Guido at the end of 8 1/2
Two of my favorites Robert De Niro’s scenes…well known too…
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
The Untouchables (Brian De Palma, 1987)
and robert shaw’s great monologue about the indianapolis in jaws :)
Brando’s monologue to his wife in Last Tango in Paris.
impossible to beat.
A great tour de force.
@Robert W. Peabody III re: cuckoo clock. Orson Welles in The Third Man.
gah soo romantic :p
I can’t believe no one has beaten me to this already
words to live by ^
I agree with J’entend plus la Guitare: This speech is extraordinary and it’s a shame that for the release it was dubbed into French. It’s not the same.
A very intense and heartbreaking one comes from Polytechnique, the film that deals with a school massacre in Montréal. One of the protagonists writes a letter to the mother of the shooter:
“He’s dead. I’m alive. He’s free, I’m not. Everyone tells me how strong I am. I’ve had enough of being strong. Sometimes I want to shout from the roof tops how I’ve been hurt, and not just physically. I want to curl up in a ball and hide. Every day I think of Stephanie who died in my arms. I think of all my friends who died and were hurt that day. I think of all women of all ages who were hurt in their soul. All this thinking, it weighs on me and I’m tired of carrying that weight. Love has brought me a gift: A child grows inside me. I want with all my heart for this child to be happy, but I’m afraid. And I’m tired of being afraid. I have to learn to have faith again, and give life another chance, so I can stand on my own. And I will stand on my own. If I have a boy, I’ll teach him how to love. If I have a girl, I’ll tell her the world is hers.”
The final monologue in Carlito’s Way (Brian De Palma, 1993):
“Sorry boys, all the stitches in the world can’t sew me together again. Lay down… lay down. Gonna stretch me out in Fernandez funeral home on Hun and Ninth street. Always knew I’d make a stop there, but a lot later than a whole gang of people thought… Last of the Moh-Ricans… well maybe not the last. Gail’s gonna be a good mom… New improved Carlito Brigante… Hope she uses the money to get out. No room in this city for big hearts like hers… Sorry baby, I tried the best I could, honest… Can’t come with me on this trip, Loaf. Getting the shakes now, last call for drinks, bars closing down… Sun’s out, where are we going for breakfast? Don’t wanna go far. Rough night, tired baby… Tired…”‘Stalker’ during the dream sequence…. sends me to the depths of la la land every time!
There’s no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going. There’s no knowing where we’re rowing, or which way the river’s flowing. Is it raining? is it snowing? is a hurricane a-blowing? Ahh! Not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing. Are the fires of hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? YES! THE DANGER MUST BE GROWING, FOR THE ROWERS KEEP ON ROWING AND THEY’RE CERTAINLY NOT SHOWING ANY SIGNS THAT THEY ARE SLOWING!
Gene Wilder “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory” (Mel Stuart 1971)
You know what? When I look back on my little life and the birds I’ve known, and think of all the things they’ve done for me and the little I’ve done for them, you’d think I’ve had the best of it along the line. But what have I got out of it? I’ve got a bob or two, some decent clothes, a car, I’ve got me health back and I ain’t attached. But I ain’t got me peace of mind – and if you ain’t got that, you ain’t got nothing. I dunno. It seems to me if they ain’t got you one way they’ve got you another. So what’s the answer? That’s what I keep asking myself – what’s it all about? Know what I mean?
Michael Caine “Alfie” (Lewis Gilbert, 1966)
@Nadin — “…If I have a boy, I’ll teach him how to love. If I have a girl, I’ll tell her the world is hers.”
Right to my heart, and I haven’t seen that movie… Right to my heart, because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with mine…
2 pages in and no Alec Baldwin yet…you know which scene.
I couldn’t find a decent Cinemascope copy of the sequence on Youtube.
Coffee is for closers……
From “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp”, Anton Walbrook in one of his great moments. At about 1:18 he gives the speech about his life and hardships. Very moving stuff.
aww i looove that film ^
Another great heartbreaker, at times literally almost painful to watch:
Michael Redgrave as Crocker Harris giving his final speech at the commencement ceremony.
@Claus
Great Choice, Walbrooke’s "This is not a gentleman’s war "speech from the same movie is very touching too. P&P films have some great monologues. Including David Niven’s opening monologue in the plane from A Matter of Life and Death, and my favourite, Eric Portman’s character Thomas Colpeper in A Canterbury Tale, Explaining in such a beautiful piece of prose, why we were fighting the war.
Well, there are more ways than one of getting close to your ancestors. Follow the old road, and as you walk, think of them and of the old England. They climbed Chillingbourne Hill, just as you. They sweated and paused for breath just as you did today. And when you see the bluebells in the spring and the wild thyme, and the broom and the heather, you’re only seeing what their eyes saw. You ford the same rivers. The same birds are singing. When you lie flat on your back and rest, and watch the clouds sailing, as I often do, you’re so close to those other people, that you can hear the thrumming of the hoofs of their horses, and the sound of the wheels on the road, and their laughter and talk, and the music of the instruments they carried. And when I turn the bend in the road, where they too saw the towers of Canterbury, I feel I’ve only to turn my head, to see them on the road behind me.
Beautiful.
:applause:
Martin Landau is terrific…
Tom Wilkinson in the opening of Michael Clayton completely stands alone from the movie itself.
“Michael. Dear Michael. Of course it’s you, who else could they send, who else could be trusted? I… I know it’s a long way and you’re ready to go to work… all I’m saying is just wait, just… just wait and please just hear me out because this is not an episode, relapse, fuck-up, it’s… I’m begging you Michael. I’m begging you. Try to make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness. Two weeks ago I came out of the building ok, I’m running across 6th avenue there’s a car waiting, I’ve got exactly 38 minutes to get to the airport and I’m dictating. There’s this panicked associate sprinting along beside me, scribbling in a notepad, and suddenly she starts screaming, and I realize we’re standing in the middle of the street, the light’s changed, there’s this wall of traffic, serious traffic speeding towards us, and I… I freeze, I can’t move, and I’m suddenly consumed with the overwhelming sensation that I’m covered in some sort of film. It’s in my hair, my face… it’s like a glaze… a coating, and… at first I thought, oh my god, I know what this is, this is some sort of amniotic – embryonic – fluid. I’m drenched in afterbirth, I’ve breached the chrysalis, I’ve been reborn. But then the traffic, the stampede, the cars, the trucks, the horns, the screaming and I’m thinking no-no-no, reset, this is not rebirth, this is some kind of giddy illusion of renewal that happens in the final moment before death. And then I realize no-no-no, this is completely wrong because I look back at the building and I had the most stunning moment of clarity. I… I… I realized Michael, that I had emerged not from the doors of Kenner, Bach & Leeden, not through the portals of our vast and powerful law firm, but from the asshole of an organism who’s sole function is to excrete the… the… the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity. And that I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life. The stench of it and the sting of it would in all likelihood take the rest of my life to undue. And you know what I did? I took a deep cleansing breath and I put that notion aside. I tabled it. I said to myself as clear as this may be, as potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe I witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time, and Michael, the time is now.”
@ CLAUS HARDING
There you go :
Thanks, B;
I was looking for it in Scope to no avail, so this is a good representation of it.
Mr. Lumpy,
I’ve got to get “Canterbury” on my list.
From NETWORK (1976)
Max Schumacher; Played by William Holden.
It’s too late, Diana. There’s nothing left in you that I can live with. You’re one of Howard’s humanoids. If I stay with you, I’ll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You’re television incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split seconds and instant replays. You’re madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure, and pain… and love.[Kisses her]
For contrast, just so we don’t all start weeping in our beers, this little nugget is about as….unusual…. as any monologue can get. The magic of it is that on some strange level it almost feels like it makes sense.
The one, the only…Bela Lugosi
ruby stevens