AFI 100 #71: FORREST GUMP

Does it take a cynic to accuse a movie about being free of cynicism of being cynical?

I’m dedicating two years of my life to watching and reviewing every movie on the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Movies, even the ones I’ve seen before. Here’s #71, Forrest Gump.

This summer’s release of The Help has caused a great deal of much-needed debate around the way Hollywood portrays racism (read Dig Associate Editor J. Pat’s review here and my take at #99 Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner). They treat their ostensible heroes as pitiful, powerless victims just waiting for their Great White Hope. As unforgivable as The Help was, part of me is glad that Hollywood overextended itself so much that audiences who aren’t normally sensitive to these kinds of things can at least be aware of this problem.

That said, I do understand why filmmakers keep using this same approach. It allows them to dance around the issues without actually confronting them while satisfying their liberal-guilt-itch and garnering liberal-guilt-praise. This is exactly the way Forrest Gump treats American history, and that is what makes it so dishonest. That it has been so consistently hailed and awarded is what makes it so infuriating. And that it took Pulp Fiction‘s Oscar is what earns it my title of Best Made Movie I Most Hate.

The Forrest Gump (film, not character) view of history: Anybody who cared or participated in the events of the 1960s and 70s was an impulsive teenager who needed to grow up.

Does it bug you as much as it bugs me when someone tells you to not take life seriously and to have a sense of humor? Like those aren’t two different things? Is it not possible to take something very seriously while also finding the humor and joy in it? That’s essentially what Forrest Gump says; if you were there, you were a joyless slave to history. There are some very specific characters the film takes pot shots at -- SDS, the Black Panthers, hippies and antiwar protesters. This movie isn’t just mocking fads, it’s shitting on ideals that changed the country, ended the war and stopped Jim Crow.

And we haven’t even gotten to the most cynical part yet: Forrest himself.

In belittling the various movements and fads of the era, it naturally vaunts Forrest’s view. There is nothing objectionable about Forrest himself; he is a great character, and while his disability is played for sentimentality, he is believably portrayed by Tom Hanks. In the story, however, Forrest is used as a counterweight against the changing times. There are only three complete characters in the whole film: Forrest, Lt. Dan and Bubba. Everyone else is either a straw man or a walking symbol (especially Jenny). Idealizing your hero, giving him all of your own personal values and then painting your ideological enemies as wifebeating sounding boards who just need to grow up are NOT the same as having the moral higher ground and do not make for a particularly compelling portrayal of the era.

The performances and the character interactions are top notch. But that’s not what drives the action. Give me a movie about Forrest and Lt. Dan without all the bullshit sentimentality.

Director Robert Zemeckis is known for stylish, memorable and innovative films like Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Contact and Cast Away. There are a few common strands here, such as creative approaches to simple visual effects and lively narratives. What I’ve noticed about his films, even in his lesser ones like Beowulf and A Christmas Carol, is that they are their most effective when it is one character interacting with another character. This all falls apart when you neglect to make your characters real people, as Forrest Gump fails to do. It works when he talks to Jenny as Jenny, not Jenny as America, or cares for Lt. Dan as a man trying to find his destiny. But those scenes are few and far between.

We are meant to believe that if only we all saw the way Forrest sees it, everything would be okay and we would find peace with ourselves. Many movies attempt similar messages, usually revolving around a developmentally disabled person or a child. Only one has ever accomplished this goal, however: Being There with Peter Sellers. It has all of the symbolism, political implications and simplistic morals of Forrest Gump, but it’s about the interaction between Sellers’ character and American high society. It’s honest and fully-developed in all of the places Forrest Gump is sappy and anemic.

Forrest Gump is well made but ill-intended and filled with dishonest characterizations.

Comments: Has all of the wit and wisdom of the last 45 seconds of a Scrubs episode. Reduces real history to kitsch.

Deserves to be in Top 100: No. Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise deserved their Oscars, Lt. Dan deserves his place in the pantheon of great supporting characters, but Forrest Gump deserves none of its fawning praise.

Inspired: Too early to tell.

Next Week: #70 The French Connection

Last Week: #72 Ben-Hur

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