Last night I reached out to twitter for some Top Ten inspirations. A few great suggestions came in but at the end of the day I decided on the suggestion from @BobbyBless219 “Top Ten Speeches from a character that dies…”.
Thinking hard about how to tackle this topic I decided on one rule for how a film could qualify: the speech had to either occur during the character’s death or be in someway directly related in how he/she died (i.e. the motivation that ended up leading towards the death). Be forewarned that based on the topic alone any film mentioned in the below list can be considered a spoiler, so enjoy at your own risk. So here we go:
10. Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting in Gangs of New York
I can’t quite refuse a perfomance by Daniel Day Lewis on a list of monologues at any time I believe. He’s one of those performers that in the wrong movie will stand out too much, but in the right film will always find a way to excel and shine brightly. Here’s a role where he manages to be the shining light at the end of the (highly) mediocre film. In each scene that he gets a chance you almost forget that you’re watching a film and believe that you just are there to see these three or so minutes of Lewis being amazing.
9. Tyler Durton in Fight Club
This is a bit of cheat since technically Tyler Durton isn’t a real character but a made up part of the Narrator himself. However, I can take it as when the film is over Durton is “dead” since the narrator has ended his usefulness in how it made him grow as a person. Go ahead and fight, but this is still an amazing film with some great scenes.
8. Capt. John H. Miller in Saving Private Ryan
I’m pretty sure that this is a film that I’ve blogged about a lot, but it doesn’t mean anything less when I say that Hanks‘ performance was brilliant to say the least. Many will like to recall the dialogue exchange between Hanks and Damon, but I like to shine back to an earlier moment when Hanks is finally divulging himself to his brothers in arms.
7. Maximus in Gladiator
At times I want to look back to 2000 and claim that this really wasn’t the best movie of the year, but that’s just me being petty. Russel Crowe delivers in ways we can’t imagine and that’s all I need to say other than his own words.
6. William Wallace in Braveheart
Did you ever wonder what a speech by a general would sound like before one of those immense battles that we’ve heard about in History classes (between our midday naps that is)? Well this is it and no other way we can ignore it’s brilliance.