1. The Great Dictator
[This is Charlie Chaplin’s first film with dialogue. In this final five-minute speech that concludes the film, Chaplin drops his comic mask and speaks directly to the world, conveying his view that people must rise up against dictators and unite in peace.]
Charlie Chaplin : 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...
2. A Time to Kill(1996)
[Carl Lee Hailey, an African-American man is on trial for the killing of two white racists who savagely raped his little daughter. In his closing argument, Hailey’s defense attorney, Jake Brigance, instructs the jurors to close their eyes while he tells them about in heart-wrenching detail, the attack on Hailey’s daughter. By the end he asks the jury to imagine if the girl is white…]
Jake Tyler Brigance: What is it in us that seeks the truth? Is it our minds or is it our hearts?
I set out to prove a black man could receive a fair trial in the south, that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. That's not the truth, because the eyes of the law are human eyes -- yours and mine -- and until we can see each other as equals, justice is never going to be evenhanded. It will remain nothing more than a reflection of our own prejudices, so until that day we have a duty under God to seek the truth, not with our eyes and not with our minds where fear and hate turn commonality into prejudice, but with our hearts, where we don't know better.
Now I wanna tell you a story. I'm gonna ask ya'all to close your eyes while I tell you this story. I want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to yourselves. Go ahead and close your eyes, please.
This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl.
Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up, and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on, first one then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure -- vicious thrusts -- in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they're done, after they killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to bear children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. So they start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw 'em so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones -- and they urinate on her.
Now comes the hanging. They have a rope; they tie a noose. Imagine the noose pulling tight around her neck and a sudden blinding jerk. She's pulled into the air and her feet and legs go kicking and they don't find the ground. The hanging branch isn't strong enough. It snaps and she falls back to the earth. So they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck, and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge and pitch her over the edge. And she drops some 30 feet down to the creek bottom below.
Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body, soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood -- left to die.
Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl.
Now imagine she's white.
The defense rests, your honor.
