The Most Brilliant Monologue in Film History- Page 3

[Pippin]

Posted: 7/10/06 at 1:34pm

From Requiem for a dream: not the most brilliant, but wonderfully constructed and heartbreaking, with a performance that SHOULD have won the oscar that year by Ellen Burstyn.


SARA
I'm telling you I'm being a
contestant on television. They
haven't told me when, but you'll
see, you'll be proud when you see
your mother in her red dress and
golden shoes on television.

HARRY
What's the big deal about being on
television? Those pills'll kill ya
before ya ever get on, fa krist's
sake.

51.


SARA
Big deal? You drove up in a cab.
You see who had the sun seat? You
notice your mother in the special
spot getting the sun? You know who
everybody talks to? You know who's
somebody now? Who's no longer just
a widow in a little apartment who
lives alone? I'm somebody now,
Harry. Everyone likes me. Soon
millions of people will see me and
like me. I'll tell them about you
and your father. I'll tell them
how your father liked the red dress
and how good he was to us. Remember?

Harry nods. Defeated, he stares at the floor.

SARA
And who knows what I might win? A
new refrigerator. A Rolls-Royce,
maybe. Robert Redford.

HARRY
Robert Redford?

SARA
So what's wrong with Robert Redford?

Harry blinks and shakes his head. Bewildered, he surrenders
to her flow.

Sara looks at her entire family and a softness overtakes her.

SARA
It's not the prizes, Harry. It
doesn't make any difference if I
win or lose. It's like a reason to
get up in the morning. It's a
reason to lose weight so I can be
healthy. It's a reason to fit in
the red dress. It's a reason to
smile, already. It makes tomorrow
alright.
(close to Harry now)
What have I got, Harry? Why should
I even make the bed or wash the
dishes? I do them, but why should
I? I'm alone. Seymour's gone,
you're gone, I have no one to take
care of. Anybody. Everybody.
What do I have? I'm lonely, Harry.
I'm old.

52.


Harry fidgets, his eyes blink, he tries:

HARRY
You got friends, Ma. What --

SARA
It's not the same. You need
someone to make for. No, Harry, I
like how I feel this way. I like
thinking about the red dress and
the television...and your father
and you. Now when I get the sun I
smile.

[GovernorSlaton]

Posted: 7/10/06 at 1:46pm

Howard Beale's "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore" speech in Network.

[Jyn326]

Posted: 7/10/06 at 1:54pm

Papa- I did read that post. And I was agreeing that it wasn't the best monologue but that it was also the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. While reading through all the responses I was wondering if someone would mention it. And someone did, so I replied.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 9:59am

This one that Joseph Cotten does in Shadow of a Doubt is pretty terrific, I think:

"You think you know something, don't you? You think you're the clever little girl who knows something. There's so much you don't know, so much. What do you know, really? You're just an ordinary little girl, living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life and you know perfectly well that there's nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day, and at night you sleep your untroubled ordinary little sleep, filled with peaceful stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares. Or did I? Or was it a silly, inexpert little lie? You live in a dream. You're a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie. Use your wits. Learn something."

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:18am

The one that always come to mind for me is Nicole Kidman's high scene in Eyes Wide Shut where she talks about cheating. It may not be the most brilliant, but I think it is brilliantly written and brilliantly performed.

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:18am

Ronee Blakley as BARBARA JEAN in NASHVILLE!

[broadwaystar2b]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:20am

Margo, I'm SHOCKED you haven't posted this one!!!

"Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder, so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you go back to being a woman. That's one career all females have in common - whether we like it or not - being a woman. Sooner or later we've all got to work at it, no matter what other careers we've had or wanted... and, in the last analysis, nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turns around in bed - and there he is. Without that, you're not woman. You're something with a French provincial office or a book full of clippings...slow curtain the end."

[broadwaystar2b]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:25am

Someone mentioned Mr.Smith goes to Washington, but I think at least two of those monologues are worth posting:

"Just get up off the ground. Get up there with that lady on top of the Capitol dome. That lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes. You won't just see scenery. You'll see what man's carved out for himself after centuries of fighting for something better than jungle law. Fighting so he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent. Like he was created. No matter what his race, colour or creed. That's what you'll see. There's no place out there for graft or greed or lies or compromise with human liberties. If that's what the grown-ups have done with this world, we have to start those boys' camps and see what the kids can do. It's not too late. This country is bigger than the Taylors, you or me or anything else. Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here. You just have to see them."


"I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr Paine. All you people don't know about lost causes. Mr Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them for the only reason any man ever fights for them. Because of just one plain, simple rule: Love thy neighbour. In this world full of hatred a man who knows that one rule has a great trust. You know that rule, Mr Paine. I loved you for it, just as my father did. You know that you fight harder for the lost causes. You even die for them. Like a man we both knew, Mr Paine. You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I am not licked! I'll stay and fight for this lost cause. Even if this room gets filled with lies like these. And the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place. Somebody will listen to me."


Updated On: 11/2/06 at 10:25 AM

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:26am

Slaton took mine!

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:38am

loving this thread.

I agree most with n69n...Piper Laurie from Carrie and Ronee Blakely form Nashville (whatever happened to her?! She was so bad in the first Elm Street!)

I'd add Eva LaGalliene's speech on the porch in Resurrection.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:44am

Ronee Blakely form Nashville (whatever happened to her?!

I'm pretty sure that Freddy pulled her body through that tiny little front-door window. That's why you haven't seen her.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:49am

Steve Martin's "f**king" monologue to Edie McClurg in PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES.

What on earth happened to John Hughes, anyway?

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:49am

but, JB, she had decided to "stop drinkin'" just that day!

Any of her speeches in that film could be nominated for "least brilliant."

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:52am

"...cut your nails, or stop that kind of dreamin'. One or the other."
Updated On: 11/2/06 at 10:52 AM

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 10:57am

"locked, locked...it's locked...had to do it!"

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:03am

Ronee Blakley is making a comeback!
her two albums have just been relissued on cd for the first time & she's just released a new album of spoken word!

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:48am

Two of my favorites from "It's A Wonderful Life." First is George's telling-off of Mr. Potter:

Just a minute - just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You're right when you say my father was no businessman. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I'll never know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was - why, in the twenty-five years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn't that right, Uncle Billy? He didn't save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me. But he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter, and what's wrong with that? Why - here, you're all businessmen here. Doesn't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers? You - you said - what'd you say a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down that they... Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be.

And Mr. Potter's callback after Gorege loses the money:

Look at you. You used to be so cocky. You claimed you were going to go out and conquer the world. You once called me "a warped, frustrated, old man!" Who are you but a warped, frustrated young man, crawling in here on your hands and knees begging for help. No securities, no stocks, no bonds. Nothin' but a miserable little $500 equity in a life insurance policy. You're worth more dead than alive.

[peach]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:49am

Not the most brilliant by any means, but one of my personal favorites...

"You're gonna steal from Terry Benedict, you'd better g*d-d*mn know. This sort of thing used to be civilized. You'd hit a guy, he'd whack 'ya - done. But with Benedict...at the end of this, he better not know you're involved. Not know your names or think you're dead, because he'll kill 'ya, and THEN he'll go to work on 'ya. You gotta be nuts too. And you're gonna need a crew that's as nuts as you are. (pause) Who've you got in mind?"

Reuben Tishkoff in Ocean's Eleven.

[Enjolras77]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 11:52am

One of my all-time faves (that isn't already listed):

CLARK GRISWOLD:
"Hey. If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, d***less, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey sh** he is. Hallelujah. Holy sh**. Where's the Tylenol?"

[Kitzarina]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 12:34pm

"My first show was Barefoot in the Park, which was an absolute smash, but my production on the stage of Backdraft was what really got them excited. This whole idea of 'In Your Face' theatre really affected them. The conceptualization, the whole abstraction, the obtuseness of this production to me was what was interesting. I wanted the audience to feel the heat from the fire, the fear, because people don't like fire, poked, poked in their noses, you know when you get a cinder from a barbeque right on the end of your nose and you kind of make that face, you know, that's not a good thing, and I wanted them to have the sense memory of that. So during the show I had someone burn newspapers and send it through the vents in the theatre. And well, they freaked out, and 'course the fire Marshall came over and they shut us down for a couple of days."

--Corky St. Clair, Waiting for Guffman

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 12:36pm

Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons:

"When I came out into society I was 15. I already knew then that the role I was condemned to, namely to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest to me, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide. I practiced detachment. I learn how to look cheerful while under the table I stuck a fork onto the back of my hand. I became a virtuoso of deceit. I consulted the strictest moralists to learn how to appear, philosophers to find out what to think, and novelists to see what I could get away with, and in the end it all came down to one wonderfully simple principle: win or die."

[BSoBW2]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 12:42pm

Not the best, but it is from my favorite movie:

"Ray Brower's body was found. But neither our gang nor their gang got the credit. In the end we decided that an anonymous phone-call was the best thing to do. We headed home. And although many thoughts raced through our minds we barely spoke. We walked through the night and made it back to Castle Rock a little past five o'clock on Sunday morning, the day before Labor Day. We'd only been gone two days. But somehow the town seemed different. Smaller.
As time went on we saw less and less of Teddy and Vern until eventually they became just two more faces in the halls. That happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant. I heard that Vern got married out of High-school, had four kids and is now the forklift operator at the Arsenal Lumberyard. Teddy tried several times to get into the Army but his eyes and his ear kept him out. The last I heard, he'd spent some time in jail. He was now doing odd jobs around Castle Rock.
Chris did get out. He enrolled in the College-courses with me. And although it was hard he gutted it out like he always did. He went on to College and eventually became a lawyer. Last week he entered a fast food restaurant. Just ahead of him, two men got into an argument. One of them pulled a knife. Chris who would always make the best peace tried to break it up. He was stabbed in the throat. He died almost instantly. [typing] Although I haven't seen him in more than ten years I know I'll miss him forever. I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anybody?"

~Stand By Me

[chicolini]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 3:02pm

Fred MacMurray, the opening of Double Indemnity"

Office memorandum. 'Walter Neff to Barton Keyes, Claims Manager, Los Angeles, July 16, 1938. Dear Keyes: I suppose you'll call this a confession when you hear it. Well, I don't like the word 'confession.' I just want to set you right about something you couldn't see because it was smack up against your nose. You think you're such a hot potato as a Claims Manager; such a wolf on a phony claim. Maybe you are. But let's take a look at that Dietrichson claim, Accident and Double Indemnity. You were pretty good in there for a while, Keyes. You said it wasn't an accident. Check. You said it wasn't suicide. Check. You said it was murder. Check. You thought you had it cold, didn't you? All wrapped up in tissue paper with pink ribbons around it. It was perfect - except it wasn't, because you made one mistake. Just one little mistake. When it came to picking the killer, you picked the wrong guy. You want to know who killed Dietrichson? Hold tight to that cheap cigar of yours, Keyes. I killed Dietrichson - me, Walter Neff, insurance salesman, 35 years old, unmarried, no visible scars... (He glances down at his shoulder wound.) - until a while ago, that is. Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money and for a woman. I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it?'

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 3:06pm

Oh, and Bibi Andersson's long monologue from PERSONA about...a beach incident.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 11/2/06 at 3:07pm

George's monologue about his parents in Virginia Woolf.

Also, the one Catherine Burns does in Last Summer about her mother dying, which is probably what got her an Oscar nomination. I wonder what happened to her.