Friday
Aug052011
Cinema de Gym: Forrest Gump
Friday, August 5, 2011 at 3:40PM 
Kurt here. On the day Forrest Gump was playing at my gym, it seemed only right that I swap out the elliptical for the treadmill: Run, cinephile! RUN!! In truth, part of me wanted to run right out of the building (this is a behemoth of a movie to chip away at with my modest column). But, I stuck it out, and I tip my hat to the gym's programmers, as I've never been so inspired to burn off as many calories as possible.Forrest Gump tends to have that effect on people, ever since it ran away with every trophy in sight at the end of 1994. It's a you-can-do-it movie, through and through, with Forrest boasting Oprah-level propulsion – too busy to look back for more than a brief glance. The film itself doesn't wow so greatly the smaller it gets in the rearview, no matter how large it looms on the marquee and no matter how well it urges one to keep up with its star runner. Such is the plight of the overhyped phenomenon.
I like Forrest Gump just fine, but I think it works better as a capsule of Americana than as a movie. And, of course, to be a capsule of Americana is a big part of its aim. It's essentially 141 minutes of milestones and iconography, landmark moments and famous faces. Its underdog-rewrites-history conceit is a good one, always teetering on the edge of magical realism but too awash in actual events to truly show it. That vicious, wonderful – and very viral – review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon stuck it to Gump for being the evil initiator of archival footage manipulation, but it's hard not to find charm in the film's grainy tour of suddenly resurrected legends (JFK, John Lennon), however buffoonish the tour guide may be. I think my personal favorite thing about the film – if I may be so broad – is its sociopolitical Vietnam-era backdrop, which multiple films have since tried and failed to depict with the same buzzing cultural potency (ahem, Across the Universe, ahem). It's what pumps awesome power into Forrest and Jenny's Washington Monument reunion, surely one of the most iconic hugs in contemporary cinema. It's not strength of narrative, but strength of context that gives you butterflies – a movement and an era defined in an embrace.
Hug it OutAnd that's just one moment.
In its tireless forward motion, Forrest Gump, covers an awful lot of ground, each episode another page in the history book. So nimble is its pace that to tell you what I saw during my quick workout is to offer you a clip reel: the rise of the ping pong master, the boiling resentment of a legless Lieutenant Dan, the newsreel mooning of LBJ, the breaking up of the Black Panther “party” and, of course, that lovely aforementioned hug. All scenes that, appropriately, have now found their own places in the pages of history. However you feel about Forrest Gump, few films have so firmly cemented themselves into popular conversation, achieved such immortal quotability, and made themselves known to what seems like every adult media consumer. As I write this, I'm in a house with a ping pong table in the basement. Is it possible to play the game without thinking of a rubber-limbed Tom Hanks? Is it possible to open a box of chocolates without envisioning Sally Field, or a white bench in Savannah, Georgia?
It was nice to revisit this movie after the major Hanks misfire of Larry Crowne, which won't put a dent in the smiley star's career, but surely bruised his credibility as a filmmaker. There will be no higher peak for Hanks than Forrest Gump, no better instance of his massively, uniquely beloved everyman/leading man persona. I wonder if he knew this when he was making the press rounds with Robert Zemeckis and Robin Wright, or when he collected his Oscar – that this was it, the summit, the key page in his history. I wonder if he wanted to stop and freeze instead of just keep running. Conclusions?
- See above.
- Movies about running are even better motivators than Matthew McConnaughey's abs. (Should I recommend Prefontaine to the gym programmers?)
- Admittedly, the whole “box of chocolates” thing is pretty counterproductive here.
- Qualms aside, Forrest Gump is something of treasure.
What do you think of the film? Despite everything, it's surprisingly divisive, especially given the whole Pulp Fiction / Shawshank Redemption Best Pic defeat.
