Mine has to be Ed Harris and Alan Arkin discussing whether they are talking about or speaking about stealing the leads.
shareAl Pacino and Ed Harris when Harris comes out after being questioned and Pacino is trying to listen to Lemmon talk about his sale to Nyborg is up there. And Lemmon's speech after to Pacino, "that bag is filled with money..."
sharePacino ripping Spacey a new one.
share[deleted]
Hard to pick just one in a movie so full of memorable scenes, but I have to go with Baldwin's iconic speech. Mamet wrote a monologue for the ages and Baldwin absolutely crushed it.
shareWhats interesting is that Baldwins speech was not part of the original play. It was added, as were others, when Mamet wrote the screenplay for the movie. Many theatrical productions still use the original script from Mamets play rather than the movie, hence Baldwins speech is not included.
I saw a production of this a couple of years ago in London with Christian Slater in the Ricky Roma role, and it was not included.
That said, for me the best scene is the one between Lemmon and Spacey where Lemmon confesses. I am not sure Lemmon has ever been better. The sheer heartbreak of his character is powerfully portrayed.
Yes, indeed. I'm glad that Mamet decided to give some extra bits of flourish to the screenplay. When it comes to dialogue, there's very few writers who can turn a phrase as well as him. I've always considered Baldwin's speech a sort of companion to another great Mamet monologue--the dinner speech he wrote for Al Capone (Robert De Niro) in "The Untouchables."
And you're right, I'd rank Lemmon's performance here as his strongest dramatic role (and that's out of a storied career).
I also think that Mamet's dialogue in GGR is one of the hardest to get right when performing it live on stage, as there is a lot of overlapping and interrupted dialogue between characters. And getting the timing and rhythms of that dialogue right is not easy.
In the recent stage production I saw there was one seasoned actor that clearly just could not do it.
I know such types of dialogue are not to everyones taste, but it is realistic. In real life people rarely pause and let people finish a sentence, especially during a heated conversation or debate.
However, on film its easier to re-do scenes and edit the final product to achieve the desired aim.
Yeah, for a time it seemed like Baldwin was going to be a major A-lister. I think it may have been The Shadow that knocked his star power back down... He co-starred in The Edge a few years later, but after that he was relegated to co-star status.
Now he's hosting game shows... something you'll never see the acting greats do.
Not that he cares I'm sure. He's still been very successful and kept a high profile. He seems less interested in pure acting, and more interested in pursuing a wider range of multimedia efforts.
Had he been able to continue with Jack Ryan things might've turned out different but when Paramount heard original choice Ford was interested in taking over it was Hasta La Vista Alec!
share