Prior to shooting it, Shaw felt he needed a bit of liquid motivation so the scene with him, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider is done with real alcohol and the men actually boozing it up.
When it’s time for Quint’s speech, Robert Shaw is on the slightly smashed side. He can’t remember his lines, slurs those that he can and generally makes an incomprehensible mess of things. When they wrap for the day, Spielberg realizes he has nothing to go with and figures he will have to scuttle the Indianapolis monologue.
The next day, Shaw comes to him stone cold sober and asks to try the scene now that his senses have been restored. He nails it in one take and they wind up with what you see today. Spielberg routinely cites this as one of his all-time favorite scenes from the movies he’s done.
Knowing this the next time you see it, you can clearly see a liquored up Robert Shaw change into a lucid eyed, sober Shaw and then back to drunken Shaw in the span of a few minutes of screen footage.
Also, many of the speeches from 1776, especially Dr. Hall’s speech that begins, “Yes, Mr. Adams, I do.” (This after John Adams has his big speech (in song) about the need for independence, ending with the line, “Does anybody see what I see?”)
“Tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna sit right here and talk about it. Now if you get tired of talking here, Mr. Marshal Elving Patrick there will hand you one of them subpoenas he’s got stuck down in his pocket and we’ll go downstairs and talk in front of the grand jury. 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 gonna know what in the good Christ - excuse me, Angie - is goin’ on around here. And the other’s I’m gonna have somebody’s ass in my briefcase.”
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s “sermon” about gossip in the movie, Doubt. At the time I saw it, I was working in an office where the gossiping was destructive and completely out of control. I felt like making all the ladies I worked with watch this clip! (I’m hoping this link works - doing this on Tapatalk)
I came in to mention that. Theoden’s speech to the Rohirrim – which can be summarized as “This battle is hopeless. I’m going anyway. 'Cause I’m like that. Come with me or be known a pussy” is all kinds of awesome.
