To steal a feature from HB, here’s my Friday Five. Five of the best speeches in the movies. Not simply monologues to one’s self, or narrated by the teller, or said to one person. Speeches intended to influence groups who the character needs to get into action in order to succeed.
Patton
No list can begin on any other speech than the one Patton delivered to the Third Army, which became the introduction to the biographical movie about his World War II activity:
Glengarry Glen Ross
What George Washington said about government can be equally applied to business, “Government is not eloquence, it is not reason, it is force. Like fire, it can be a terrible servant and a fearsome master.”
Network
The original Angry White Man, predating conservative talk radio by 20 years, running at the same time as Gordon Sinclair’s “A Canadian’s Opinion“ speech.
Henry V
Kenneth Branagh. Shakespeare. And they say English is the duller, more banal of the European languages, that it has no capacity of beauty or the turn of prose like the Romance languages do. Branagh kept up this level of intensity all through this epic, and is assuredly one of the greatest actors alive.
Animal House
Bluto Butarski gets Delta House to not take Double Secret Probation lying down:
So let me know which ones I left off, so that I know someone reads this damn blog.
Filed under: observations
How about Col. Nathan Jessep’s “You want me on that wall. You NEED me on that wall” speech?
Shame on me for forgetting that one.
In these times, when all so need to recall the manipulation of the demagogue, this, beginning at 8 minutes, is hard to surpass. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab68AjRMKmA
and part 2 can be found here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd9BLib8448&NR=1
This is the easiest to hear and most effective of all the versions I could find.
Most excellent choices. Patton is really choice one through four, the rest tied for 5th.
Worthy of note: Pacino’s climatic speech in “The Scent of a Woman.”
I forgot how good that was, even after he said “I’m just getting warmed up.”