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Forrest Gump is a 1985 novel by Winston Groom, a 1994 film adaptation, and the name of the title character of both. The film was a huge commercial success, earning USD$677 million worldwide during its theatrical run (the top grossing film in North America released that year). The film garnered a total of 13 Academy Award nominations, of which it won six, including Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, Best Director (Robert Zemeckis), and Best Actor (Tom Hanks). The film tells the story of a simple man (or gump) and his epic journey through life, meeting historical figures, influencing popular culture and experiencing first-hand historic events while largely unaware of their significance, due to his low IQ of 75. The film differs substantially from the book on which it was based.
Movie plotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
My Name's Forrest, Forrest Gump
Much of Forrest's philosophy comes from his mother. Forrest often recalls her favorite sayings, "Mama always says, 'Life is like a box of chocolates, You never know what you gonna get.'" and "Stupid is as stupid does." Both sayings became popular catchphrases following the movie's release. Forrest reveals that he is named after a distant ancestor, Nathan Bedford Forrest, who helped found the Ku Klux Klan, as a reminder that "sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense." Despite his low I.Q., which would normally have necessitated special education, his mother arranges to have him enrolled in public school by sexually bribing an official from the school district. On his first day of school, he is instantly picked on by other schoolkids, but is befriended on the school bus by a girl named Jenny Curran, who is being physically and sexually abused by her father. Forrest's house is filled with visitors often and at one point "every room is filled" because his mother has made it into a Bed and Breakfast. Eventually, a young man stays at the inn, plays the guitar to a dancing Forrest and finds inspiration from the "crazy moves" of Forrest's legs. The audiences learn from a display window television later on, that the musician turns out to be Elvis Presley and those leg moves made Elvis famous. For the first several years of his life, Forrest has to wear leg braces due to his back being "as crooked as a politician". These make walking awkward for Forrest, and running almost impossible. When a group of bullies chase Forrest on their bicycles, he runs, urged on by Jenny. As Forrest runs, his leg braces fall apart, and he outruns his pursuers leaving behind only a cloud of dust to greet them. Football at AlabamaImage:Forrest gump bama.jpg Forrest playing for Alabama
On his graduation day, he is approached by an Army recruiter and enlisted in the Army. Gump says he fits into the army "like one of them round pegs" and is top of his class in boot camp. When asked by his drill sergeant "What is your sole purpose in this army?", Gump replies, "To do whatever you tell me drill sergeant!", where upon the drill sergeant replies: "Goddamn it Gump! You're a goddamned genius! That's the most outstanding answer I've ever heard! You must have an I.Q. of 160! You are goddamned gifted Private Gump!" Furthermore, after assembling his M14 rifle in record time, his drill sergeant tells him "If it weren't such a waste of a damn fine enlisted man, I would recommend you for OCS, Private Gump! You are going to be a general someday Gump!" His lone friend in boot camp is Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue (Mykelti Williamson), a young, not-so-bright African American fisherman who has a protruded mandible and knows "everything they' is to know about shrimping". They agree to go into the "shrimpin' business" together, after they are discharged from the army. While Forrest is white and Bubba is black, the pair discover they have very similar backgrounds, philosophies on life and have similar "Mamas". (Bubba: "My mama says that too.") One night, while in their bunks, a fellow soldier tosses Forrest a Playboy and says to "get a load of the tits on her." Forrest turns a page and recognizes the girl as none other than Jenny, sporting her college sweater and nothing else. The photo gets her expelled from college, and she begins playing guitar in the nude as "Bobbi Dylan" at a strip club. Forrest visits her and witnesses some men "tryin' to grab" her while playing a cover of "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan. He beats them up, but Jenny becomes angry with him as a result. The couple reminisce about old times, and Jenny recalls when they hid from her father in the cornfield and she prayed to God to turn her into a bird so she can fly away. She asks Forrest, "Do you think I could fly off this bridge, Forrest?" This worries Forrest, and Jenny dismisses the thought. He tells her of his impending tour of duty in Vietnam, and she orders him not to be heroic and to just run if he is ever in trouble. She then hitches a ride in a passing pickup truck. Forrest in VietnamImage:Lieutenant Dan Taylor.jpg Forrest, Bubba and Lt. Dan. Image:Forrest-gump-2.jpg Forrest speaking during an Abbie Hoffman rally While serving south of Saigon in the 9th Infantry Division's 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment under Lt. Dan Taylor (Gary Sinise), he and his platoon are ambushed after months of just heavy rain. After heeding Jenny's advice at first, Forrest runs back to find Bubba. Before he can he finds and rescues several members of his platoon including the heavily wounded Lt. Dan who orders Forrest to leave him upon calling for an air strike. After saving Dan and being shot Forrest goes back into the jungle and finds the dying Bubba. He and Bubba escape the massive air strike explosion behind them, but Bubba dies at a river they were resting beside, his last words being "I wanna go home." Forrest was subsequently shot in the buttocks while he is rescuing his fellow soldiers. Lieutenent Dan later has both legs amputated, to his initial resentment, as not only did he have a peculiar obsession with feet, he saw it as his destiny to die in combat, just as every one of his ancestors had before him (in every single American war up to that time) and now instead had to live the rest of his life as a cripple. While Forrest is recovering from his wound, he becomes an expert ping-pong player (after being told to simply "keep your eyes on the ball") and travels to the People's Republic of China during the famous Ping Pong Diplomacy. He becomes a national hero playing ping-pong and is offered $25,000 to cross-endorse a brand of ping-pong paddles. While in Washington to receive his Medal Of Honor, he accidentally bumps into an Abbie Hoffman rally and meets Jenny again, by this time a hippie. A group of hippies, protesting the Vietnam War, think that Forrest is there to speak for them and take him up onto a platform where he says what he thinks about the war. Unfortunately, most of it is lost when the wires to the microphone are pulled out by an army official intending to sabotage the protest and the audience is only able to hear Forrest's starting words "There is only one thing I can say about the war in Vietnam..." and his finishing sentence "... and that's all I have to say about that." Abbie Hoffman seems satisfied with his response, albeit inaudible to the viewer. When he goes with Jenny to a Black Panther gathering where he sees her get struck by her boyfriend, Forrest angrily beats up the man but Jenny makes him stop. He is thrown out of the gathering as a result. ("Sorry for spoiling your Black Panther party".) During the award ceremony, President Lyndon Johnson asks Forrest where he was shot. Forrest replies "I was shot in the buttocks, sir." After Johnson jokes about wanting to see the wound, Forrest, thinking the President really did want to see the wound, pulls down his pants to show him, in front of a TV audience of millions. Image:2-large.jpg Forrest with John Lennon Forrest appears on The Dick Cavett Show with John Lennon in New York City. As Forrest recalls his experiences in Communist China, he gives Lennon the idea for his song "Imagine". In reference to the lyrics of the song, Lennon remarks, "No possessions?" and then "And no religion too?". Dick Cavett then remarks "Hard to imagine," to which Lennon replies, "It's easy if you try, Dick." After exiting the studio, Forrest meets Lieutenant Dan, now a bitter, alcoholic cripple who has lost his faith in life and in God. On New Year's Eve 1971, Lieutenant Dan facetiously promises to become his first mate if Forrest ever becomes a shrimping-boat captain. Forrest makes political historyUpon visiting Richard Nixon after his trip to China, ("I got to go to the White House, again. And I got to see the President of the United States of America, again") he is invited by the President to stay at the Watergate Hotel complex. He is awakened by flashlights in the offices opposite his room. Believing the tenants to be having difficulty with a fusebox, Forrest calls the security office, talking to Frank Wills, to notify the maintenance crew, inadvertently initiating the Watergate scandal. After his military service, he returns home with $25,000 from the table tennis bat endorsement. After buying some things for his mother and himself, he uses the balance of $24,562.47 to buy his own shrimping boat — christened the Jenny, after his "girlfriend" — and starts a shrimp business, keeping a promise to Bubba. True to his word, Lieutenant Dan becomes his first mate in the "Bubba Gump Shrimp Corporation". They are spectacularly unsuccessful until "God showed up". Hurricane Carmen wrecks all the other fishing boats in the area, giving them an instant monopoly on the shrimp market and making Forrest a very wealthy man. During the hurricane, Lieutenant Dan finally faces his demons and undergoes an epiphany, eventually thanking Forrest for saving his life in Vietnam. He takes over the management of the growing business and buys Forrest shares in "some kind of fruit company" - Apple Computer - before that company's rise, making Forrest even wealthier. When told that "money wouldn't be an issue anymore," he responds, "Good. That's one less thing to worry about." Even though Lieutenant Dan says he is crazy to do so, Forrest sends a cheque for what he considers to be Bubba's share (50% as promised in Vietnam) of the shrimp business profit to Bubba's mother, who had been working as a cook, just like all of her ancestors before her. With the proceeds, she moves her large family from their shack into luxurious new accommodations, complete with her own private cook — a white American maid (as a sign of humor). Forrest also donates funds to a church and a medical center, citing his mother's philosophy that "there's only so much fortune a man really needs, and the rest is just for showing off". Image:390593e475cb8.jpg Forrest with his dying mother Forrest returns to his childhood home when he receives word that his mother is ill. Telling Forrest how proud of him she is, she dies shortly afterwards. He is reunited with Jenny, who has made a mess of her life, including drug addiction and prostitution, as well as depression with one suicide attempt. She lives with him for a while, then leaves following a night of passion that originated in Forrest's awkward marriage proposal. To fill the void of her departure, Forrest begins to jog, first "to the end of the road", then "to the end of town". Eventually, he runs clear across the country. He runs from one coast to the other, and then turns around and heads back, running back-and-forth continuously. His dedication inspires a running movement, including a flock of "disciples" who run with him. Along the way, in Flagstaff, AZ, Forrest is alerted he has stepped in dog feces by a man who was asking for a inspirational phrase to put on a bumper sticker, to which he replies "it happens" which the guy then took and created the catch phrase "Shit happens". Shortly afterward, a mud-splattered Forrest is given a yellow T-shirt by a T-shirt salesman who "couldn't draw all that well and didn't have a camera" but wanted to immortalize Forrest on a shirt. Gump leaves the man with a giant smiley face made of mud imprinted on the shirt and tells him to have a nice day, thereby inspiring yet another pop culture phenomenon. "Three years, two months, fourteen days, and sixteen hours" later, he suddenly stopped running, leaving his confused and directionless followers with only the words "I'm pretty tired. I think I'll go home now." Back to the presentOne day, on March 30, 1981, with live coverage of the Reagan assassination attempt in the background, Forrest receives a letter from Jenny, who has seen Forrest running on TV, asking him to visit her. Forrest shows Jenny's letter to the current listener, a patient elderly lady, explaining why he is at the bus stop. She tells him that the address is only a short walking distance away. He is reunited with Jenny and her young son (Haley Joel Osment), and she tells him that the boy is named Forrest, after his father. She also tells Forrest she is suffering from an unknown virus, which is most likely to be, at the time, the less commonly known HPV virus which eventually if left untreated over time can lead to terminal forms of cancer. Jenny and Forrest Jr. move in with him back in Greenbow, Alabama, where Jenny and Forrest finally get married. Lieutenant Dan, who has titanium artificial legs—"magic legs", as Forrest refers to them—and his fiancée, Susan, attend the wedding. On a "Saturday morning", Jenny finally dies making Forrest a single parent to little Forrest who becomes a bright child who attends school. Forrest demolishes the house that Jenny grew up in, as it had reminded her of her abusive father. Her grave is placed under the tree that they used to climb together when they were children. Jenny's death causes Forrest to question the nature of life. "Jenny, I don't know if Mama was right or whether it was Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think, maybe it's both. Maybe both are happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny." A tearful Forrest concludes with "If there's anything you need, I won't be far away". As he walks away, a flock of birds fly past, presumably signifying Jenny's prayer as a child to be turned into a bird. The film ends with Forrest seeing his son to a schoolbus, where the father and son tell each other that they love each other. A feather in Forrest's book is blown away by the wind, and floats into the sky. Spoilers end here.
Meetings with famous people
TechniquesKen Ralston and his team were responsible for the film's visual effects. Using CGI-techniques it was possible for Tom Hanks to meet dead presidents and even shake their hands. Old documentary footage was used and with the help of techniques like chroma key, warping, morphing and rotoscoping, Tom Hanks was integrated into it. This feat was honored with an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The CGI removal of actor Gary Sinise's legs, after his character had them amputated, was achieved by wrapping his legs with a blue fabric, which later facilitated the work of the "roto-paint"-team to paint out his legs from every single frame. ReceptionIn Tom Hanks' words, "The film is non-political and thus non-judgmental" (Time: 42). Nevertheless, in 1994, CNN's Crossfire debated whether the film had a left-wing bias or a right-wing one. Filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman has noted that Gump's successes result from doing what he is told by others, and never showing any initiative of his own, in contrast to Jenny's more forthright and independent character who is shown descending into drugs, prostitution, and death.[1] As such, both film and fans are sometimes criticized for "glossing over" this important factor. The film received mostly positive critical reviews at the time of its release, with Roger Ebert saying, "The screenplay by Eric Roth has the complexity of modern fiction....[Hanks'] performance is a breathtaking balancing act between comedy and sadness, in a story rich in big laughs and quiet truths....what a magical movie."[2] The film received notable pans from several major reviewers, however, including The New Yorker and Entertainment Weekly (which said that the movie "reduces the tumult of the last few decades to a virtual-reality theme park: a baby-boomer version of Disney's America.")[3] Currently, the film garners a 79% "Fresh" rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.[4] However, the film is commonly seen as a polarizing one for audiences, with Entertainment Weekly writing in 2004, "Nearly a decade after it earned gazillions and swept the Oscars, Robert Zemeckis' ode to 20th-century America still represents one of cinema's most clearly drawn lines in the sand. One half of folks see it as an artificial piece of pop melodrama, while everyone else raves that it's sweet as a box of chocolates."[5] The film ranks 79th on IMDb's Top 250 films list. Cast
Differences from the novelSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Also, the leg braces were not in the book; nor did Forrest's mother have sex with the school principal to get Forrest in the regular school. In the book, Forrest did not do well in the regular school and was put in a special school for mentally retarded children, which he refers to as the 'nut school'. Forrest failed college and hence did not graduate. Forrest's mother does not die in the book but does in the movie. Forrest's mother does die in the book's sequel Gump & Co. Unlike the movie, the novel's Forrest is described as an idiot savant, with an extraordinary talent in numerical calculation. One memorable example of this is in college, when Forrest receives an "A" in his physics course (Intermediate Light) and an "F" in physical education. Gump does not marry Jenny in the book; she instead marries another man, though she joins a band called "The Cracked Eggs" with him at one point. Jenny does not die in the original novel. She does die from unstated causes in the sequel—the book simply states that she and her husband got sick and both ended up dying—with the novel recounting Forrest's subsequent adventures with little Forrest when the boy is sent to live with him. Gump and little Forrest do not have the loving relationship that the end of the movie seems to imply. In fact, Little Forrest (who was a teenager at this point in the second book) was mad at his father for not being in his life, and during a pivotal scene in the book calls out Gump for pretending to be his father. Forrest's response is to spank his son, changing their relationship. Gump does not meet Lt. Dan until he is in the hospital in Vietnam. In the novel, Lt. Dan is not a professional soldier but a drafted teacher. He has no wish to die in combat and is more of a philosopher. Bubba is white and was previously on the football team with Forrest. Forrest does not actively catch shrimp with a shrimping boat and sell them; rather, he has a small shrimp hatchery and builds success upon that. He learns how to farm shrimp from a friendly Vietnamese; back in Bayou La Batre (Bubba's hometown), Bubba's father helps him get started. Forrest also has many other adventures in the book that are not mentioned in the movie. During his trip to China, he rescues Chairman Mao from drowning in the Yangtze River (parodying Mao's actual much-publicized swim). Later in the book, Forrest becomes an astronaut and crash-lands on a small jungle island in New Guinea with his crew, Major Janet Fritch and a male orangutan called Sue (a homage to the Johnny Cash song A Boy Named Sue'). They are captured by cannibals and made to plant cotton. He also becomes a professional wrestler (under the alias of "The Dunce"), a champion chess player (first playing with the cannibal chief and then in a formal tournament), and even stars in a (fictional) remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon (with Raquel Welch). After his shrimp business booms, he is persuaded to enter politics with the slogan "I've got to pee" (spoken to John F. Kennedy in the film), but withdraws when his opponents spread the word about his earlier misadventures. The movie even adds scenes as Forrest's run across America never happens in the book. The movie shows Forrest as a sober-minded man and cuts back scene from scene of Jenny doing a number of drugs. In the book Forrest is a smoker of cannabis and towards the end of the novel smokes tobacco more and thinks about his past and all that he's done in life. At the end, he leaves his crew (which includes many people he has met over the years) to run the business, and goes to live with Lt. Dan and Sue as street musicians. The book features rather graphic sex scenes between Forrest and Jenny which do not appear in the movie. Spoilers end here.
SoundtrackThe soundtrack from Forrest Gump had a variety of music from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and early 80s performed by American artists. It went on to sell 12 million copies, and is one of the top selling albums in the United States[6] In addition, an album featuring only the score by Alan Silvestri was released as well. Awards and nominations1994 Academy Awards (Oscars)
1995 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)
1995 American Cinema Editors (Eddies)
1995 American Society of Cinematographers
1995 Casting Society of America (Artios)
1995 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
1995 Directors Guild of America
1995 Motion Picture Sound Editors (Golden Reel Award)
1994 National Board of Review of Motion Pictures
1995 Screen Actors Guild Awards
1995 Writers Guild of America Awards
Trivia
See alsoReferences
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