Forrest Gump ( film)
Forrest Gump is a 1994 Comedy 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).
Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump
Robin Wright Penn - Jenny Curran (as Robin Wright)
Gary Sinise - Lt. Dan Taylor
Mykelti Williamson - Pvt. Benjamin Buford 'Bubba' Blue
Sally Field - Mrs. Gump
Rebecca Williams - Nurse at Park Bench
Michael
Conner Humphreys - Young Forrest Gump
Harold G. Herthum - Doctor (as Harold
Herthum)
George Kelly - Barber
Bob Penny - Crony
John Randall -
Crony
Sam Anderson - Principal
Margo Moorer - Louise, Mrs. Gump's Housekeeper
Ione M. Telech - Elderly Woman
Christine Seabrook - Elderly Woman's
Daughter
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 largely unaware of their significance, due to his lower than average intelligence. The film differs substantially from the book on which it was based.
1994 Academy Awards (Oscars)
Won -
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role — Tom Hanks
Won - Best
Director — Robert Zemeckis
Won - Best Film Editing — Arthur Schmidt
Won - Best Picture — Wendy Finerman, Steve Starkey, Steve Tisch
Won
- Best Visual Effects — Ken Ralston, George Murphy, Stephen Rosenbaum, Allen
Hall
Won - Best Adapted Screenplay — Eric Roth
Nominated - Best Performance
by an Actor in a Supporting Role — Gary Sinise (as Lieutenant Dan Taylor)
Nominated - Best Achievement in Art Direction — Rick Carter, Nancy Haigh
Nominated - Best Achievement in Cinematography — Don Burgess
Nominated
- Best Makeup — Daniel C. Striepeke, Hallie D'Amore
Nominated - Best
Original Score — Alan Silvestri
Nominated - Best Sound Mixing —
Randy Thom, Tom Johnson, Dennis S. Sands, William B. Kaplan
Nominated - Best
Sound Editing — Gloria S. Borders, Randy Thom
1995 Academy of Science
Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)
Won - Best Supporting
Actor (Film) — Gary Sinise
Won - Best Fantasy Film
Nominated - Best
Actor (Film) — Tom Hanks
Nominated - Best Music — Alan Silvestri
Nominated - Best Special Effects — Ken Ralston
Nominated - Best Writing
— Eric Roth
1995 Amanda Awards
Won - Best Film (International)
1995 American Cinema Editors (Eddies)
Won - Best Edited Feature Film
— Arthur Schmidt
1995 American Comedy Awards
Won - Funniest Actor
in a Motion Picture (Leading Role) — Tom Hanks
1995 American Society
of Cinematographers
Nominated - Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
in Theatrical Releases — Don Burgess
1995 BAFTA Film Awards
Won
- Outstanding Achievement in Special Visual Effects — Ken Ralston, George
Murphy, Stephen Rosenbaum, Doug Chiang, Allen Hall
Nominated - Best Actor
in a Leading Role — Tom Hanks
Nominated - Best Actress in a Supporting
Role — Sally Field
Nominated - Best Film — Wendy Finerman, Steve
Tisch, Steve Starkey, Robert Zemeckis
Nominated - Best Cinematography —
Don Burgess
Nominated - David Lean Award for Direction — Robert Zemeckis
Nominated - Best Editing — Aurthur Schmidt
Nominated - Best Adapted
Screenplay — Eric Roth
Plot
The movie begins with a feather falling to the feet of Forrest Gump 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.
Forrest is shown to have been taught much about life by his mother. He often recalls her favorite sayings, including "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get" and "Stupid is as stupid does." Forrest's story begins as a young child who is mentally slow and has braces on his legs. He is a descendant and namesake of Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate general and alleged founder of the Ku Klux Klan. His mother knows her child is not particularly intelligent but provides for him as best she can, inviting boarders into their large house, one of which is a young Elvis Presley who learns his famous hip gyrations from Forrest's awkward attempts to dance in leg braces.
Gump meets
President KennedyOn Forrest's first day of school, he meets Jenny Curran, and
immediately falls in love with her. Jenny lives on a farm house near Forrest's
home with her physically and sexually abusive, alcoholic father. His leg braces
and mental handicap make Forrest a popular target for bullies at school. One day
while walking home from school, a few children start throwing rocks at Forrest,
and Jenny tells him, "Run, Forrest, Run!" As the bullies chase him on
their bikes, the braces on his legs break and fall off, leaving him able to run
very fast. After that, wherever he needs to go, he runs and one day runs through
University of Alabama football practice led by Bear Bryant. This event leads to
him getting a college scholarship for football. He is named to the 1963 All-American
Team and meets President John F. Kennedy at the White House. While there, Forrest
drinks 15 bottles of Dr Pepper "since it's free". Over a handshake President
Kennedy asks him how he feels, to which Gump replies "I gotta pee."
Throughout college, Forrest continues to try to visit Jenny, who goes to an all-girls'
school.
After college, he enlists in the army, where he meets two other people who will shape his life: Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue, a young shrimper who serves with Forrest in the Vietnam War and knows "everything there is to know about the shrimpin' business"; and Lieutenant Dan Taylor, Forrest and Bubba's commanding officer. Bubba and Forrest plan to go into the shrimping business together after they go home, and Forrest listens as Bubba tells him all he knows about shrimping. When their platoon is suddenly attacked in the jungle, Forrest rescues Lieutenant Dan and other soldiers. He goes back for Bubba and carries him back to the others, getting shot himself, but Bubba dies when the evacuation choppers arrive.
While recuperating, Forrest is introduced to ping-pong and becomes very good at it. At the same time, Lieutenant Dan, who lost both of his legs due to his injuries, is having a hard time coping with his Vietnam experience, or more accurately, his survival of them; he has relatives that have died in every American war. In one dramatic scene, Lieutenant Dan asks Forrest if he knows what it is like to not be able to walk, which Forrest does because of his earlier leg braces, but in telling him so Forrest only infuriates Lieutenant Dan as he cannot articulate it well. For his injuries, Forrest is awarded the Medal of Honor, which further infuriates Lieutenant Dan, and he gets to meet the president.
Throughout the film, we see short glimpses of Jenny's life. She has become a hippie. While Forrest is in Washington, D.C. to receive his medal, he stumbles onto a peace rally. Forrest meets Abbie Hoffman and makes a speech, but a military general unplugged Forrest's microphone, causing his words to be inaudible to most of the crowd. Hoffman emotionally thanks Forrest following the speech. After his speech, he finds himself reunited with Jenny, who was also there. They spend some time together, including attending a Black Panther party - which Forrest is thrown out of - but Jenny eventually returns to San Francisco. Further glimpses into Jenny's life reveal that she has slipped into drug abuse, relationships with abusive men, and prostitution. At one point, she contemplates suicide, getting up on a railing to jump off a building.
Gump meets President NixonForrest's
skills at ping-pong take him to China, and get him money from an endorsement of
a ping-pong paddle. From these endeavors, he meets President Richard Nixon, who
asks him where he is staying, and then offers to put Forrest up in a much nicer
hotel, which turns out to be the Watergate office and hotel complex. Forrest calls
the front desk after he sees flashlights across the courtyard, bringing attention
to the Watergate burglars and precipitating Nixon's downfall. He also meets Dick
Cavett and John Lennon on Cavett's talk show, and his accounts of China inspire
Lennon's song "Imagine".
Forrest uses the money from ping-pong to carry out his and Bubba's plan, going to Alabama and buying a shrimp boat. He has no success at it. Lieutenant Dan had told Forrest if he ever followed through, Dan would become Forrest's first mate; while he meant it as a joke, Dan still turns up at the dock. Even with Lieutenant Dan aiding him, Forrest's luck does not improve, so Dan tells him to pray.
Lieutenant Dan is still struggling with his Vietnam experiences, and when Hurricane Carmen hits the Gulf of Mexico in summer 1974, he and Forrest are out in the gulf on their boat with Lieutenant Dan screaming at God as manifested by the storm. The hurricane destroys all of the docked boats, leaving theirs as the only shrimp boat in the area. With no competition, business booms. Forrest insists on paying Bubba's share of the profits to his family; Lieutenant Dan invests the rest. One of the investments, Apple Computer, (which Gump calls a fruit company), makes them both rich. Forrest leaves the shrimp business when his mother dies, returning home to Greenbow.
Jenny comes to visit Forrest during the US Bicentennial. Forrest proposes marriage to Jenny. She turns him down, but later that evening, she makes love to him and says as she does love him. In the morning she disappears.
After discovering this, Forrest feels like going for a run, but instead of returning home he continues, eventually becoming famous for running across the country for three years, two months, fourteen days and sixteen hours and sparking the running craze of the 70's. He is called "a gardener from Greenbow, Alabama", in news reports about his country-length runs in reference to his cutting the football field for free, because he likes to do it so much, after the shrimping business took off.
Forrest is waiting at the bus stop because on 30 March, 1981, he received a letter from Jenny who, having seen him run on television, asks him to visit her. Forrest shows Jenny's letter to the current listener, a patient elderly lady who has already passed up one bus to continue listening; she tells him that the address is only a short walking distance away. He thanks the lady and immediately starts running. Once he is reunited with Jenny and her young son, Jenny tells him that the boy is named Forrest, after his father, whom he at first incorrectly believes to be the son of another man named Forrest, although she then confirms that the child is indeed his. She also tells Forrest she is suffering from a virus (probably AIDS, though this is never definitively stated). Together the three move back to Greenbow, Alabama. Jenny and Forrest finally marry, but their married bliss is cut short by Jenny's death "on a Saturday morning" according to Forrest. Her gravestone gives her date of death as 22 March, 1982, though it was, in fact, a Monday. Forrest has Jenny buried under the tree where they played as children, and has her abusive father's house torn down.
The film ends with Forrest escorting his son to a school bus, where the father and son tell each other that they love each other. The feather in Forrest's book is blown away by the wind, and floats into the sky, echoing the film's beginning.
Deleted Scenes
These
scenes are present on the collector's edition DVD set.
Forrest plays ping-pong
with George H. W. Bush, then ambassador to China
Forrest saves Martin Luther
King, Jr.'s civil rights march by playing fetch with police dogs
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