What question did this study set out to answer?

To explore the representations of artistic work in The Red Shoes and challenge previous interpretations.

February 11, 2026Journal of British Cinema and Television0 citations

Hearts of Fire, Bodies on the Line: Impressions of Work and Labour in The Red Shoes

Key Points

To explore the representations of artistic work in The Red Shoes and challenge previous interpretations.
Analyzed artistic and labor themes in The Red Shoes through filmic examples.
Contrasted earlier readings that view the film's portrayals as magical or inauthentic.
Examined workplace politics and its relevance to modern artistic labour discussions.
The film depicts artmaking as grounded in tangible material conditions.
It offers insights into the social relations surrounding the production of art.
Workplace politics in the film reflect ongoing inequalities in the field of cultural work.

Abstract

This article is concerned with representations of artistic work and labour in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948). In contrast to previous readings, which have tended to emphasise the film’s variously inauthentic, impressionistic or ‘magical’ depictions of labour, I suggest the film offers us two much more earthly lessons about the nature of artmaking. Firstly, the film quite consistently reveals that the performance of art is not so much a supernatural or transcendent labour but one that is derived from (and visibly demonstrates) some of the material conditions and the personal and social relations necessary for its production. Secondly, the film’s seemingly archaic and stylised representations of workplace politics offer some instructive insights that resonate with more recent debates on the unequal social organisation of artistic labour – or as I prefer to term it, ‘cultural work’.

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