julian Craster, how the duo behind the camera were able to pull off that miraculous sequence, the food, the clothing, the mixture of location shooting and sets, the process it took to preserve this film via the Criterion Collection and Martin Scorsese, and one of the biggest, longest weekly recommendations in the history of Director Watch.
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This podcast runs 2h55m. The guys will be back next week to continue their series on the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger with a review of their next film, The Tales of Hoffmann. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.
Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).
