Forrest Gump1994

Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump: AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY “Were you scared in Vietnam?” “Yes. Well, I don't know. Sometimes it would stop raining long enough for the stars to come out... and then it was nice. It was like just before the sun goes to bed down on the bayou. There were always a million sparkles on the water... like that mountain lake. It was so clear, Jenny, it looked like there were two skies, one on top of the other. And then in the desert, when the sun comes up, I couldn't tell where heaven stopped and the earth began. It's so beautiful.” “I wish I could've been there with you.” “You were.” There is beauty everywhere, and the best art helps us see it. I don’t know if it’s universal, but I feel like at least for me it’s hard to remember that we are all people. We are all the same. We all live, hurt, and feel. And I will see a movie like this, and I will feel so much I will feel everything for the whole world.  Above is one of my favorite shots in all of cinema.  And this is my favorite painting. It’s called “Christina’s World.” It is a popular painting, and its subject is clear from the title. Anna Christina Olson was a woman who, due to a degenerative muscular disorder, was unable to use her legs. She refused to use a wheelchair and instead crawled everywhere.   “Dear God, make me a bird. So I could fly far. Far, far away from here.” Jenny could never leave her world. No matter where she went, she was trapped by it. By her past, and she couldn’t run from it no matter how far, no matter what she did. When she was with men or did things that hurt her, and every time she left or turned Forrest away, all she was trying to do was run away from her past.  Lieutenant Dan believed he had a destiny that his fate was to die. But things don’t ever go the way you expect. And he was trapped too. And his shame kept him from living.  Now I think that Forrest is relatable. He is a person, and his goodness is a mirror that we can look into and reflect on. But is that who we are? Maybe some people need to run, and some people need to come home. And maybe sometimes it’s just enough to stand.  Maybe all that matters is that you make a choice. I don’t know where I’m at in my life, but when I see a film like this, it makes me feel like I’m close.  This will be my 315th review this year. If you have read them, I hope you enjoyed them. I think my quality, no doubt, ebbs and flows, but I hope on the whole I have improved since I started. I’m trying to come to my own understanding of understanding. Of thinking beyond two dimensions. Is Forrest Gump propaganda? And does it matter? As far as I understand, art is about interpretation, and my interpretation is this film is about love. It’s about growing and maturing, and it’s just about life.  We are not Forrest; we are Jenny and Dan, and it takes work to love. To love yourself. I’ve heard it said, “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you going to love somebody else?”  Well, I’m still working on that. Maybe I’ll get there someday, and then I’ll be able to stand; hell, maybe I’ll be able to walk.  “Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that."