Julia Schwartz

May 11, 2004

Forrest Gump

            Despite all the attention it has received over the years, most notably when it first came out in theaters, I had never seen the movie Forrest Gump in its entirety. I had seen parts of it, but only small parts, and it was difficult for me to connect them. After seeing the movie as a whole, I find it easy to see why the separate clips I had originally seen were hard to place together.   

            Forrest Gump covers a tremendous amount of history. Though one of its larger foci is the Vietnam experience Forrest has, clearly the reason for my review here, Forrest has an almost impossible number of historically notable run-ins during the film. He inspires Elvis, he inspires the “Have a nice day” slogan, he inspires (dare I say it?) “Sh*t happens.” He meets Kennedy, Nixon, and other presidents; he is present at the desegregation of Little Rock High school . He has a run-in with the Black Panthers, he unknowingly gets involved in a huge Vietnam protest, he goes to Vietnam , he invests in Apple Computers, he talks with John Lennon, and yes, he runs.

            Obviously, this movie is fictitious. In the first part of his life, Forrest virtually witnesses everything important that could have occurred in American history during the times he was alive. If nothing else, I commend the writers of that movie for so cleverly crafting the script to include all those events – and for doing so in a way that is comic and ironic, but not overly obvious. I can say that I truthfully appreciated my knowledge of American history and evolution of culture while watching this movie. Someone from a foreign country not well versed in either would have gotten half of what the rest of us did from that movie.

            I also feel the need to comment on Tom Hanks as an actor. He has been in so many movies in which I absolutely LOVE him – and he’s basically the only actor that I can think of who can play so many roles and not be the same person. He’s one guy in You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, but he’s quite another here in Forrest Gump, or as he was in Cast Away, or my personal favorite of the bunch, Philadelphia . (Okay, I loved You’ve Got Mail, too, but we’re being serious here.)[1] With his acting, which I completely agree was deserving of an Oscar, you really believe the character that is Forrest Gump. He is a little unrealistic, but as I’ve mentioned, the entire set up of the film itself is unrealistic. An attempt at a realistic character going through unrealistic circumstances would be unsuccessful. Through the hint of “that would never happen,” the film can, oddly enough, be believable in some strange way.

            Now, because the point of this assignment was to watch the movie to see how it treated the Vietnam experience, I thought it did a decent job of displaying both sides of the Vietnam debacle: the protests (shown largely when Forrest returns – his trip to Washington ), and the true patriotism and nobility of the soldiers in Vietnam . The most interesting part of the entire movie, I think, is that because Forrest is unable to really understand the gravity of any of the situations he finds himself in, we do in fact get all those clashing perspectives. The dabbles in various historical entities that are visible in the film – i.e. the run-in with the Panther movement – are irrelevant if one doesn’t know the history behind the era, but weighty when one does. I think that the overall tone the producers/writers/directors (whomever) present Vietnam with is a hint of tragedy, or bittersweetness.

            Still, though, I think this is what runs through the entire movie. I haven’t yet mentioned Jenny, which is the glue that holds this entire schpeal together. Forrest’s entire life is devoted to Jenny and their relationship – the rest is irrelevant; though he never really grasps the enormity of the situations he is in, he can understand life as it goes by – and he knows what is truly important in life: love. The thing that is beautiful about Forrest’s life is that because of his so-called ‘limited intelligence,’ he is free of all the psychological drama that most of us are subject to in our lives. He simply takes things as they are – and runs with them, so to speak. What could be better? He accepts events, situations, circumstances, and is motivated only by love. He is touched by death – when love is taken away from him. Money means naught – and is it then a strange coincidence that he is the one who ends up with more money than he could ever need?

            Overall, I’m glad that I finally took the time to sit down and watch Forrest Gump. It was an amazing movie, and I do feel that my perceptions of film as they were might not have been complete without that experience. Life is a box of chocolates, so eat it up, I say!