Al Pacino: ‘Any Given Sunday’ (1999)

Al Pacino appears in the 1999 Oliver Stone-directed movie ‘Any Given Sunday‘ as Tony D’Amato, a down-at-heel head coach of a fictional American football team. It’s almost the end of the game.

[wp-video-floater]

Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino): I don’t know what to say really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we are going to crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, till we’re finished.

We are in hell right now, gentlemen, believe me, and we can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch, at a time.

Now I can’t do it for you. I’m too old. I look around and I see these young faces and I think I mean I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make. I uh…. I pissed away all my money believe it or not. I chased off anyone who has ever loved me. And lately, I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life things get taken from you. That’s, that’s part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because in either game life or football the margin for error is so small. I mean one half step too late or to early you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast and you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in ever break of the game every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch. Cause we know when we add up all those inches that’s going to make the fucking difference between WINNING and LOSING. Between LIVING and DYING. I’ll tell you this. In any fight it is the guy who is willing to die who is going to win that inch. And I know if I am going to have any life anymore it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch because that is what LIVING is. The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can’t make you do it. You gotta look at the guy next to you. Look into his eyes. Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. You are going to see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows when it comes down to it, you are gonna do the same thing for him. That’s a team, gentlemen and either we heal now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That’s football guys. That’s all it is. Now, whattaya gonna do?

Marianne Williamson: Our Deepest Fear. (‘Coach Carter,’ 2005)

Samuel L. Jackson stars in the 2005 movie Coach Carter, based on the story of basketball coach Ken Carter who helps turn a rebellious high school basketball team around. The narrator in the clip is Rick Gonzalez, playing the part of Timo Cruz, one of the students on the team. The quotation in the clip is by Marianne Williamson – you can visit her website to see the full quotation.

At the beginning of the movie, Coach Carter asks Timo what his deepest fear is.The answer comes towards the end of the movie in this section:

[wp-video-floater]

Timo Cruz (Rick Gonzalez): Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela: Inaugural Address, Pretoria, 1994

Statement of the President of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela, at his inauguration as president of South Africa, Union Buildings, Pretoria, May 10 1994. From the University of Pennsylvania website.

[wp-video-floater]

Nelson Mandela:Your Majesties, Your Highnesses, Distinguished Guests, Comrades and Friends:

Today, all of us do, by our presence here, and by our celebrations in other parts of our country and the world, confer glory and hope to newborn liberty.

Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

All this we owe both to ourselves and to the peoples of the world who are so well represented here today.

To my compatriots, I have no hesitation in saying that each one of us is as intimately attached to the soil of this beautiful country as are the famous jacaranda trees of Pretoria and the mimosa trees of the bushveld.

Each time one of us touches the soil of this land, we feel a sense of personal renewal. The national mood changes as the seasons change.

We are moved by a sense of joy and exhilaration when the grass turns green and the flowers bloom.

That spiritual and physical oneness we all share with this common homeland explains the depth of the pain we all carried in our hearts as we saw our country tear itself apart in a terrible conflict, and as we saw it spurned, outlawed and isolated by the peoples of the world, precisely because it has become the universal base of the pernicious ideology and practice of racism and racial oppression.

We, the people of South Africa, feel fulfilled that humanity has taken us back into its bosom, that we, who were outlaws not so long ago, have today been given the rare privilege to be host to the nations of the world on our own soil.

We thank all our distinguished international guests for having come to take possession with the people of our country of what is, after all, a common victory for justice, for peace, for human dignity.

We trust that you will continue to stand by us as we tackle the challenges of building peace, prosperity, non-sexism, non-racialism and democracy.

We deeply appreciate the role that the masses of our people and their political mass democratic, religious, women, youth, business, traditional and other leaders have played to bring about this conclusion. Not least among them is my Second Deputy President, the Honorable F.W. de Klerk.

We would also like to pay tribute to our security forces, in all their ranks, for the distinguished role they have played in securing our first democratic elections and the transition to democracy, from blood-thirsty forces which still refuse to see the light.

The time for the healing of the wounds has come.

The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come.

The time to build is upon us.

We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation. We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.

We succeeded to take our last steps to freedom in conditions of relative peace. We commit ourselves to the construction of a complete, just and lasting peace.

We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity–a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.

As a token of its commitment to the renewal of our country, the new Interim Government of National Unity will, as a matter of urgency, address the issue of amnesty for various categories of our people who are currently serving terms of imprisonment.

We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free.

Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward.

We are both humbled and elevated by the honor and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist South Africa, to lead our country out of the valley of darkness.

We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom.

We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success.

We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world.

Let there be justice for all.

Let there be peace for all.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world.

Let freedom reign.

The sun shall never set on so glorious a human achievement!

God bless Africa!

Thank you.

Michael Douglas: “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (2010)

Wall Street Never Sleeps: In this sequel to the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” Michael Douglas appears again as Gordon Gecko, a former corporate raider, investor and speculator, but now a changed character after a spell in prison. Here, he speaks to a college audience about his views on speculation.

Watch this clip from the original movie Wall Street.

[wp-video-floater]

Gordon Gekko:Someone reminded me the other evening that I once said, greed is good.

Now it seems it’s legal!

But folks, you know it’s greed that makes my bartender buy three houses he cannot afford with no money down. And it is greed that makes your parents refinance their 200,000 dollar house for 250k, and then they take that extra 50k and they go down to the shopping mall and they buy a plasma TV, cell phones, computers and an SUV. And hey, why not a second home while we are at it. Because, gee whiz, I mean we all know the prices of houses in America always go up. Right?

And it’s greed that makes the government of this country cut the interest rates to 1% after 9/11 so we can all go shopping again.

They got all these fancy names for trillions of dollars of credit, CMOs, CDOs, SIVs, ABSes. You know I honestly think there’s maybe only 75 people in the world who know what they are.

But I’ll tell you what they are, they are WMDs. Weapons of mass destruction.

Click on the second video

When I was away, it seemed that greed, got greedier. With a little bit of envy mixed in. Hedge fund managers just walking home with 50 to 100 million bucks a year.

So Mr. Banker, he looks around and he says, “My life looks pretty boring!” So he starts leveraging his interest up to 40%, 50% to 100%. With your money, not his. Yours. Because he could. You are supposed to be borrowing, not them!

And the beauty of the deal: no one is responsible. Because everyone is drinking the same Kool-Aid.

Last year, ladies and gentlemen, 40% of all corporate profits came from financial services. Not production, not anything remotely to do with the needs of the American public.

The truth is we are all part of it now. Banks, consumers, we’re moving the money around in circles. We take a buck, we shoot it full of steroids and we call it leverage. I call it steroid banking.

Now I have been considered a pretty smart guy when it comes to finance, and maybe I was in prison too long, but sometimes it is the only place to stay sane, and look out from the bars and say, hey is everybody out there nuts?

It is clear as a bell to those who pay attention. The mother of all evil is speculation. Leverage debt. The bottom line: it’s borrowing to the hilt. And I hate to tell you this, but it is a bankrupt business model.

It won’t work. It is systemic, malignant and it’s global. Like cancer. It’s a disease. And we got to fight back. How we going to do that? How we are going to leverage that disease back in our favor?

Michael Douglas: “Greed is Good” (‘Wall Street’, 1987)

Wall Street is a 1987 American drama directed by Oliver Stone, telling the story of Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), a young stockbroker who becomes involved with his hero, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), a wealthy, unscrupulous corporate investor and businessman. Wikipedia has an article on the fictional character Gekko.

In the clip, Gekko (Michael Douglas) addresses a meeting of shareholders of the Teldar Paper company, which he hopes to take over.

[wp-video-floater]

Gordon Gekko: I am not a destroyer of companies, I am a liberator of them!

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms. Greed for life, money, love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed – you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.

Thank you very much.