General Discussion : Best Monologues

[Bojangles]

What are they? I'll just pick two so hopefully I don't spoil everyone's.

Joe Pesci in JFK
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_40kJlo9P4g&fmt=18 (not quite a monologue b/c it's interrupted a few times.)

Sean Penn in The Thin Red Line
"What difference you think you can make, one single man in all this madness?..." Don't think that one's on youtube, but it's great if anyone who's seen TTRL remembers it.

Post.

[Pickpocket]

You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end...

The speech Gregory Peck gives in To Kill a Mockingbird is pretty great too.

[Rufflesack]

Off the top of my head; I'm a sucker for the end monologue in the first Rambo film. Stallone actually does some good acting there.

Can't really think of anything else at the moment, although I do have a feeling that there are several more I want to mention..

Oh, don't really know if it's long enough to count (and, well, it's not that great), but Ewan Mcgregor's monologue at the end of Star Wars Episode III ("You were the chosen one!") is pretty decent. Only thought of it now seeing as I watched the film last night.. That bit is probably the best part of the prequel trilogies as a whole anyway.

[Hells_Zargon]

I know it's hardly the best example, but In Bruges had two good ones that come to mind. Firstly when Ray remorses on the bench. It's equally the tender recolection of a hired gunman and the final crushing regret of someone already on the brink as the floodgates of suppressed stony-faced guilt are suddenly opened. A tender moment between hired killers, plus one which really shows the true relationship between the fartherly confident Ken and Ray who is suddenly coming to the brutal reality of their line of work. Second is briefly at the very end when Ray is reminiscing about the time he's spent in Bruges.

There's plenty more in my head, but I can't really come up with anything definate at 2am.

Saving Private Ryan had some touching moments of monologue as well. It took me back a bit when Wade (Ribisi) started talking about his mother, I'd never taken the character very seriously up to that point after having Ribisi's character in Friends prominent in my memory. This sure got my attention though, pretty much every major character has those kind of moments as well. Part of what I love about that film is that you feel as if you know the characters a little bit as people thanks to these shared memories. I guess you could say I'm more into these tender, personal and revealing kind of monologues more than anything else.

[Bojangles]

Saving Private Ryan had some touching moments of monologue as well. It took me back a bit when Wade (Ribisi) started talking about his mother, I'd never taken the character very seriously up to that point after having Ribisi's character in Friends prominent in my memory. This sure got my attention though, pretty much every major character has those kind of moments as well. Part of what I love about that film is that you feel as if you know the characters a little bit as people thanks to these shared memories. I guess you could say I'm more into these tender, personal and revealing kind of monologues more than anything else.

Are you talking about the church scene at night? "I don't know why I did that..." That monologue is my favorite part of SPR.

[Hells_Zargon]

Saving Private Ryan had some touching moments of monologue as well. It took me back a bit when Wade (Ribisi) started talking about his mother, I'd never taken the character very seriously up to that point after having Ribisi's character in Friends prominent in my memory. This sure got my attention though, pretty much every major character has those kind of moments as well. Part of what I love about that film is that you feel as if you know the characters a little bit as people thanks to these shared memories. I guess you could say I'm more into these tender, personal and revealing kind of monologues more than anything else.

Are you talking about the church scene at night? "I don't know why I did that..." That monologue is my favorite part of SPR.

Yeah, that's the one. Love that scene.

[paulofilmo]

The Great Dictator.

[coffee]

From "There will be blood".

I'm an oilman, ladies and gentlemen. I have numerous concerns spread across this state. I have many wells flowing at many thousand barrels per day so I like to think of myself as an oilman. As an oilman, I hope that you'll forgive just good old-fashioned plain speaking. Now, this work that we do is very much a family enterprise. I work side by side with my wonderful son, H. W. I think one or two of you might have met him already. And I encourage my men to bring their families as well. Of course, it makes for an ever so much more rewarding life for them. Family means children and children means education. So, wherever we set up camp education is a necessity and we're just so happy to take care of that. So let's build a wonderful school in Little Boston. These children are the future that we strive for and so they should have the very best of things. Now, something else, and please don't be insulted if I speak about this. Bread. Let's talk about bread. Now, to my mind, it's an abomination to consider that any man, woman or child in this magnificent country of ours should have to look upon a loaf of bread as a luxury. We're going to dig water wells here and water wells means irrigation. Irrigation means cultivation. We're going to raise crops here where before it just simply wasn't possible. You're going to have more grain than you'll know what to do with and bread will be coming right out of your ears, ma'am. New roads, agriculture, employment, education. These are just a few of the things we can offer you, and I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that if we do find oil here, and I think there's a very good chance that we will, this community of yours will not only survive, it will flourish.

[FitFortDanga]

Whenever this topic comes up, I always whip out Beatrice Straight's monologue from Network. Network has a ton of great speeches, but this is my favorite:

Get out, go anywhere you want, go to a hotel, go live with her, and don't come back. Because, after 25 years of building a home and raising a family and all the senseless pain that we have inflicted on each other, I'm damned if I'm going to stand here and have you tell me you're in love with somebody else. Because this isn't a convention weekend with your secretary, is it? Or - or some broad that you picked up after three belts of booze. This is your great winter romance, isn't it? Your last roar of passion before you settle into your emeritus years. Is that what's left for me? Is that my share? She gets the winter passion, and I get the dotage? What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to sit at home knitting and purling while you slink back like some penitent drunk? I'm your wife, damn it. And, if you can't work up a winter passion for me, the least I require is respect and allegiance. I hurt. Don't you understand that? I hurt badly!

Another great movie for monologues (also written by Paddy Chayefsky) is The Americanization of Emily. I'm particularly fond of this one:

You American haters bore me to tears, Ms. Barham. I've dealt with Europeans all my life. I know all about us parvenus from the States who come over here and race around your old Cathedral towns with our cameras and Coca-cola bottles... Brawl in your pubs, paw at your women, and act like we own the world. We over-tip, we talk too loud, we think we can buy anything with a Hershey bar. I've had Germans and Italians tell me how politically ingenuous we are, and perhaps so. But we haven't managed a Hitler or a Mussolini yet. I've had Frenchmen call me a savage because I only took half an hour for lunch. Hell, Ms. Barham, the only reason the French take two hours for lunch is because the service in their restaurants is lousy. The most tedious lot are you British. We crass Americans didn't introduce war into your little island. This war, Ms. Barham to which we Americans are so insensitive, is the result of 2,000 years of European greed, barbarism, superstition, and stupidity. Don't blame it on our Coca-cola bottles. Europe was a going brothel long before we came to town.

[frederic_g54]

http://www.altiustutasarim.com/notdefteri/arsiv/2007/02/top_10_greatest_film_speeches.php

"On the Waterfront", still a personal favorite