Sea of Tranquility and Ocean of Storms

by fiorile

In the year of 2003, as a freshman in the School of International Studies, UIBE. I was chosen to compete in the annual English Speech Contest run by our university. It had 4 rounds and the first round was to recite a famous speech.

This was what I chose to do. I passed easily into the second round, and then the third, and then the final.

I won the 2nd Place Prize and BEST FRESHMAN AWARD at the end,

which made me known to some people in my university who turned out to be my good friends.

I think Mr. Hanks is always my favorite.

Let’s Go to the Movies!

——A Speech Given by Tom Hanks at Accepting the AFI Life Achievement Awards

Thank you! Thank you! 

There is a place on the moon, we’ve all heard of the Sea of Tranquility, maybe the Ocean of Storms, the Fra Mauro Highlands – there’s an area of the moon called the Lake of Dreams. To have you all here tonight, to be placed up with the names of the other honorees, turns out I’ve walked on the moon; I’ve explored the Lake of Dreams. It’s a good place because they all come true. You folks are just so swell! You’re all so nice, you know.

Hey, I got an idea — let’s go to the movies! I wanna go to the movies. I want to take you all to the movies. Let’s go and experience the art of the cinema! Let’s begin with the Scream Of Fear, and we are going to haunt us for the rest of our lives. And then let’s go see The Great Escape, and spend our summer jumping our bikes, just like we’ll McQueen, over barbwire. And then let’s catch The Seven Samurai for some reason on PBS and we feel like we can speak Japanese because we can read the subtitles and hear the language at the same time. And then let’s lose sleep the night before we see 2001: A Space Odyssey because we have this idea it’s going to change forever the way we look at films. And then let’s go see it four times in one year. And let’s see Woodstock three times in one year and let’s see Taxi Driver twice in one week. And let’s see Close Encounters of the Third Kind just so we can freeze there in mid-popcorn. And when the kids are old enough, let’s sit them together on the sofa and screen City Lights and Stage Coach and The Best Years of Our Lives and On The Waterfront and Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show and Raging Bull and Schlinder’s List. So that they can understand how the human condition can be captured by this amalgam of light and sound and literature we call the cinema.

What a great job! If you’re fortunate, you’re a part of cultural events, more immediate, more lasting and even more enlightening than most anything else is that man has ever created. You get to make movies. The truth is that I have been blessed beyond the definition of good fortune for a long, long while for the most of my life. I’ve made friends like you all. I’ve become a better artist by collaborating with each one of you. And if we haven’t worked together, I’ve seen your stuff and I’ve stolen from you. Ripped you off. 

And I’ve been rewarded for my larceny with my longevity. You see, when you work in the movies, part of you gets to live forever. The idea that you can single out one’s life achievement in work, of course, cannot be considered a substitute for one’s achievements in life and there already my friends I have been blessed beyond deserving.

And I’m here because of my wife, Rita Wilson. As you’ve seen again and again just in tonight, she is the motivation of my best work. I wish everyone could share their life with as good a friend, as passionate a lover, as close a partner, and as beautiful a woman, as I have been able to with the mate of my soul, Rita Wilson.

In order to cap off this once-in-a-life-time beer bust you’ve thrown for me, I had to choose between two distinctive quotes from a lesser example of the art of cinema, but a movie nonetheless. Two quotes from the film, That Thing You Do. Somewhere in, I don’t know, the 3rd or the 4th, I don’t know where, it’s somewhere in there. One quote is “Skitch, how did I get here?” and the other quote is “Table 19, your pizza is ready!”  

I have great reason to say, God bless you all, God bless America! Thank you, and good night!