Film Quotes That Scream to the Soul

"There is something about yourself that you don't know. Something that you will deny even exists, until it's too late to do anything about it. It's the only reason you get up in the morning. The only reason you suffer the shitty boss, the blood, the sweat and the tears. This is because you want people to know how good, attractive, generous, funny, wild and clever you really are. Fear or revere me, but please think I'm special. We share an addiction. We're approval junkies. We're all in it for the slap on the back and the gold watch. The hip-hip-hoo-****in' rah. Look at the clever boy with the badge, polishing his trophy. Shine on you crazy diamond, because we're just monkeys wrapped in suits, begging for the approval of others." -Jake Green, Revolver

REVOLVER: This film is bit of a blur. I watched it on a grave shift. I don't remember it being special in any way and was let down Guy Ritchie missed the mark so foolishly. However, while I was yawning between scenes, this quote about knocked me off my chair. I listened to it again and again and began to think about other film quotes and monologues that 'screamed to the soul.' I was going to make a lengthy list but when I started to think about quotes of this caliber I got sidetracked by the entire Network screenplay; which is simply a masterpiece.

Network is more applicable now then in 1976 when it was released. It's about, well everything, but on the surface it's about the effects of the media. An anchorman named Howard Beale announces on air that he's going to kill himself. Later, as he's forced to retract the statement, and feeling as if he has nothing left to live for, decides to rant about the bullshit of life.

"Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast. Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit. Am I still on the air? I really don't know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bullshit. Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can't think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit. We don't know why we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God bullshit. And then, there's the noble man bullshit; that man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullshit. I don't have anything going for me. I haven't got any kids. And I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don't have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see."

Howard's rant makes sense to the American public and because of a ratings spike during Howard's monologue, the network decides to give Howard his own show and lets him say whatever he wants. This makes for some of the best scenes in the film and certainly plenty of quotes that scream to the soul.

All I know is, you've got to get mad. You've got to say, "I'm a human being, g*****n it. My life has value. We’ll [Television] tell you anything you want to hear, we lie like hell. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE [TV] are the illusion. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome g*****n propaganda force in the whole godless world.

Howard's show is seemingly the most popular show on TV and people seem to do whatever he tells them to. Although he badgers and belittles the media and the very network he works for, he continues to get air time because of high ratings. Eventually he tells people to write the White House and stop a business merger involving his network and an Arab company. Needless to say, his minions respond and flood the White House with telegrams. Worried about the repercussions of Howard's words, the CEO of the communications company that owns the network, who happens to have millions to gain from the merger, invites Howard to his office for a lesson in world politics. This tyrannical soap box rant has Howard shrinking at the end. Ned Beatty delivers it with optimal force and miraculously shifts Howard's renegade-like gears. Here is a portion of it:

It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. THAT is the natural order of things today. THAT is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And YOU WILL ATONE. Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars.

Ironically, Howard gets gunned-down on air by assassins hired by the very network executives who winced and cringed at the thought of a televised suicide.