A thing or two about Monologues.

 And my top 3½ Max Payne Quotes

As you all are about to find out, I am a big fan of monologues (especially the nitty gritty noir ones). In a monologue, there is something quite powerful in setting the tone and atmosphere. One thing that a monologue does better than anything else, is personalize the character; and I believe that it is one of the most important things to do if you are writing a story. If you don't care about what the character is going through, the rest of the story doesn't even matter.

Sin City and Pulp Fiction are some examples of great movies with monologues and not to mention, some of my favorite movies. The endless despair, the revenge, the over the top violence, the clichéd story of love and doing whatever it takes to survive... Crime dramas are the best. But I will say, they aren't for the faint of heart.

                                                           Sin City

                                
                                 Pulp Fiction

For those who don't know what a monologue is, lets start with the dictionary definition:

mon·o·logue

   /ˈmɒnəˌlɔg, -ˌlɒg/ Show Spelled[mon-uh-lawg, -log] Show IPA

noun

1. a form of dramatic entertainment, comedic solo, or the like by a single speaker: a comedian's monologue.

2. a prolonged talk or discourse by a single speaker, especially one dominating or monopolizing a conversation.

3. any composition, as a poem, in which a single person speaks alone.

4. a part of a drama in which a single actor speaks alone; soliloquy.

All of these definitions work, but the best description is selection four. I really like narration, so in the case of a movie or an audio novel I like hearing what is going through the character's head. This is almost a sole conjuration to the crime drama\noir genre.

Among video games, I found that the Max Payne series is among my favorite. I was an avid fan patiently waiting for the release of the second game and especially the third since Rockstar (who made the Grand Theft Auto series purchased the intellectual property) took many years to complete it. I even had a Max Payne "a man with nothing to lose" mouse pad that came in the original box.



 The games have everything a noir story really needs: a perfect life taken away, a love that is lost, betrayal, revenge, redemption, and not to mention (in the first two Max Payne games) New York city and the blistering cold... That goes without saying, I still do believe that Max Payne 3 was completely worth the wait. The game was good in my opinion, however, it did not sell that well; which is a real shame. The PC version was a no knock-off port and plays much better with a keyboard and mouse than a controller [tesselation!]. However, most of my criticism focuses on the lack of comic panels that set the mood for the previous games. They replaced that with film editing techniques and filters... It works to a certain extent but it doesn't fully capture the 'noir' aspect of the first two games. That, and the fact that they basically ignored the tv shows that appeared throughout the first two games. Personally, I was hoping that they would do something with Address Unknown (which stars Sam Lake, the writer of Max Payne 1&2 and who Max is modeled after in the first game) but apparently it wasn't meant to be. All in all though, it fits into the Max Payne universe just fine.

So without further ado, I present to you my top 3(½ since it was tied between those two) Max Payne monologues:

#1

"So I guess I'd become what they wanted me to be. A killer. Some rent-a-clown with a gun who puts holes in other bad guys. Well, that's what they had paid for so in the end, that's what they got. Say what you want about Americans but we understand capitalism. You buy yourself a product and you get what you pay for. And these chumps had paid for some angry gringo without the sensibilities to know right from wrong. Here I was, about to execute this poor bastard like some dime store angel of death; and I realized they were correct. I wouldn't know right from wrong if one of them was helping the poor and the other was banging my sister."

-Max Payne 3

#2

  

"They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over."
-Max Payne 1

#3

 "The things that I want' by Max Payne:
A smoke. A Whiskey. For the sun to shine.
I want to sleep, to forget. To change the past. My wife and baby girl back
Unlimited ammo and a licence to kill. Right then, more than anything, I wanted her."
 -Max Payne 2

#3½

(Begins @ 2:53)

"The past is a gaping hole. You try to run from it, but the more you run, the deeper it grows behind you, its edges yawning at your heels. Your only chance is to turn around and face it. But it's like looking down into the grave of your love, or kissing the mouth of a gun, a bullet trembling in its dark nest, ready to blow your head off."

-Max Payne 2

...And that concludes my very favorite monologues from the Max Payne series.

Chick of the week!

A total babe.