Valerie Plame is employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, a fact known outside the agency to no one except her husband and parents. She is an agent involved in a number of sensitive and sometimes dangerous covert operations overseas. Her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, is a diplomat who most recently has served as a U.S. ambassador to Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe. Due to his extensive background, Wilson is approached by Plame’s CIA colleagues to travel to Niger and glean information as to whether yellowcake uranium is being procured by Iraq for use in the construction of nuclear weasons. Wilson determines to his own satisfaction that it is not. After military action is taken by George W. Bush, who justifies it in a 2003 State of the Union address by alluding to the uranium’s use in building weapons of mass destruction, Wilson submits an op-ed piece to the New York Times claiming these reports to be categorically untrue.
Speech text:
“How many of you know the 16 words in President Bush’s State of the Union Address that led us to war? (none) How many know my wife’s name? (everyone)
How can you know one, and not the other? When did the question move from “Why are we going to war” to “Who is this man’s wife?”
I asked the first question and someone else asked the second. And it worked. Because none of us know the truth. The offence that was committed was not committed against me, it was not committed against my wife — it was committed against you. All of you.
If that makes you angry or feel misrepresented, do something about it.
When Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall, just after the second draft of it, he was approached by a woman on the street, the woman said, ‘Mr Franklin, what manner of government have you bequeathed us? And Franklin said, ‘A Republic madam… if you can keep it.’
The responsibility of a country is not in the hands of a privileged few. We are strong and we are free from tyranny as long as each one of us remembers his or her duty as a citizen. Whether it’s to report a pothole at the top of your street, or lies in a State of The Union Address, speak out!
Ask those questions. Demand that truth. Democracy is not a free ride man, I’m here to tell you.
But this is where we live. And if we do our job, this is where our children will live. God Bless America.”
With this episode we start a 5-episode series of discussing 5 of the most famous and greatest speeches from the movies. We start with discussing ‘A Few Good Men’, starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon. We unpick the content of the speech and examine it against the ABC of delivering speeches, the colourful language, the metonymies used to make the audience work and remember the speech. Enjoy!
In this dramatic courtroom thriller, LT Daniel Kaffee, a Navy lawyer who has never seen the inside of the courtroom, defends two stubborn Marines who have been accused of murdering a colleague. Kaffee is known as being lazy and had arranged for a plea bargain. Downey’s Aunt Ginny appoints Cmdr. Galloway to represent him. Also on the legal staff is LTJG Sam Weinberg. The team rounds up many facts and Kaffee is discovering that he is really cut out for trial work. The defense is originally based upon the fact that PFC Santiago, the victim, was given a “CODE RED”. Santiago was basically a screw-up. At Gitmo, screw-ups aren’t tolerated. Especially by Col. Nathan Jessup. In Cuba, Jessup and two senior officers try to give all the help they can, but Kaffee knows something’s fishy. In the conclusion of the film, the fireworks are set off by a confrontation between Jessup and Kaffee.
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone — if possible — Jew, Gentile — black man — white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness — not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost….
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men — cries out for universal brotherhood — for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world — millions of despairing men, women, and little children — victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say — do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed — the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes — men who despise you — enslave you — who regiment your lives — tell you what to do — what to think and what to feel! Who drill you — diet you — treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men — machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate — the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” — not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power — the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then — in the name of democracy — let us use that power — let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world — a decent world that will give men a chance to work — that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world — to do away with national barriers — to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
The Great Dictator was Chaplin’s first film with dialogue. Chaplin plays both a little Jewish barber, living in the ghetto, and Hynkel, the dictator ruler of Tomainia. In his autobiography Chaplin quotes himself as having said: “One doesn’t have to be a Jew to be anti Nazi. All one has to be is a normal decent human being.”
Chaplin and Hitler were born within a week of one another. “There was something uncanny in the resemblance between the Little Tramp and Adolf Hitler, representing opposite poles of humanity, ” writes Chaplin biographer David Robinson, reproducing an unsigned article from The Spectator dated 21st April 1939: “Providence was in an ironical mood when, fifty years ago this week, it was ordained that Charles Chaplin and Adolf Hitler should make their entry into the world within four days of each other….Each in his own way has expressed the ideas, sentiments, aspirations of the millions of struggling citizens ground between the upper and the lower millstone of society. (…) Each has mirrored the same reality — the predicament of the “little man” in modern society. Each is a distorting mirror, the one for good, the other for untold evil.”
Chaplin spent many months drafting and re-writing the speech for the end of the film, a call for peace from the barber who has been mistaken for Hynkel. Many people criticized the speech, and thought it was superfluous to the film. Others found it uplifting. Regrettably Chaplin’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1940.
You may have never seen a movie by Alfred Hitchcock, but most of us will know that he had a fantastic ability to scare us in his movies.
Alfred Hitchcock was an English film director and producer, widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Known as “the Master of Suspense”, he directed over 50 feature films in a career spanning six decades, becoming as well-known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films.
We may not be like Alfred and we may not have the ability to write stories like he was able to. However we all are walking stories ourselves. We only have to be good at telling our own story.
Recently I attended a business event, where there were 3 keynote speakers and then those speakers were joined by another 2 business people to form a panel, which allowed us to ask questions of them.
I noticed that during the keynotes the speakers were very formal, business orientated and quite frankly boring.
But during the panel Q&A session they seemed more relaxed, were more authentic and actually often very vulnerable. They appeared more human, more real and not so fake.
Sorry, yes, their keynotes were fake and in fact most keynotes are fake. When you’re invited to do a keynote, you immediately feel that you have to impress the audience, share something so great about yourself so that the audience ‘buys’ you.
Actually being more human, authentic and vulnerable means the audience buys you instantly. Sure add some suspense like Alfred did, make them suffer a little, but do it in a way that’s real.
Movies are still the best stories ever told, because it activates pretty much all the important regions in your brain. When viewing even a fictional story on the screen, you can’t help being transported into the story and feel like you are the main protagonist.
Couple this with our human sense of fairness, winning and surviving and we will generally always be on the side of the main heroin, literally willing her to succeed in her quest.
Physically we will have similar feelings of fear, anticipation, worry, doubt and our motor cortex in our brain the part that’s governing the firing of our muscles are also engaged. Wonder why you may feel breathless or exhausted after watching a gripping, high action movie? You just starred in it. And because all of those factors you will want to experience more of it next time. We are addicted to the thrill of movies.
I often witness my wife Clair filling her eye ducts with water when there is a sad scene in a movie. None of the action is actually happening to her but because of one of our other major emotions ‘empathy’, we are now feeling what the starring character is feeling. So if they are sad because they lose their partner or their fellow warrior in a fighting scene and they show sadness, we feel that sadness too. Us guys can often hold on and keep a stiff upper lip but the ladies have a better empathy button and will feel their hurt at a deeper level.
