Forrest Gump” is a classic work made by the famous director Robert Zemeckis in 1994, starring the well-known Oscar winner Tom Hanks, the film was released to a frenzy, nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, and finally won six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Editing.
The movie is based on the novel of the same name “Forrest Gump” by Winston Groom. In contrast, the original novel is a satirical dystopian novel, while the film embellishes and embellishes the story. Forrest Gump is portrayed as the embodiment of virtue in the film, honest, trustworthy, conscientious, brave and valuing his feelings, making the film a symbol of idealized morality.
Forrest Gump is a film that has enough elements to engage the audience. It tells the story of a disabled and mentally handicapped protagonist who struggles to succeed, it links a famous figure and event in contemporary American history, its nostalgia and sentimentality for love and friendship, and its often witty, cheerful and funny imagery.
At the time of the film’s release, the American press reported: “Men, women and children poured out of the cinema with genuine emotion. Children seemed to be thinking, adults were contemplating, and pairs of people were clasping each other’s hands.” It is clear that “Forrest Gump” was a spiritual inspiration to the American public at the time.
At the same time, in the narrative structure of the film, the director tries to describe a person’s life journey of decades in a biographical way, which is a very common kind of film narrative structure, the director uses the character Forrest Gump’s experience of sorrow and happiness to frame the rise and fall of the story. The fictional Forrest Gump runs through three decades of American history, including the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, as well as rock and roll and AIDS.
The film places him in the midst of history, as Gump meets Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, “Elvis” and John Lennon, among other important figures. The director cleverly uses personal fate in the narrative to reveal the development of history, which allows the character portrayed and the real history closer to some, Forrest Gump is no longer just the encounter of past historical events, witness, but a witness and participant, let people immerse themselves in the situation.
The film’s soundtrack is also a great highlight of the film, for the film to create the film music of the American composer Aaron Swischa is one of the most representative film music composer in Hollywood.
The film “Forrest Gump” is a breakthrough from the Hollywood blockbuster score’s tradition of overwhelmingly ornate string music, and instead uses simple, plaintive melodies, with a literary and soothing rhythm to match the plot of the film, which is a new attempt and breakthrough for Aaron Swischa, who likes to symphonize film scores.
In essence, “Forrest Gump” is more than just a film, from the body of Forrest Gump, people can see a kind of underdog’s silent struggle and a tenacious spirit of struggle. When we look at history and life from Forrest Gump’s point of view, everything becomes so simple and clear.
Film scholar Dai Jinhua once commented on Forrest Gump: “It comes at a timely moment when contemporary American culture is fragmented and has lost its stable values, providing American society with a force for social integration and imaginative salvation.”
So it is easy to see that “Forrest Gump” is to a large extent a bowl of spiritual chicken soup made by the director. In his life, Gump can run without asking for direction, can go to war only on orders, everything is chance, everything does not need a goal, everything is full of chance, just like the feather that falls in the wind and has nothing to cling to in the film’s opening credits.
Although aimless, Forrest Gump was always able to achieve success, success as the principle of American life, but also the ultimate measure of American values. The film’s ability to turn such a disadvantaged person into a hero and a successful person hits the spiritual pain points and inner needs of Americans back then.
Throughout “Forrest Gump”, the director uses skillful film language and a clever narrative structure to portray the sorrowful and moving life of the main character, Forrest Gump, which seems to be telling the story of an individual, but in fact implies the anxiety and desire of the group. Through a multi-structured narrative, the director shows the protagonist’s resilient and courageous behavior, as Forrest Gump mentions to people during his long-distance run, “My mother always says that you should leave the past behind before you set out. “Forget the past, brave forward, this is not only the best healing of a generation of Americans’ spiritual wounds, but also the core connotation that the director tries to express. It can be said that this film, whether from the shooting techniques or film ideas, are called a veritable film history classics.
