I re-watched Jaws yesterday, and once again was struck by the brilliance of Robert Shaw's delivery of Captain Quint's Indianapolis Soliloquy. "Eleven hundred men went into the water..." It is a defining moment, made even more remarkable for its human interest in a film whose star is a killer shark. Quint is no longer a caricature of Captain Ahab, all crust and color, but distilled to his human core. It is the best part of the movie, and if there were an Old Timer's Committee in the Academy of Motion Pictures like baseball has, Shaw would have had his Oscar for that performance.
This got me thinking about memorable monologues in other films, and which of these had the qualities of Quint's lines and Shaw's acting. Of course there are lines that people remember - iconic, even, like Dirty Harry saying "you gotta ask yourself, 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya punk?" It is on some people's Top Ten Monologues List, but I don't believe it would make it on mine. On the other hand, I probably would include the Meg Ryan fake orgasm scene from "When Harry Met Sally." It's all in the delivery.
So rather than give you my complete list, let's build one together. Quint makes the list. What about the other nine?
More (July 23, 2008): Exceptional discussion in the comments, for which many thanks. It has prompted a subsequent post on monologues and which gender tends to get remembered for them. Feel free to confirm or refute as experience dictates.
Martin: What's that one?
Quint: What?
Martin: That one, there, on your arm?
Quint: Ah, well. It's a tattoo. I got that removed.
Hooper: Don't tell me. Don't tell me. Mother. Ha ha ha! What is it?
Quint: Mr. Hooper, that's a checkered flag from the Indianapolis 500.
Hooper: You were in the Indy 500?
Martin: What happened?
Quint: "Some rookie near the front of the pack slammed into my side, Chief. We were testing out an idea for an expanded race, with 1100 men on a 2 mile course. Eleven hundred men piled up on top of each other. Every car crashed & burned in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're on the track, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our qualifier had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us DNQ for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come floppin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away."
Hooper: "Did you ever race against Richard Petty?"
Quint: "Aye. Sometimes Petty he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about Richard Petty... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he passes ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched engine screamin'."
Brody: "Never mind that Quint, what about the sharks?"
Quint: "Oh yeah, they were the real problem. The track turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Good driver. Sponsored by Pennzoil. I thought he was asleep, he was just clinging to a tire. I reached over to wake him up. Rolled over, down on the pavement just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a pace car saw us. He drove in slow and he saw us... he was a young driver, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in slow and three hours later a big fat ambulance comes in and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a helmet again. So, eleven hundred men went in the time trial; 316 men qualified and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, they cancelled the race after that."
Posted by: Chris | May 21, 2010 at 04:17 PM
My advice. log on the net. download 10 to 15 action movies. t'll do the job, it does everytime. your mind would be thankful.
Posted by: action movies | December 17, 2009 at 09:05 AM
I think that the soliloquy from Blade Runner is a classic.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain. Time... to die." Roy
Posted by: Jim Kisenger | December 25, 2008 at 06:45 PM
This soliloqy ranks up in the top ten.. from the movie V for Vendetta..
Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villian by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. [he carves a "V" into a sign] The only verdict is vengence; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. [giggles] Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.
Posted by: Craig Meyer | November 30, 2008 at 01:36 PM
Low brow counts as a parody of the form!
Posted by: Tim Abbott | July 24, 2008 at 04:56 PM
Hate to make this thing low-brow, but how about Bill Murray's inspiring speech to the men in Stripes?
What the hell's the matter with you?
Stupid!
We're all very different people.
We're not Watusi.
We're not Spartans.
We're Americans.
With a capital A, huh?
You know what that means?
Do you? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every
decent country in the world.
We are the wretched refuse.
We're the underdog.
We're mutts.
- Here's proof. His nose is cold.
But there's no animal
that's more faithful...that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt.
Who saw Old Yeller?
Who cried when Old Yeller got shot at the end?
Nobody cried when Old Yeller got shot?
I cried my eyes out.
So we're all dogfaces.
We're all very, very different.
But there is one thing that we all have in common.
We were all stupid enough to enlist in the Army.
We're mutants.
There's something wrong with us, something very, very wrong with us.
Something seriously wrong with us.
We're soldiers, but we're American soldiers.
We've been kicking a** for 200 years!
We're 10 and 1!
Now we don't have to worry...
...about whether or not
we've practiced.
We don't have to worry...about whether Captain Stillman wants to have us hung.
All we have to do...is to be the great American fighting soldier...that is inside each one of us.
Now, do what I do...
...and say what I say...
...and make me proud.
- Fall in!
Posted by: Dan Trabue | July 24, 2008 at 07:37 AM
Wallace Shawn's attempt at reasoning through the wine puzzle in The Princess Bride?
And on the subject of legal meltdowns, how about Lee J. Cobb's spew of rage near the end of Twelve Angry Men ("Human life don't mean as much to them as it does to us!")?
Posted by: Shem | July 23, 2008 at 11:51 AM
Ajay, thanks for reminding an old English major that the two words are not interchangeable. Monologues are what I was after.
Posted by: Tim Abbott | July 23, 2008 at 08:38 AM
I don't think Quint's should count because it's not a soliloquy, it's delivered to other characters - Brody and Hooper. A soliloquy is delivered to the character himself - ie to the audience. Think of Hamlet "To be or not to be" or Richard III "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer" - they're not just long speeches, which is why "The quality of mercy" is not a soliloquy, they're long streams of consciousness designed to give you an insight into the character's thoughts.
Col. Kilgore more or less counts, I think - although Willard's there, Kilgore's more or less talking to himself. But Jack Nicholson's "you can't handle the truth" certainly doesn't - that's a speech specifically made to one character!
There aren't actually a lot of good soliloquies in film, because it's a more naturalistic medium than theatre, and people tend not to soliloquise out loud in real life. The exception is in musicals... and voiceovers in the film noir style... and things like diary entries. (Or magazine columns as in SATC, perhaps)
Posted by: ajay | July 23, 2008 at 08:18 AM
Every litigator I know has dreams of a witness melting down like that.
Posted by: Transplanted Lawyer | July 23, 2008 at 02:45 AM