gump as allegory / history

Rating: 9/10 (3 September 2005)

In the film Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks actually plays allegory and myth-in-the-making (aka history) as a "slow" individual floating through the decades. The cinematists used this technique of "history personified" uniquely to full effect in this film. No other film has gotten away with such an entertaining stroll through the years. Not necessarily to be taken literally; this film was so lauded (possibly unknowingly) for its seamless ability to compartmentalize and package the most recent years of American history up to 1994. Much like the writing of a history textbook, we watch the years unfold as Forrest Gump glides through the ups and downs, stoic to the signs of the times.
Though the film also tells the stories of Jenny, Lt. Dan, Bubba, and Momma, it is Forrest through which we see the world. Though each of these characters *(and the many lesser characters) who come in contact with Forrest each have their own some what negative first response to him, they each, in surrender, are redeemed. Much like each person's relation with history. In the end it is Forrest sitting alone on a rock in a small town Mississippi once again alone. For alone, history sits on a rock in small town Mississippi watching his son ride the bus to kindergarten.
Through this lens, all the devices of the film take on new meaning. Forrest's sporadic television appearances and brushes with celebrity are in fact their own brushes with history. While many films use a boy-girl love relationship as a centerpiece around which to build elaborate stages, here the relationship of love is wrapped around the passage of time. History loves you and history survives you. History is slow and history is a minimalist. The feather device is yet another metaphor for history but one which would not have connected with the audience nearly as much as Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks is the feather, the loose leaf, the page from the Curious George book. Our myth/history set free in the wind yet marked by the past; the pages of our lives.