Greatest/Favorite Movie Monologues

[essell]

@RedSwinglineOne

Not strictly a monologue, but Al Pacino at the end of Devils Advocate.

The Eddie Barzoon speech was better IMHO.
The one at the end was half-lies for Kevin’s benefit.

[glee]

I’ll third Quint’s speech from Jaws.

It starts during some banter and blokes showing off about injuries. As Robert Shaw keeps talking, the mood gradually changes. When he finishes, there’s silence.

[Scissorjack]

@RealityChuck

From Guys and Dolls:

On the day when I left home to make my way in the world, my daddy took me to one side. “Son,” my daddy says to me, “I am sorry I am not able to bankroll you to a large start, but not having the necessary lettuce to get you rolling, instead I’m going to stake you to some very valuable advice. One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an ear full of cider.”

Strictly speaking, that was from one of Runyon’s short stories first, and the original was much pithier.

[Ferd_Burfel]

Ned Beatty’s speech in the board room in Network.

Arthur Jensen: It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. THAT is the natural order of things today. THAT is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And YOU WILL ATONE. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

[Aspidistra]

Forty-five posts and I get to be the first to mention Trainspotting?

W00t!

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday night. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin? "

[lobstermobster]

@OneCentStamp

I am an unabashed fan of monologues. A great one can be hilarious, heartrending, or both. It can sum up the theme of a film, or simply provide an amusing aside. Here are a few of my all-time favorites:

George C. Scott in Patton, opening monologue. Made even better because it’s taken, 98% verbatim, from Patton’s actual speeches.
“We are going to rip the living guts from their bodies and use them to grease the treads of our tanks!”

OneCent do you know what its like to put your hand in a pile of goo and then realize its your BEST FRIEND’S FACE???!?!?!!?

The first fifteen minutes of Desperate Living of Mink Stole as Peggy Gravel screaming and stomping around will always warm the cockles of my heart.

[Incensed]

Forty-some odd posts and no mention of Cool Hand Luke? You guys have really shaken my faith in the board.

(Luke walks into a church, on the run after his latest escape from the chain gang.) Anybody here? (walks down aisle, looking up into exposed rafters) Hey old man, you home tonight? (continues walking) Can ya spare a minute?–It’s about time we had a little talk. I know I’m a pretty evil fellow; killed people in the war an’…got drunk and…chewed up municipal property and the like. I know I got no call to ask for much–but even so, you gotta admit you ain’t dealt me no cards in a long time…From here, it looks like you got things fixed so I can never win out. Inside, outside, all them…rules, and regulations, and bosses. You made me like I am! So just where am I supposed to fit in? Old man, I gotta tell ya…I started out pretty strong and fast. But it’s beginning to get to me. When did it end? What do ya got in mind for me? What do I do now? (pauses contemplatively) All right. All right. (kneels) On my knees, asking…(closes eyes, prays for a moment, then opens one eye, peeking upward–half-smiling). Yeah, that’s what I thought…I guess I’m pretty tough to deal with, huh? A hard case…yeah, I guess I gotta find my own way.
(Dragline comes in as headlights flash through the windows of the church.) Luke?
(Luke looks up, still grinning slightly.) That’s your answer ol’ man? I guess you’re a hard case too.

[Tibidabo]

snip

@jjimm

Mine is also from Withnail & I (I’m not sure the film can really claim credit for Withnail’s Hamlet monologue, though Richard E. Grant’s performance of it was poignant as hell.)

er… missed the edit window on my own post by a few hours or so but here it is anyway:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYtVgemYKIU

[ianzin]

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Dennis the Peasant explaining that he didn’t vote for Arthur and then expounding on his ideas about how “true power derives from a mandate from the people, not some farcical aquatic ceremony”. Not strictly speaking a monologue (there are occasional interruptions from Arthur) but it’s a solid gold piece of writing and very, very funny.

[msmith537]

@Diogenes the Cynic

----Walken in Pulp

Beat me to it

I always enjoy Pacino’s rants. Devil’s Advocate was the best.

[Trunk]

I love Daniel Day Lewis’ speech at the beginning of the second half of Gangs of New York. It’s all about America. He’s literally draped in the flag. He’s lit in blue. Subtle as a train-wreck, but that’s Scorcese for ya.

And for humor, Sam Elliott at the beginning of The Big Lebowski. Brilliant writing. . .

“I didn’t find it to be that, exactly”

I love how he says “unfold” twice.

“That’s not a name you self-apply where i come from”.

Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell ya about. Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Lebowski, he called himself “The Dude”. Now, “Dude” - there’s a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that’s why I found the place so darned interestin’. See, they call Los Angeles the “City Of Angels”; but I didn’t find it to be that, exactly. But I’ll allow it as there are some nice folks there. ‘Course I ain’t never been to London, and I ain’t never seen France. And I ain’t never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I’ll tell you what - after seeing Los Angeles, and this here story I’m about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin’ every bit as stupefyin’ as you’d seen in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin’ like the good Lord gypped me. Now this here story I’m about to unfold took place in the early ‘90s - just about the time of our conflict with Sad’m and the I-raqis. I only mention it because sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a hero, ‘cause, what’s a hero? Sometimes, there’s a man. And I’m talkin’ about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s the Dude. The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he’s a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide. Sometimes there’s a man, sometimes, there’s a man. Well, I lost my train of thought here. But… aw, hell. I’ve done introduced it enough.

[K364]

Albert Finney’s 10 minute denouement in the dining car of “Murder on the Orient Express”

I understand that he had to do it, end to end without cuts, three times to allow the placement of three different cameras in the cramped dining car.

From the same movie there is Ingrid Bergman’s “little brown babies” speech as well.

[CalMeacham]

The overlapping speeches by Kirk Douglas as Spartacus and Laurence Olivier as Crassus at the end of spartacus 9screenply by Dalton Trumbo) are superb. a lot of the speeches in that movie are great.
One bit that I truly love is the parliamentary debate in Robert Bolt’s screenplay for Lady Caroline Lamb (which he also directed). Most of it is really alternating speeches, rather than a dialogue, and it shows great legislative thinking and logic in action, with some wit.

[koeeoaddi]

Lawrence Olivier’s speech in the boathouse, in Rebecca.

[Stoid]

@Diogenes the Cynic

----Walken in Pulp

Yeah, I have to say that was one of the all time best.

[Fir_na_tine]

Absence of Malice with Wilford Brimley as James A. Wells, Assistant U.S. Attorney General:

Now we’ll talk all day if you want to. But, come sundown, there’s gonna be two things true that ain’t true now. One is that the United States Department of Justice is goin’ to know what in the good Christ - e’scuse me, Angie - is goin’ on around here. And the other’s I’m gonna have somebody’s ass in muh briefcase

[Kizarvexius]

Flipping channels aimlessly one night, I happened upon a film that opened with a guy speaking into the camera with a thick Cajun accent. His monologue talked about discovering secret places in the terrain you’ve known all of your life, and that, no matter how strongly the experts might claim that you’re mistaken, you know it’s real life “when you done swam in it”. Gorgeous speech. Fabulous performance. Before I knew it, I had watched the whole movie from beginning to end. It turned out to be Scorchers, a little indie film with an amazing cast.

[Zebra]

@Gangster Octopus

Jon Voigt’s speech to Eric Roberts in Runaway Train about the fine line between civility and anarchy.

I love this movie.
The narration from that opens The Right Stuff

There was deamon that lived in the air.

and the closing narration.

But on that glorious day in 1966, Gordon Cooper flew higher, farther and faster than anyone ever had. He was the last American to go into space alone, and for a brief time Gordo Cooper was the best pilot that anyone had ever seen.
Kenneth B. does a great St. Crispen’s Day speech in his Henry V.
Norma Desmond’s final speech from Sunset Blvd.

[Robot_Arm]

@Zebra

The narration from that opens The Right Stuff.

Spoken by Levon Helm, who plays Ridley in the movie, and (as drummer for The Band) is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

[What_Exit]

So many great ones. I consider Tom Joad’s #1 but many, many more in this thread are great.

I will add from “Pride of the Yankees”, Lou Gehrig’s Speech.

I have been walking on ball fields for 16 years, and I’ve never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. I have had the great honor to have played with these great veteran ballplayers on my left – Murderers Row, our championship team of 1927.

I have had the further honor of living with and
playing with these men on my right

– the Bronx Bombers, the Yankees of today.

I have been given fame and undeserved praise by the boys up there behind the wire in the press box – my friends, the sports writers. I have worked under the two greatest managers of all time, Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy.

I have a mother and father
who fought to give me health
and a solid background in my youth.

I have a wife, a companion for life,
who has shown me more courage than

I ever knew.

People all say that I’ve had a bad break.
But today –

today I consider myself the luckiest man
on the face of the earth.

Of course the movie speech did not quite match the actual speech, but it was close.

Jim