15th Anniversary of Forrest Gump: The Philosophic Divide on a Movie Classic

If you were lucky enough to see the teaser trailers for "Forrest Gump" in the spring of 1994 before its July release that year, you probably remember thinking that you were looking at an instant classic and ready-made Oscar winner. It's not always possible to gauge that in a trailer when most of them are cleverly edited to look better than the sum of their parts. But the "Gump" trailer had something there that drew you in from the start that compelled me and millions of others to mark it down as a must-see that summer. Admittedly, it was the unique placement of history that instantly intrigued me. Not once did I think it was more to do with Forrest's unique vision of history that perhaps was drawing me in. For other people, it was likely more about instant intrigue with one of Tom Hanks' latest acting performances that were becoming increasingly more Oscar worthy.

After my first viewing of the film that July, I was compelled to see how the audience was feeling about the impact of the film as they filed out of the theater. Some people were emotional, others looked confused and another group just looked like they were miffed at someone poking a hole in their personal political ideology. You could find some critics then who managed to make the film political when Tom Hanks adamantly said at the time there wasn't any intention to be politically one-sided. That one-sidedness was said to be a conservative slant blasting the counterculture movement of the 60's and a hidden rallying call toward Republicans to win the midterm elections that November.

Amid that misguided view of the film, the true message was lost on many critics who enjoyed piling on the snark over the deeper philosophical implications the movie brought to the table. Only a small group of critics actually appreciated what that philosophy was in Forrest being able to have a completely different view of tumultuous events around him while the rest of the world was falling apart.

Perhaps the 90's was when snarkier attitudes started in earnest, despite a higher awareness of the world around us during the Clinton Administration. Whatever spin you wish to put on the decade of the 90's, "Forrest Gump" was maligned more than it should have been by those who took it too literally. Even the revered Leonard Maltin movie guide gave it two-and-a-half stars at the time that's, to date, never been amended.

So why did the philosophy of Forrest Gump go over the heads of a good chunk of the American populace? Some might say that it's a clear distinction between who has a positive view of the world and those who dwell in fatalism. Another argument is the more simple answer of how many of us lost our sense of innocence and became hardened to everything and anything hitting the fan in America and abroad. The attempted answer was that it was the latter by those who were trying to get skeptics against the movie to wake up to what it was trying to say.

Then you had another group who said they loved the movie...but didn't know why...
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If you can cite any strong benefit of "Forrest Gump" even existing on celluloid, it's from its ability to make a number of critics and ordinary people admit that they had a quasi religious experience with the movie. Roger Ebert was one of those critics at the time who I remember saying loved the movie, yet couldn't express exactly what it was that made it that way for him. When even a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic couldn't figure out what it was, it intrigued me that "Gump" tapped into the collective psyche and triggered something dormant. Perhaps you can say it was the inner desire to put the last 50 years of American history into some kind of perspective so we can find more meaning in the present tense.

More likely, it was just the earlier insinuation of lost innocence that became buried in sophistication and cynicism as the 60's started and evolved into ensuing decades. By the time "Gump" was released, most people who lived through the decades depicted in the film had forgotten what it was like to see the world through the eye of an innocent child. The reason some reacted emotionally to the film was because they saw Forrest as someone they desperately wanted to be again, yet had a mind closed in how to get back there. A whole generation grew up being cynical about the times, with new generations following that were as bad or worse.

As with any population, though, some did get it and still consider "Forrest Gump" one of the greatest American movie experiences of the last half of the 20^th century. Even those who didn't get its fullest impact cite it as great on other fronts--namely Tom Hanks' performance, the revolutionary use of CGI and satiric value outside of its more profound intentions.

It's a shame then that a sequel was never produced in the 2000's to give a new added layer of perspective to more recent times. As we know, the story of "Forrest Gump" ended at some unknown point in the early 80's, despite the story continuing in Winston Groom's novelized sequel "Gump and Co." Supposedly, a screenplay adaptation of the sequel was written with intention of bringing Tom Hanks in and playing with the worlds of celebrity and real life. Having Forrest dealing with the real Tom Hanks playing him in a movie was placed into the story deliberately by Groom himself who wasn't always happy with how the movie turned out.

That aside, the sequel had full intention of having Forrest running into all of the top pop culture figures of the 80's and 90's and giving us a fresh perspective on all the pre-9/11 events that shaped our world. When 9/11 really did hit, the movie adaptation of the sequel was said to be put on indefinite hold because producer/director Robert Zemeckis thought it wouldn't be relevant. For those who truly understood the concept of the first "Gump", that might seem discouraging when the thought of Forrest putting the events that led up to 9/11 through a new angle would make a sequel all the more meaningful.

If they ever do make a sequel (and don't count it out completely), seeing Forrest taking on not only pre-9/11, but also the events of post-9/11, would be more significant than the first movie. I dare say that the country is in a different mindset than in 1994 and would finally get a collective understanding of where Forrest Gump is coming from.

Should the movie sequel never get made, then here's a nod to Winston Groom to write a third novel showing Forrest living in a post-9/11 world. We're still waiting for the unique examination of the 2000's so we can be at peace with it as much as many gained peace from Gump's outlook on the prior decades that profoundly changed America...

Source:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/