Sensational Movie Monologues

Contents

Introduction

A.I: Artificial Intelligence | …And Justice for All | Annie Hall | Apocalypse Now! | Bad Lieutenant | Best Years of Our Lives, The | Born on the Fourth of July | Breaker Morant |

Carnal Knowledge | Conquest of the Planet of the Apes | Day of the Dead | Day the Earth Stood Still, The | Dead Poets Society | Easy Rider | Edmond | Election | Fabulous Baker Boys, The | Fight Club | First Blood | Fritz the Cat | From Dusk Till Dawn | Full Metal Jacket | Gentleman’s Agreement | Glengarry Glen Ross | Good Will Hunting | Harold and Maude | Harvey | Hospital, The | Hustle & Flow | Inherit the Wind | It’s a Wonderful Life | Jaws | JFK |

Kramer vs. Kramer | Manchurian Candidate, The | Mommie Dearest | Network | Nuts | People vs. Larry Flynt, The | Piano, The | Psycho | Pulp Fiction | Scent of a Woman | Se7en | 2001: A Space Odyssey | To Kill a Mockingbird | Tootsie | Touch of Evil | Wall Street | When Harry Met Sally

Introduction

The monologue is one of the established traditions in theatrical drama. From the Greeks to the present day, the monologue has functioned as the sole means of insight into a character’s psyche. The monologue is a direct representation of their mind. In theatrical drama, the monologue is a sublime expression: an affirmation of self. It is through the monologue that the character speaking actualizes him / herself. And: it is essentially a form of self-talk.

The monologue is distinguished from all other theatrical speech, being a dialogue between two or more people. In the monologue, the character is talking alone, to the audience yes, but essentially to him / herself. It is in the monologue that they express themselves to themselves, affirming their thoughts, their individuality and their purpose in the unfolding drama. It is dramatized self-talk, both that re-enforcing of personal character and revealing of the negatives of self-absorption.

As theatre segued into film and the development of sound film technology, film could now speak. And speak it did – to millions throughout the world. But what was to happen to the monologue? Its fate as a dramatic tool was uncertain. Although it had proven brilliant as a theatrical device – a structural point upon which a dramatist would often make the most potent characterization - on film, it was one man or woman standing alone, talking to themselves aloud. It didn’t work: it was uneventful as cinema, boring to look at and dragged the pace to a standstill.

The monologue persisted in a certain kind of static, talky, theatrically based type of cinema that rapidly dwindled in appeal as directors began exploring the possibilities of the sound film medium. Yet there emerged a new problem. Even in film there was the need for monologues. This time it wasn’t to vocalize the internal thoughts and feelings of the speaker but to make a heavily dramatic point or statement. No longer self-talk, it began to politicize the use of film dialogue. Now, the monologue was an argument, a summation, an assault. No longer self-talk, it was bold statement.

The film monologue was transfigured from self-assertion to self-actualization. In theatre it had been contemplative and revelatory, but in film it became not only the prime means to socio-political message or discourse but a defiant statement of principle and moral worth: a revelation of a truth about the character speaking and the film itself. It was now a potent dramatic tool again, fresh, invigorating and powerful. The 50 monologues collected in this ebook represent the scope of its potential: from the dramatic, political, feminist to the comical, emotional and fantastical.

There’s a diverse wealth of spoken word art in this e-book anthology. Each monologue is introduced as to historical context, set-up and character to give an indication of how each monologue is framed. The monologues are arranged alphabetically by film title and survey some 60 years of sound film. Accompanying material to select films featured here is available on the Wider Screenings website. The monologues have been sourced by direct transcript, reproduced as a fair use within a contextual guide to their function within the given movie: where there is a script discrepancy or improvisation, the script record here favors the version as appears in the movie rather than the source script.

If these monologues prove to your interest, please seek out the movies on DVD and Blu-Ray and purchase them so as to maintain the viability of a dynamic movie and home entertainment industry.

So… on to Sensational Movie Monologues!

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A.I: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

dir. Steven Spielberg; scr. Brian Aldiss, Ian Watson, Steven Spielberg

The Setup

A.I: Artificial Intelligence was a project originally set up by director Stanley Kubrick to follow Eyes Wide Shut (which turned out to be the great director’s final film). However, the more he examined the project, the more Kubrick felt that the emerging sensibilities had more in common with one of his filmmaking contemporaries – Steven Spielberg. Kubrick thus soon contacted Spielberg about the project and Spielberg took over, shaping some intellectually dark material with the sentimentality that had become his stock in trade in such science fiction films like E.T the Extra Terrestrial and its idealization of childhood. But whilst A.I: Artificial Intelligence presented the most commercially successful director in Hollywood with another sentimentalist opportunity, he was determined that the austere harshness of Kubrick’s initial conception also be present. Thus, the final film emerged a most intriguing curio: a hybrid of the sensibilities of two of cinema’s most distinctive talents. Although this hybrid sensitivity proved too elusive for many critics to grasp, the film remains Spielberg’s whole-hearted attempt to interrogate the sentimentality with which he had become identified.

The Character

David (Haley Joel Osment) is a boy robot. He has been created by the eminent cientist Prof. Hobby (William Hurt) to act as a real child. The secret ingredient enabling this is in his programming: David is to be marketed as a child to a mother craving such and has a special device by which he is imprinted with a genuine love for the mother, such a love that would occur if he were a real child. Thus, he is adopted into the family. But, the mother begins to lament her decision, believing that the robot boy, despite his seemingly genuine affection, is simply no match for a real child. Thus, disillusioned with robotics, she decides to turn the boy loose. Lost and wandering the outside world, populated by humans with a great resentment of robots, David falls back on the one thing that is essential to his nature – the programmed love of his mother. Thus, he begins a quest to find his mother again, in the process meeting with other robots made superfluous by technological change. His quest finally takes him to a confrontation with what remains of Prof. Hobby, whom he confronts believing that a mysterious blue fairy can grant his wish, which (like that of Pinocchio before him) is to become a real boy so that he can win back the love of his mother. Although this is impossible, it is the humanity of David’s plight which finally affects Prof. Hobby, admitting that David is truly the first of a unique kind – a truly sentient being and testament to the capacity of humankind to create life itself not as robotic form but as the desire to quest for the resolution to one’s own dream of fulfillment and self-actualization.

The Monologue

Prof. Hobby: But you are a real boy, at least as real as I’ve ever made one and by all accounts that would make me your blue fairy… And that’s what Dr. Know needed to know in order to get you to come home to us. And it’s the only time we intervened; the only help that we gave him to give to you, so you could find your way home to us. Until you were born, robots didn’t dream, robots didn’t desire, unless we told them what to want. David! Do you have any idea what a success story you’ve become? You found a fairy tale and inspired by love, fueled by desire, you set out on a journey to make her real and, most remarkable of all, no one taught you how. We actually lost you for a while. But when you were found again we didn’t make our presence known because our test was a simple one: Where would your self-motivated reasoning take you? To the logical conclusion? The Blue Fairy is part of the great human flaw to wish for things that don’t exist. Or to the greatest single human gift – the ability to chase down our dreams. And that is something no machine has ever done until you.

Other Memorable Quotes from the Movie

They ask for me by name. Gigolo Joe, What do you know?

I know women! They sometimes ask for me by name. I know all about women. About as much as there is to know. No two are ever alike, and after they’ve met me, no two are ever the same!

I can’t accept this! There is no substitute for your own child!

In this day and age, David, nothing costs more than information.

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…And Justice for All (1979)

dir. Norman Jewison; scr. Valerie Curtin, Barry Levinson

The Setup

Lawyers are frequently the butt of unkind jokes. Although a profession which is supposed to demand of its practitioners the highest moral and ethical caliber, lawyers are often held as sleazy, vile and corrupt; even morally reprehensible individuals. Although this state of affairs does not apply to all lawyers, it is common with criminal defense lawyers, who are often viewed as accessories and enablers of the often vile and repugnant criminals they are hired (or forced) to defend. Indeed, the conventional stereotype is that the criminal defense attorney is a morally reprehensible individual who is quite prepared to use his fine legalistic abilities to get the most awful of people off without due punishment. It is this perception of the lawyer that calls into question the very notion of justice and it was this very public perception that was addressed in the controversial courtroom drama …And Justice for All.

The film remains perhaps the most satiric indictment of jurisprudence ever to emerge within the Hollywood system and it was the film that gave star Al Pacino a concluding speech which so enthralled the viewing public that one line you’re out of order, this whole trial is out of order became the key phrase for a generation fed up with the seeming ambivalence of so-called Truth, Justice and the American Way. However, given that the film was intended as a satire of the criminal justice system, it’s popularity drew concern from those who considered the film a noble but inherently grotesquely caricatured and misleading attempt to provide some kind of perspective on criminal law. Thus, despite the film’s popularity, it did not enter the pantheon of such distinctive message-oriented courtroom dramas as the classics To Kill a Mockingbird, Compulsion or even Anatomy of a Murder. Nevertheless, the fact that its streak of deviant sarcasm captured the popular zeitgeist is testament to the film’s interest, as is the excellent work by Al Pacino. Indeed, his role in this film is considered one of the finest and most distinctive performances in the Award-winning actor’s career.

The Character

Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino) is a relatively small-time criminal defense lawyer. First encountered in prison on contempt of court charges, his nemesis is a hard-line judge, Judge Fleming (John Forsythe). Judge Fleming is a stickler for procedure, and will not entertain an appeal by Kirkland as it was filed late. When his client dies in prison, Kirkland holds the Judge responsible. However, a peculiar turn of events sees Kirkland assigned to be defense attorney for Judge Fleming when the Judge is accused of violently and horribly beating and raping a woman. Fleming proves a cool psychopath who hires a false witness and even manages to pass a polygraph test (which though inadmissible in a courtroom remains a standard and valuable procedure for establishing guilt and innocence). However, Fleming has such monstrous pride, and is so convinced of the protection accorded him by his power, that he admits his guilt to Kirkland, going further s=and saying that he would even do it again if the opportunity presented itself. Thus, Kirkland finds himself in an ethical dilemma: he is sworn to do his duty as a defense attorney but as a man of conscience, he is distraught over having to defend a guilty man he absolutely detests.

Things come finally to a head in the final trial, when Kirkland makes his opening statement, a monologue that exposes the ethical ironies within the criminal justice system just as it mocks and ridicules with due contempt the process of law. However, whilst the filmmakers and the audiences saw in this effective monologue (Pacino’s finest until his speech at a school tribunal in scent of a Woman