Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Produced by Wendy Finerman, Steve Tisch and Charles Newirth
Written by Winston Groom
Screenplay by Eric Roth
Starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright,Gary Sinise,Mykelti Williamson,Sally Field
Genre: Comdey-Drama
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Running time: 141 minutes
Country: United States
Language: English
Budget: $55 million
Gross revenue: $677,387,716
Plot
In 1981, Forrest Gump tells the story of his life to the different listeners at the bus stop, each showing different reactions. Although Forrest has well below average intelligence, his mother is able to register him into a public school. On his first day of school, he meets a girl named Jenny which would be the only friend of Forrest. Although Forrest has some trouble with his spine he can get into the University of Alabama on a football scholarship because of his ability in running fast. He becomes a star running and meets White House and President John F Kennedy. After his college graduation, he enlists in the army. There he makes friends with Bubba, who suggests Forrest a shrimping business when the Vietnam War is over. He also meets Jenny again, when he sees her in Playboy magazine. He then goes to find her and discovers that she is a stripper working at a bar. In 1967, Forrest and Bubba are sent to Vietnam, and after awhile their platoon is attacked. Though Forrest rescues many of the men in his unit, Bubba is killed in action, and Lt. Dan Taylor, the platoon's commanding officer, losses her legs. Forrest is wounded during the battle, and is awarded the Medal of Honor.
Forrest discovers a strange ability for ping pong while in recovery. He starts playing for the U.S. Army team, gaining popularity and rising to celebrity status. He eventually defeats his Chinese rival. At an anti-war rally in Washington, D.C. Forrest reunites with Jenny, who has been living a hippie counterculture lifestyle while Forrest was away and is engaged to another man.
Upon leaving military service and returning home, Forrest accepts an offer to endorse a company that makes ping pong paddles in exchange for an endorsement fee of $25,000. He uses the money to buy a shrimping boat and fulfill his wartime promise to Bubba and gets lots of money through shrimping business.
In 1976, Jenny returns to visit Forrest, and they spend some time whith each other but one morning Jenny leaves Forrest. On an unpredictable decision, Forrest decides to run. He decides to run across the country and accomplishes it.
While finishing his story, Forrest telss 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 finds Jenny, Forrest discovers she has a young son, also named Forrest, and Jenny says Forrest is the boy's father. Jenny tells Forrest she is suffering and dying from an unknown virus which has no cure. Together, the three move back to Greenbow, Alabama where Jenny and Forrest finally marry. Jenny dies soon afterward, leaving their son in Forrest's care. Forrest talks to Jenny's grave and tells her how well their son is doing in school. On his son's first day of school, Forrest sits with him at the school bus stop. Forrest's first bus driver is also his son's first bus driver as the movie ends.
Analysis:
For me the film is a promoter of American culture and values and I want to look at the film from this point of view. It is the promoter of the American values using both conservative and liberal values, but the conservative values are more dominant and highlighted and liberal values are loosely used to promote just the American culture and at the end liberal values are defeated by conservative values although both ideologies are used to promote the American culture. The film also uses the American icon and figure to promote the American culture.
Family is and home are very important in film, Forrest mother is a devoted mother who does her best to keep the family and nurture her child although Forrest father is not present and may leave the family but the mother asserts that that he is on vacation so she wants to that they are a family. “there is no place like home” and “family forever” these themes can be seen in the film when Forrest, Jenny and their child return their home, Greenbow, Alabama, as a family. Gump is the man family, he is loyal to his love and does his best to have his own family. Gump is a hard working guy who works and tries hard to achieve happiness he expects nothing without hard-working. From the beginning Gump is running and he even runs across the US, symbolically “chasing the American Dream”. Gump also is religious person, after returning home from China he says that people in China do not go to the church or he goes to the church to pray in order to have a big shrimping. Forrest also uses liberal gestures, like participating in anti-Vietnam War rally and taking part in a TV show to talk about his experience in China, telling that Chinese people are deprived from freedom and basic human rights. Gump is the symbol of conservative values and Jenny is the symbol of liberal values but at the end Jenny is dead but Gump as the symbol of the conservatives is the source of maintenance and continuity of the American culture.
Totally the film was made to appeal to conservatives and invalidate liberals but to promote the American culture even by utilizing liberal values. It also is a condemnation of the counterculture movement of the 1960s and its aftermaths. Jennifer Hyland Wang, movie critic, argued that Curran's death to an unnamed virus "...symbolizes the death of liberal America and the death of the protests that defined a decade [1960s]." Even the main structure of the film crew connote the conservative orientation of the film. Steve Tisch, one of the producers of the film is a conservative person who has produced other conservative film after Forrest Gump like Knowing and The Pursuit of Happyness that the later one alongside Forrest Gump are among the best 25 conservative movies by the National Review magazine.
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| RUN, AMERICA, RUN |
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