Winterlude

[shewhomust]

We woke quite early this morning to a heavy frost, and by the time there was enough light to see how white it had painted the ground, snow was falling. And is still falling, and settling. D. and valydiarosada have chosen an interesting day to drive up for their New Year visit...

durham_rambler had an errand this morning, but before he went out he set up his iPad so I could watch The Red Shoes through the iPlayer. That's my memory of childhood Christmases, watching old films on television while snow fell outside (how often did it happen? well, at least once!). I've seen it before, of course, but had forgotten everything about the plot except the Hans Andersen elements and the ballet. I had also forgotten how very intense the colour was: Technicolor loves the red shoes themselves, of course, but it also loves the location shots. If the Monaco Tourist Office weren't paying for that exposure, someone was missing a trick (oh, and look! there's Covent Garden still functioning as a vegetable market!). I wonder if Gene Kelly had seen The Red Shoes: as the main ballet sequence progressed, I was reminded of his Broadway Melody from Singin' in the Rain, and once I started thinking of The Red Shoes as a rather highbrow musical, I couldn't stop. It has that sort of plotting, where people do completely idiotic things for no better reason than that the plot (such as it is) must be advanced from here to there.

helenraven sent me a peekaboo puffin: winner in the under-12s category, British Wildlife Photography Awards (doesn't seem to allow direct linking - sorry).

Comments

[sovay]

I wonder if Gene Kelly had seen The Red Shoes: as the main ballet sequence progressed, I was reminded of his Broadway Melody from Singin' in the Rain, and once I started thinking of The Red Shoes as a rather highbrow musical, I couldn't stop.

I think there are much worse ways to think of The Red Shoes and Kelly actually acknowledged the movie's influence on his later dance sequences—I'm not sure if Minnelli ever did in so many words, but you can see it in his work, too. An American in Paris (1951) was the movie that made me see it (I saw Singin' in the Rain so young, I'm still sorting out things about it). Your eye for ballet crossover is good.

[shewhomust]

Your eye for ballet crossover is good.

Thank you!

The use of actual locations reminded me of An American in Paris.