The Greatest Speeches – NZ Film Freak

A Great Speech: Look Up

I’ve written on this subject before regarding a fantastic poem called Touchscreen.

I came across this other spoken word video ages ago, but it came up on my newsfeed again today (how ironic!).

It’s made by Gary Turk, about how alone we can be despite having so many ‘friends’ online. I think this sums it up; how isolated generation Y is. Despite being so connected.

I have 422 friends, yet I’m lonely.
I speak to all of them everyday, yet none of them really know me.

It’s a chilling and upsetting observation. I can certainly relate. Seeing couples out, but staring at their screens in silence. Friends more concerned about checking how many likes their selfie has gotten rather than speaking to the person next to them.

When I was a child, I would never be home,
I’d be out with my friends, on our bikes we would roam.
We’d ware holes in our trainers, and graze up our knees;
we’d build our own clubhouse, high up in the trees.

Now the parks are so quiet, it gives me a chill
to see no children outside and the swings hanging still.
There’s no skipping or hopscotch, no church and no steeple,
we’re a generation of idiots,
smart phones and dumb people.

In Turk’s spoken word film, actors demonstrate miss opportunities that come about when no interaction takes place.

When you’re too busy looking down, you don’t see the chances you miss.

This unfortunate reality has been expressed a lot lately. Kirsten Dunst did a two minute film showing our lack of communication skills:

But just to cheer you up, here are a couple of funny (and creepy) videos about social networking in real life:

College Humor’s “Twitter in Real Life”. It’s hilarious.

“Following” people in real life…

Feel like forgetting your phone now? Although, I have to say there is some anxiety associated with not having your phone on you. Because you’re life never shuts off. What if you miss an email from work? What if somebody needs to get a hold of you? It’s such a foreign concept not to have that extension of your arm.

Nevertheless, this directly ties into my longing for the sixties.

Jodie.

A Great Speech: Touchscreen

I’ve been getting into ‘Poetry Slams’ which are basically poetry competitions but with the energy and intricacy of rap battles.

I posted one called Shrinking Women a while ago which was incredible.

Since then, I have found many others, with this one standing out called Touchscreen.

It’s about the lack of physical touch in our technology-drowned world, and our desire for our more primal and natural interaction to return.

This is incredibly well written and delivered.

…Apple picking has always come at a great cost
iPod iMac iPhone iChat
I can do all of these things without making eye contact…

…so when my phone goes off of my hip iTouch iTouch iTouch and iTouch because in a world
Where laughter is never heard
And voices are only read
we’re so desperate to feel
that we hope our Technologic can reverse the universe
until the screens touch us back
and maybe one day they will
when our technology is advanced enough …
to make us human again

Jodie.

A Great Speech: Shrinking Women

This is a beautiful articulation of the differences between the societal expectations of men and women.

Lily Myers is a student who performed this spoken word poem in CUPSI 2013 – The College National Poetry Slam at Bernard College, New York.

I wanted to say: we come from difference, Jonas,
you have been taught to grow out
I have been taught to grow in
you learned from our father how to emit, how to produce, to roll each thought off your tongue with confidence, you used to lose your voice every other week from shouting so much
I learned to absorb

It is about a woman’s relationship with food, and how it reflects self worth.

I’ve realized she only eats dinner when I suggest it.
I wonder what she does when I’m not there to do so.

Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return; it’s proportional.

The beautiful use of words. “the house feels bigger” rather than “my mother gets thinner“. The house feels bigger because her mother doesn’t think she deserves to take up much space. It is spine tingling imagery.

Fantastic! No wonder this has gone viral.

Jodie.

A Great Speech – Gay Rights

The Greatest Speech Ever Made, by Charlie Chaplin is my favourite speech. Although, it is sad how relevant that speech still is to modern society.

The second speech that has really hit home is this one by Preacher Phil Snider. His 2012 speech creates shock and gives a fresh perspective on the pro-gay rights scene.

If you don’t have time to watch to the end of this speech, here is the surprise ending:

…the liberals leading this movement do not believe in the bible any longer. But every good, substantial, bible believing, intelligent, orthodox christian can read the word of god and know what is happening is not of god.

When you run into conflict with god’s established order you have trouble. You do not produce harmony. You produce destruction and trouble and our city is in the greatest danger that it has have ever been in, in its history. The reason is that we have gotten away from the bible of our forefathers.

You see the right of segregation I’m sorry, hold on.

The right of segregation… is clearly established by the holy scriptures, both by precept and example.

I’m sorry I brought the wrong notes with me this evening. I borrowed my argument from the wrong century. It turns out what I’ve been reading to you this whole time are direct quotes from white preachers from the 1950s and 1960s, all in support of racial segregation. All I have done is simply taken out the phrase racial integration and substituted with the phrase gay rights.

I guess the arguments I’ve been hearing around Springfield lately sounded so similar to these that I got them confused. I hope you will not make the same mistake. I hope you will stand on the right side of history. Thank you.

Good on yah!

Jodie.

My Favourite Scene: Scent of a Woman

Scent of a Woman (1992): “An amputated spirit, there’s no prosthetic for that!”
Al Pacino plays a blind Colonel who stands up to the system. I love this scene because he is shaking this deep rooted college by the shoulders, waking them up! It gives you chills! He says that schools need to teach the practicality and values that are important in real life and for your soul, not necessarily reputation or how much money one has. That won’t always help you in life.

“If you get all tangled up, you just tango on!”
This scene is incredible! I put this scene on repeat after I first saw it. It’s a metaphor for life, to just try things! Donna is a beautiful and elegant woman who I think is such an awesome character, even though she does not appear in it for very long. A beautiful piece of music too.

Jodie.

A Great Speech: The Girl Who Silenced the World

severn-suzuki-earth-summit-rio-de-janeiro-1992 — In 1992 Severn Cullis-Suzuk was only 12 years old when she gave this compelling speech.

This is so inspirational. This kid deserves a high five and a gold star sticker, for sure.

It’s sad how somebody so young has so much common sense and confidence. It’s rather pathetic that nobody in power is taking action. Probably in the name of financial gain.

Please watch and be inspired and angered. Because although it’s an older video, it is certainly not out of date. Unfortunately.

Jodie.

Charlie Chaplin – The Greatest Speech

By Charlie Chaplin in 1940, I bring you the greatest speech ever given.
A speech that was ahead of its time, yet delivers important messages of peace, support and kindness from mankind, to mankind that applies today more than ever.

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 all 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 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 [now] liberty will never perish. . .

Soldiers: don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and 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 as cattle, 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. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers: don’t fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint 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, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let’s 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 you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their 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, 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!

– Charlie Chaplin

Jodie.