The Red Shoes

Never on screen had Technicolor so expressively and mesmerisingly synthesised into the tormented soul of a human being – a budding ballerina who finds herself torn between a lovelorn composer and an overpowering impresario. Voluptuous in its visual beauty and heartfelt in its storytelling, it transforms the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about enchanted shoes into a captivating parable of the destructive demands made by art upon the artist. The ballet sequence that morphs a stage performance into a darkly surreal dramatisation of spiritual turbulence stands as a cinematic miracle of film history – and one that allured the then 9-yearold Martin Scorsese into filmmaking.

Academy Awards: Best Original Score and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration