6. Les Miserables – I Dreamed a Dream
With all due apologies for a possibly obvious choice, this must feature here. With Anne Hathaway essentially earning an Oscar solely on the strength of her perhaps definitive rendition of this one song, this one-take, sung-live-on-set, extreme-close-up epic of loss, devastation, hopelessness and despair is one of the more affecting cinema moments of recent years. Life has killed the dream I dreamed – such a simple turn of phrase, yet so incredibly rich in impact, summing up in one line a story of hope dashed against the rocks of bitter experience.
If the next entry (not to spoil things) showcases the ability of musical cinema to stir thoughts and feelings of love and laughter, I Dreamed a Dream gives us something very different – the stirring of feelings of pain and devastation. Life starts off full of promise, then it all falls apart and you die. Goodness me. Well, no-one said cinema had to sugar-coat everything and at times it is right that we are moved to tears, even if the loss is fictional rather than actual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86lczf7Bou8
