Daily Dialogue — August 29, 2011
“I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don’t know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for. And he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them; because of just one plain simple rule: ‘Love thy neighbor.’… And you know that you fight for the lost causes harder than for any other. Yes, you even die for them. You think I’m licked. You all think I’m licked. Well, I’m not licked. And I’m going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if the room gets filled with lies like these, and the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place. Somebody will listen to me…”
— Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), screenplay by Sydney Buchman, story by Lewis R. Foster
The Daily Dialogue theme this week is speeches.
Trivia: To make his voice hoarse for the filibuster scene, James Stewart dried out his throat with bicarbonate of soda. However, both Frank Capra and Stewart revealed in interviews that his throat was periodically swabbed with mercuric chloride.
Dialogue On Dialogue: In a speech, it’s critical to hit on a theme and work that theme throughout. What’s the theme of this part of Smith’s speech? And why is it so powerful?