Curators placed these prized red pointe shoes front and center because, Niebel says, “The Red Shoes” highlights both the magical nature of red and the role color plays in the expression of physical movement through dance.
While the 1900 novel by Frank L. Baum described them as silver, filmmakers in 1939 wanted to pack as much color as possible into the scene where Dorothy steps from sepia-toned Kansas into the shimmering color of the Land of Oz, where Glinda gives her the shoes off the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East.
But at Academy Museum color show, the ruby-red shoes take center stage In the hit movie “Wicked,” those famous magical shoes are silver.
We wanted to tell this story as well — the story of these women who are never named, who the public never saw, but also the story of how film stock was developed particularly to depict white skin.”.
Before that, the majority of films where were tinted and toned, curators say, meaning an entire filmstrip is submerged in one color, often a bright one like yellow or pink or red or blue.
