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Forrest Gump
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Zemeckis
Produced by	Wendy Finerman Steve Tisch Charles Newirth
Written by	Eric Roth
Starring	Tom Hanks Robin Wright Gary Sinise Mykelti Williamson Sally Field
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Editing by	Arthur Schmidt
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	July 6, 1994
Running time	141 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$55,000,000
Gross revenue	$677,387,716
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Forrest Gump is a 1994 drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom and the name of the title character of both. The film was a huge commercial success, earning US$677 million worldwide during its theatrical run making it 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 man with an IQ of 75 and his epic journey through life, meeting historical figures, influencing popular culture and experiencing first-hand historic events while being largely unaware of their significance, due to his lower than average intelligence. The film differs substantially from the book on which it was based.

Plot

The film begins with a feather falling to the feet of Forrest Gump who is sitting at a bus stop in Savannah, Georgia. Forrest picks up the feather and puts it in the book Curious George, then tells the story of his life to a woman seated next to him. The listeners at the bus stop change regularly throughout his narration, each showing a different attitude ranging from disbelief and indifference to rapt veneration.

On his first day of school, he meets a girl named Jenny, whose life is followed in parallel to Forrest's at times. Having discarded his leg braces, his ability to run at lightning speed gets him into college on a football scholarship. After his college graduation, he enlists in the army and is sent to Vietnam, where he makes fast friends with a black man named Bubba, who convinces Forrest to go into the shrimping business with him when the war is over. Later while on patrol, Forrest's platoon is attacked. Though Forrest rescues many of the men, Bubba is killed in action. Forrest is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism.

While Forrest is in recovery for a bullet shot to his buttocks, he discovers his uncanny ability for ping-pong, eventually gaining popularity and rising to celebrity status, later playing ping-pong competitively against Chinese teams. At an anti-war rally in Washington, D.C. Forrest reunites with Jenny, who has been living a hippie counterculture lifestyle.

Returning home, Forrest endorses a company that makes ping-pong paddles, earning himself $25,000, which he uses to buy a shrimping boat, fulfilling his promise to Bubba. His commanding officer from Vietnam, Lieutenant Dan, joins him. Though initially Forrest has little success, after finding his boat the only surviving boat in the area after Hurricane Carmen, he begins to pull in huge amounts of shrimp and uses it to buy an entire fleet of shrimp boats. Lt. Dan invests the money in "some kind of fruit company" (Apple Computer) and Forrest is financially secure for the rest of his life. He returns home to see his mother's last days.

One day, Jenny returns to visit Forrest and he proposes marriage to her. She declines, though feels obliged to prove her love to him by sleeping with him. She leaves early the next morning. On a whim, Forrest elects to go for a run. Seemingly capriciously, he decides to keep running across the country several times, over some three and a half years, becoming famous.

In present-day, Forrest reveals that he is waiting at the bus stop because he received a letter from Jenny who, having seen him run on television, asks him to visit her. Once he is reunited with Jenny, Forrest discovers she has a young son, of whom Forrest is the father. Jenny tells Forrest she is suffering from a virus (probably HIV, though this is never definitively stated).^[1][2][3] Together the three move back to Greenbow, Alabama. Jenny and Forrest finally marry. Jenny dies soon afterward.

The film ends with father and son waiting for the school bus on little Forrest's first day of school. Opening the book his son is taking to school, the white feather from the beginning of the movie is seen to fall from within the pages. As the bus pulls away, the white feather is caught on a breeze and drifts skyward.

Cast

• Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump
• Robin Wright Penn as Jenny Curran
• Gary Sinise as Lt. Dan Taylor
• Mykelti Williamson as Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue
• Sally Field as Mrs. Gump
• Michael Conner Humphreys as Young Forrest Gump
• Hanna R. Hall as Young Jenny Curran
• Haley Joel Osment as Forrest Gump Jr.
• Sam Anderson as Principal Hancock
• Geoffrey Blake as Wesley, SDS Organizer
• David Brisbin as Newscaster
• Peter Dobson as Elvis Presley
• Siobhan Fallon as Dorothy Harris, School Bus Driver
• Sonny Shroyer as Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant
• Kurt Russell as Voice of Elvis Presley

Themes

Though superficially Gump might not seem to understand all that goes on around him, the viewer gets the sense that he knows enough, the rest being superfluous detail. Roger Ebert offers the example of Jenny telling Forrest, "You don't know what love is."^[4]

Over Jenny's grave, Forrest ponders whether life is governed by a predetermined fate, as his Vietnam commanding officer emphatically believes and his mother offers at her death, or whether it's a series of meaningless accidents, concluding "maybe it's both, maybe both happening at the same time."

It has been noted that while Forrest follows a very conservative lifestyle, Jenny's life is full of countercultural embrace, replete with drug usage and antiwar rallies, and that their eventual marriage might be a kind of tongue-in-cheek reconciliation. However, the nature of Jenny's death has led others to conclude that the movie is looking down on counterculture lifestyles, considering them to be the wrong type of path to choose.^who?

Other commentators believe that the film forecast the 1994 Republican Revolution and used the image of Forrest Gump to promote traditional, conservative values adhered by Gump's character.^[5]

Production details

Ken Ralston and his team at Industrial Light & Magic were responsible for the film's visual effects. Using CGI-techniques it was possible to depict Gump meeting now-deceased presidents and shaking their hands.

Archival 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. At one point, while hoisting himself into his wheelchair, his "missing" legs are used for support.

Dick Cavett played himself in the 1970s with make-up applied to make it appear that he was much younger than the commentator was during the filming. Consequently, Cavett is the only well-known figure in the film to actually play himself for the feature, rather than via archive footage.

Differences from novel

Forrest Gump is based on the 1986 novel by Winston Groom. Both center around the character of Forrest Gump. However, the film primarily focuses on the first eleven chapters of the novel, before skipping ahead to the end of the novel with the founding of Bubba Gump Shrimp and the meeting with Forrest Jr. In addition to skipping some parts of the novel, the film adds several aspects to Forrest's life that do not occur in the novel, such as his needing leg braces as a child and his run across the country.

Forrest's core character and personality are also changed from the novel.

Historical references

• Forrest influences Elvis Presley's dance moves for Hound Dog
• Forrest is present at Governor George Wallace's symbolic threat to prohibit two African-American students to the University of Alabama
• Forrest meets President John F. Kennedy
• Forrest serves in the Vietnam War
• Forrest meets President Lyndon Johnson
• Forrest participates in the U.S.-China Ping Pong Diplomacy
• Forrest meets Dick Cavett and John Lennon on The Dick Cavett Show
• Forrest influences John Lennon's song "Imagine"
• Forrest meets President Richard Nixon
• Forrest uncovers the Watergate scandal
• The Jenny survives Hurricane Carmen
• Forrest and Lieutenant Dan invest in Apple Computers as their stock begins to rise

Reception

In Tom Hanks' words, "The film is non-political and thus non-judgmental". Nevertheless, in 1994, CNN's Crossfire debated whether the film promoted conservative values or was an indictment of the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. 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."^[6] 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."^[7] As of June 2008, the film garners a 72% "Fresh" rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.^[8]

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."^[9] The film also came in at #76 on AFI's Top-100 American movies of all time list in 2007.

Awards and nominations

Soundtrack

Main articles: Forrest Gump (soundtrack) and Forrest Gump - Original Motion Picture Score

The 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.^[10]

Sequel

A screenplay based on the original novel's sequel, Gump and Co., was written by Eric Roth in 2001. For unknown reasons, the sequel was never put into production. In March 2007, however, it was reported that Paramount producers are now taking another look at the screenplay.^[11]

See also

• Bubba Gump Shrimp Company
• Forrest Gump (1986)
• Gump & Co. (1994)

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Forrest Gump

• Forrest Gump at the Internet Movie Database
• Forrest Gump at Allmovie
• Forrest Gump at Box Office Mojo
• The filming Locations from the movie