Forrest Gump became a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1990’s. There are so many catch phrase lines like, “Momma always said life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get”, and “Stupid is as stupid does”, among many others. Tom Hanks, coming off a Best Actor win from the previous year’s Philadelphia would win Best Actor for the second year in a row and even though he was already a big star, he would use Forrest Gump to catapult himself to the upper echelon of the Hollywood A-list and superstardom. To be sure, Hanks’ performance as the dim-witted savant is one of the great performances of the decade and along with his role in Philadelphia, helped turn him from a likable actor in comedies and romantic comedies to one of the most respected actors in the industry, and a man who could play any role.

As for the film itself, I am slightly divided on it. Seventy-five percent of me loves this film. I’ve seen it over a dozen times and every time I see it, it hits all of my emotional buttons and tugs at all of my heartstrings. I fully admit that sometimes I can be a sentimental old fool and this movie hits that sentimental side of me with ease. I am always especially affected by the bookends of Forrest’s relationship with Jenny. It always felt so real and genuine to me like it was crafted out of true emotions and I never felt like that relationship was anything but true to life. We’ve all felt unrequited love, and I believe that Forrest’s feelings for Jenny hit home in a way that made people able to relate to this film on a human level in a way that few films accomplish, and that is one of the reasons for its sustained success. I also love the humor in the film, the irony that is sprinkled throughout the film, as well as the symbolism and all of the planting and payoff.

Then there is the twenty-five percent of me that understands that this is not a particularly well-structured story and that it’s told in much the same way as a road movie, and I am not a fan of that style of storytelling. This is an episodic film, but it does have a decent spine, and that spine is Forrest’s love for Jenny and that no matter what he does or what he accomplishes, his thoughts and feelings always come back to her. As I watched the film this weekend, I tried to look for the structure in the story it’s difficult to find it, but it is there mainly in the story of Forrest and Jenny.

In fact, it is my opinion that the very strong themes in Forrest Gump make up for the relatively weak story structure and storyline. This is a film about destiny and about spirituality. This is a film about making the best of what you have despite the disadvantages you have been given. Forrest was born with a below average IQ and a crooked spine. Despite those problems, and partially because he didn’t know any better and because his mother wouldn’t let him use them as an excuse, Forrest makes his way through life successfully. Yes, he stumbles through life and a lot of his success comes through luck, but he creates his own luck by allowing himself to do things that other people wouldn’t allow themselves to do. Possibly it was because he’s too stupid to understand the risks, but he still takes the chances and his life turns out to be much better than anyone could have reasonably hoped that it would.

Then there’s Jenny, who is smart, talented and beautiful, but she was sexually abused as a child by her father, and that has created a lack of direction within her. She can’t trust herself and she moves from one abusive relationship to another. In fact, the one man who has her best interests at heart and the one man who treats her well is Forrest, but she spends the bulk of the story pushing him away because she doesn’t know how to handle being treated well. Not only does she allow herself to be mistreated by other men, but she continually mistreats herself by abusing drugs and living an unhealthy lifestyle. It isn’t until she becomes sick at the end (presumably with HIV, although it’s never stated what she has), and has Forrest’s baby, does she attain the ability to love herself. Once she’s able to love herself she has the ability to love Forrest. Ultimately that’s Jenny’s character arc. She cannot love Forrest until she’s able to love herself.

Then there’s Lt. Dan Taylor, who is Forrest’s commanding officer in Vietnam. Lt. Dan believes that it is his destiny to die in that war since he’s had ancestors who have died in every previous U.S. war. However, not only does Forrest inadvertently keep that from happening by saving his life, he’s left without any legs. As a consequence Lt. Dan sees himself as a legless cripple who’s been robbed of his destiny. He resents Forrest for that for a long time, and he turns his back on God. Then after joining Forrest as his first mate on the shrimp boat, they survive being at storm during Hurricane Camille and then their shrimping business begins to thrive. In peaceful moment Dan is finally able to thank Forrest for saving his life. He then dives off the boat and contentedly swims the Gulf at sunset as Forrest remarks that he believes Dan made his peace with God. Once again, we have an example of someone finding peace within himself and then finding the ability to move past their inner turmoil and find happiness in his life.

It’s good that these other characters go through the major changes in the story because Forrest himself changes very little. He seems to learn that life is a combination of destiny and making your own way, but he is largely an unchanged character from the beginning to the end. He does affect change in other characters, however and that growth and change helps heighten the emotional impact of the overall story.

Speaking of that overall story, this is a story about a man who lives through thirty years of the second half of the twentieth century and happens to meet several of that period’s iconic historical figures like Elvis Pressley, Bear Bryant, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Dick Cavette, John Lennon, and others, and through his very objective perspective we witness the major events of the late 50’s through the early 80’s. Forrest Gump doesn’t really offer any editorial on those events. The character and the film merely show us and tell us what happened and how, and leave it up to the audience to decide how to feel about them.

I mentioned earlier that this is an episodic film and that it has the feel of a road movie. I would say what separates it from entirely falling into that trap is the fact that the episodes themselves aren’t self-contained. That is to say that there is a nice flow and each sequence of the story flows naturally into the next. My problem with many road movies is that they don’t build. You could take out sequences or switch their order around and it wouldn’t affect the story as a whole. Since we’re following Forrest on an historical journey, that’s not the case in Forrest Gump. Each section of the film leads Forrest into the next section and the people that he meets and the issues that come up in each section of the story continue to drive the action throughout the rest of the film. One of the aspects of the film that helps do that is the story between Forrest and Jenny. He falls in love with her the minute he sees her and he loves her for the rest of his life, and with each adventure he goes on, he thinks about her and what she’s doing.

From a structural standpoint, Forrest Gump isn’t a terribly well-told story, but from a device standpoint, it’s brilliantly told. I mentioned earlier that I am a fan of the planting and payoff in Forrest Gump. I am especially a fan that some of the planting and payoff is right on the nose and other examples of it are far more subtle. An obvious example is when Forrest and Jenny are little kids and they’re running away from Jenny’s abusive father. They hide in the corn field where Jenny prays to God to make her a bird so that she can fly far, far away. Then at the end of the film as Forrest is walking away from her grave, a small flock of birds flies off to the heavens, presumably carrying Jenny’s spirit with them. Then there is another example that you have to be paying closer attention to in order to catch it. After Forrest tells Lt. Dan (after he’s lost both of his legs in Vietnam) that he’s going to keep his promise to Bubba and become a shrimp boat captain, Lt. Dan responds by telling him that if he does, he’ll be his first mate. Then chuckling, Lt. Dan goes on to tell Forrest that if he’s a shrimp boat captain, then Lt. Dan will be an astronaut. Then when Forrest and Jenny get married, Lt. Dan arrives with his fiancé and two brand new legs made out of the same titanium alloy that they use on the space shuttle. So in an indirect way, Lt. Dan kept his promise to be an astronaut.

Irony is another device that’s used very effectively, especially when Forrest joins the army. He excels at the mundane and in so doing sails through basic training where his Drill Sergeant predicts that he’ll be a general some day.

Even with their varying levels of subtlety, those are all outstanding storytelling techniques that evoke real emotion, so that even though this isn’t your classic 3-Act film, we’re still given a dramatic story with characters that we care about. Director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Eric Roth did an outstanding job of using many storytelling devices to take this story and make it emotional without being overly sentimental. Any screenwriter looking for ways to deepen their characters and learn how to use devices like planting and payoff would be wise to view this film again through that prism or to read the screenplay.

Did the Academy get it right?

No they did not. I realize I just spent over 1700 words describing the virtues of this film, and I am a fan of it. I’ve seen it many times and I love this film very much. However, it had no business winning Best Picture in 1994. The Shawshank Redemption was a superior film. It had a better and more compelling story and it was a much more dramatic film than Forrest Gump was. Thematically, it was just as strong as Forrest Gump and the acting and character development hang right with it as well. I would have definitely voted for The Shawshank Redemption over Forrest Gump. Also there was a film called Pulp Fiction that was released that year, and happens to be one of my personal top 5 favorite films. Pulp Fiction was an absolute sensation when it came out for the way it deconstructed film making as a medium and used insane amounts of violence to tell a compelling story. Again, with its thematic elements of honor among thieves, it was innovative in its storytelling techniques and it resuscitated the careers of John Travolta and Bruce Willis while it sent the careers of Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurmon and director Quentin Tarantino into the stratosphere, much like Forrest Gump did with Tom Hanks. It had a profound effect on the industry as a whole and is the film that would have had my vote in 1994. Of the other two films nominated that year, Quiz Show was also a very good film, but probably not on the level of the other three. Four Weddings and a Funeral was the small, indie-type picture, of which the Academy seemed to like to give token nominees to throughout the 90’s, but were never serious contenders. I think what ultimately won the Oscar for Forrest Gump was the amount of emotion that it evoked from audiences. As great as The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction were, they were largely emotion-less films that relied on great story telling to create drama and get the audience involved. Forrest Gump did exactly the opposite in creating a ton of emotion with a storyline that wasn’t as strong. As much as I disagree with it, that’s what the Academy was looking for in 1994.