Anlysis Of The Film

“Forrest Gump” Essay, Research Paper

Forrest Gump by Robert Zemeckis 1994, starring Tom Hanks, won six Oscars, including best actor, picture and director. Mixing the elements of Rain Man , The World According to Garp and Woody Allen s Zelig . Forrest Gump covers the 30 years of the recent American history, where Gump neatly resolves recent cultural conflicts, making our country feel good about itself, it is a film where oppositio.ns of past 30 years of recent American history are integrated, resolved and compromised

Forrest Gump is a structuralism film. The film maker ingeniously uses Forrest Gump s dullness narrative to represent the natural aspect of things of him, meanwhile the film maker uses Jenny, Gump s love, to divergence the opposition between the two. As Forrest s life becomes a guided tour of straight-arrow America, Jenny ( played by Robin Write) goes on the parallel tour of the counterculture: she goes to California, of course drops out of college, she tunes in, and tunes on. She s into psychedelics and flower power, antiwar rellies and love-ins, drugs and needles. Eventually it becomes clear that between Forrest and Jenny, they have covered all of the landmarks of our recent cultural history and the accommodation they arrive at in the end is like a dream of reconciliation for our society.

Forrest Gump has the complexity of the modern fiction, in terms of the multiple narratives. The incredible luck of Forrest made Gump the football star, Gump the Medal of Honor winner, Gump the Ping-Pong ball champion, Gump the shrimp boat captain, Gump the millionaire stockholder ( he gets shares in a new fruit company named Apple Computer) and Gump the man who ran across the country. Where as Jenny gets kick out of college because of posting for Playboy , Then becomes Jenny, the nude singer ( as Forrest puts it she got her dream, she is a folk singer ) , then Jenny the Hippie/flower child, Jenny the party girl, Jenny, the mother, and later Jenny the wife. Jenny and Forrest finally get married, it symbolized the integration of opposition, as in many Hollywood movies, i.e.: The Westside story the integration of working class and middle class.

Forrest Gump it is not just a film about a mentally retarded man. The cubbyhole is too small and limited for Forrest Gump. The movie is a more of a meditation on our times, as seen through the eyes of a man who lacks cynicism and takes things for exactly what they are. Watch him carefully and you will understand why some people are criticized for being too clever by half. Forrest is clever by just exactly enough.