Review of Forrest Gump (2 Disc Set)

Introduction

The story of an idiot (Hanks) and his aimless nomadic drifting through 30 years of tumultuous American history, as visualized by that wizard of sentimentality Robert Zemeckis. A massive critical and commercial success (6 Oscars and $670 million later) ‘Forrest Gump’ is certainly eventful: Watch Gump hobble around in leg braces! Watch him endure premature ejaculation in college! Watch him muck it in Vietnam! Watch him ignore disco and disillusionment in favor of bland permanence! Watch him always return to the comforting bosom of his colonial Alabama home and his ranting mother! Watch Zemeckis exploit a jaundiced view of the US counter-culture while promoting a sentimental embrace of good ol’ southern backwater wholesomeness! In other words: Watch America reclaim its ‘lost innocence’ through the non-judgmental gaze of an idyllic moron!

Video

Hmm. Although on first glance this looks like a first-rate transfer, closer inspection reveals some annoying glitches: consistently speckled contrast throughout the film, as well as rather strange colour palettes during some scenes (particularly the China ping-pong game) and finally, occasional signs of dirt and minor print damage. Still, this glossy picture still looks good as far as its age and cleanliness allows.

Audio

Allegedly 5.1 surround, but I was hard-pressed to find any significant use of the rear channels, even during the tumultuous violence of the Vietnam sequence. Still, it’s a good track, owing mainly to extraordinarily crisp sound design.

Features

It’s fair to say that your ability to sustain an enjoyment of these extras will rest primarily on how much patience you have for the film. As you might imagine, after all of this, my patience is in short supply. There are two commentary tracks: on track one, producer/second unit director Steve Starkey and production designer Rick Carter wax philosophical about the film’s brilliance and the unparalleled genius of their director, who occasionally pipes up to deliver some rather inane comments about how miserable it is being a multi-millionaire film director. The poor bunny. If that wasn’t bad enough, why does track two consist solely in the deafening silences and banal pleasantries of producer Wendy Finerman? Where’s writer Eric Roth? Or Tom Hanks? Or author Winston Groom? Or anyone but this shower? Where, precisely do they dig up these people, and why do they insist on getting involved when they show so little enthusiasm for the process?

The rest of the extras share this muffled insecurity that clearly came with creating Paramount’s first 2-Disc Special Edition. There’s a slightly nauseating 30-minute documentary that provides little insight other than EPK promotion. There is a welcome scraggle of special-effects documentaries (including 2 cute sequences cut from the movie). There’s a nice selection of screen-tests featuring an extremely dazed Haley Joel Osment (aged 6); as well as three not particularly interesting documentaries about sound design, make-up and special effects. Rounding it all off are some trailers and a basic photo gallery. There’s some good stuff in there, but this still exudes the lack of care and investment we’ve come to expect from Paramount DVDs… only more so.

Conclusion

Seven years on and two things still surprise me about this film: one, it`s still technically brilliant, with flawless special effects, set-design, photography and camera-work. And two, it really is one of the most ghastly examples of Hollywood filmmaking in living memory, even after the five year cooling off period since I last watched it. A thinly-veiled, ill-conceived and unreflective right-wing doctrine lurks behind the heart-warming carousel score, shameless emotional plundering and misleading message of human existence as feathers ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. This theme, that serendipity and chance go hand in hand, is rubbed in our face with as little subtlety as everything else, and still remains utterly incoherent.

The main problem here seems to be one of an utterly misguided approach: Zemeckis’ rigorous following of Forrest’s point of view gives the film a dangerous, solipsistic world-view: Assuming this is purporting to be an alternative tour of whimsy through American history, everything about the ideological approach is stained with the epic timelessness of US conservatism. Forrest may as well be traversing through a vacuum, as his America is unhistorical, unchanging and perpetually (presumably spiritually) sustained. This view of America as indifferent to change, solely perpetuating from enduring values (God, Mom) and indifferent to the possibilities of ideological and cultural diversity, is not only deeply depressing but completely misleading.

Admittedly, Hank’s performance is a unique experience, albeit a uniquely weird and disingenuous one. He doesn’t invest much in Gump but his heavily drawn-out accent, the whole performance feeling like a bad impression of an idiot. Sally Field, a barely watchable actress at the best of times, is especially annoying here, and Mykelti Williamson, an intense and gifted actor, is predictably loaded with the role of the subjugated black man, sacrificed under the pretence of Gump’s emotional development. Robin Wright is okay as Forrest’s damaged goods sweetheart Jenny Curran, and Gary Sinise is excellent as Lieutenant Dan Taylor, despite some overwrought growling, as the only character who rises above the level of cipher for the film’s home-is-where-the-heart-is philosophy.

Gump’s manipulated involvement in historical footage is still a dazzling example of the way digital technology can augment our perception of reality. But this film is devoid of any interrogation of the ideas behind manipulating history for the sake of intertextual in-joke. This apathy towards inquiry is reflected by the film as a whole. Indeed, the film isn’t just un-analytical, but anti-analytical: Gump, the quintessential moron doesn’t have a perspective on anything. The problem is, the film shares this attitude so every significant event is played as a facile, ironic gag, or milked as ageless pathos all-the-while masquerading as a kind of Gump-ian profundity. Gump’s ‘understanding’ ends up existing solely in his revelatory misunderstanding; which gives the movie the absurd morality that the untouched innocent spirit is in possession of the most profound insight: he who doesn’t interpret, understands… Say that again?

If we listened to ‘Forrest Gump’ (and I plead that you don’t) we’d believe that unconsciousness is not just beneficial if you’re living in the most powerful and influential nation in the world, but essential in understanding the nature of ‘everything’. The film reaches the conclusion that ignorance isn’t only bliss, but enlightenment. A conclusion far more idiotic than its protagonist could ever pretend to be. After all of this, we might want to convince ourselves that there’s nothing more to ‘Gump’ than feckless comedy. But ‘Forrest Gump’ gives us an incredibly vivid snapshot of baby-boomer nostalgia. And it’s not a pretty picture.