"Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
This is a great movie, following the life of Forrest Gump, from his childhood as a bullied kid with leg braces to his adulthood as a wealthy single father, and his enduring love for a girl named Jenny.
Tom Hanks, always amazing, is Forrest Gump. The movie begins when Forest is a sweet, but not overly bright (But as he says, "Stupid is as stupid does."), child, picked on by other children, but fiercely protected by his loving mother (Sally Field). This is when he meets and befriends Jenny, a nice young girl deeply traumatized by the abuse of her father.
Through his own talents, his courage, and fate, Forrest leads an extraordinary life. He seems to go where the wind takes him, which is to wealth and fame. Jenny urges him to run from bullies ("Run, Forrest! Run!), and his speed makes him a football star. It is suggested he join the army, so he does. Forrest is deployed to Vietnam ("We was always taking long walks, and we was always looking for a guy named "Charlie"."). He befriends Bubba, a young man interested in becoming a shrimp fisherman, and Lieutenant Dan, a soldier who intends to die in battle ("He was from a long great military tradition. Somebody from his family had fought and died in every single American war. I guess you could say he had a lot to live up to."):
Drill Sergeant: Gump! What's your sole purpose in this army?
Forrest: To do whatever you tell me, drill sergeant!
Drill Sergeant: God damn it, Gump! You're a god damn genius! This is the most outstanding answer I have ever heard. You must have a goddamn I.Q. of 160. You are goddamn gifted, Private Gump. Listen up, people...
Forrest: Now for some reason I fit in the army like one of them round pegs. It's not really hard. You just make your bed real neat and remember to stand up straight and always answer every question with "Yes, drill sergeant."
Forrest ends up saving most of his unit, including Lieutenant Dan, who loses his legs, but fails to save Bubba (so sad), and becomes a war hero. While recovering from his war wounds, he becomes a ping-pong champion. Once he is discharged, he becomes a shrimp fisherman, in honor of Bubba, with help from Lieutenant Dan. When a fluke hurricane destroys all the other ships, they become a great success. Lieutenant Dan invests their money in Apple, making them both rich: "Lieutenant Dan got me invested in some kind of fruit company. So then I got a call from him, saying we don't have to worry about money no more. And I said, "That's good! One less thing.""
Along the way, he meets Elvis, John Lennon, three presidents ("The best thing about visiting the President is the food! Now, since it was all free, and I wasn't hungry but thirsty, I must've drank me fifteen Dr. Peppers."), runs across the country a couple times, and helps uncover the Watergate scandal ("Yeah, sir, you might want to send a maintenance man over to that office across the way. The lights are off, and they must be looking for a fuse box, 'cause them flashlights, they keep me awake.").
And through it all, his love for Jenny remains fervent and true. She is the most important thing in his life, though they only meet periodically throughout the years. As Forrest tells her, "I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is." That makes him pretty smart, in my opinion. I know, I'm getting sentimental. He tries to help her turn her life around, but she is very emotionally damaged -caught in a downward spiral and seemingly determined to remain there.
When they finally reunite for the last time, Jenny is ill and dying, and she reveals that she has had a son by Forrest. It's so heart-wrenching when she dies. He has lost his North Star. But Forrest Jr. helps fill the gap, and Forrest is a caring and doting father.
Every time I watch the end, when he talks to Jenny at her graveside, it makes me cry:
"You died on a Saturday morning. And I had you placed here under our tree. And I had that house of your father's bulldozed to the ground. Momma always said dyin' was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't. Little Forrest, he's doing just fine. About to start school again soon. I make his breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I make sure he combs his hair and brushes his teeth every day. Teaching him how to play ping-pong. He's really good. We fish a lot. And every night, we read a book. He's so smart, Jenny. You'd be so proud of him. I am. He, uh, wrote a letter, and he says I can't read it. I'm not supposed to, so I'll just leave it here for you. Jenny, I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away."
Tom Hanks is incredible, and Forrest is an endearing character. The love story is tragic, but beautiful.
However, it's tough to compete with The Shawshank Redemption.
1994 The Shawshank Redemption
"I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank."
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| "Andy Dufresne -who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side." |
Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is a successful banker wrongfully convicted of killing his wife and her lover. He is sentenced to life in Shawshank Prison. Shawshank is under the control of Warden Samuel Norton, a religious but corrupt man, and Captain Byron Hadley, the violent and murderous head guard. Andy becomes best friends with a man called Red (Morgan Freeman), "a man who knows how to get things." Red is the narrator of the story.Andy is a mysterious character. He is quiet, but intelligent, and originally keeps to himself, though he is harassed and abused by a prison gang. Red says: "I wish I could tell you that Andy fought the good fight, and the Sisters let him be. I wish I could tell you that -but prison is no fairy-tale world. He never said who did it, but we all knew. Things went on like that for awhile -prison life consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Andy would show up with fresh bruises. The Sisters kept at him -sometimes he was able to fight 'em off, sometimes not. And that's how it went for Andy -that was his routine. I do believe those first two years were the worst for him, and I also believe that if things had gone on that way, this place would have got the best of him." Eventually, he begins doing the taxes for the prison guards, and eventually for the warden, which garners him protection and some perks, such as a cushy job working in the prison library with an elderly inmate named Brooks (who has a pet crow named Jake):
Brooks: And then Andy says, "Mr. Dekins, do you want your sons to go to Harvard... or Yale?"
Floyd: He didn't say that!
Brooks: God as my witness! Dekins just looked at him a second and then he laughed himself silly and afterwards he actually shook Andy's hand.
Heywood: My ass.
Brooks: Shook his hand! I near soiled myself. I mean all Andy needed was a suit and a tie and a little jiggly hula gal on his desk and he woulda been Mister Dufresne, if you please.
Red: Making a few friends, huh Andy?
Andy: I wouldn't say friends. I'm a convicted murderer who provides sound financial planning -it's a wonderful pet to have.
Brooks illustrates the concept of "institutionalization." He becomes so accustomed to living in prison after being there for so many years, that he is terrified to leave, almost resorting to killing one of his friends just so that he won't have to leave:
Red: The man's been in here fifty years, Heywood. Fifty years! This is all he knows. In here, he's an important man. He's an educated man. Outside, he's nothin'! Just a used up con with arthritis in both hands...These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.
Heywood: Shit. I could never get like that.
Prisoner: Oh yeah? Say that when you been here as long as Brooks has.
Red: Goddamn right. They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyway.
Brooks is convinced to leave, but can't adapt to the outside world, and hangs himself, which is terribly depressing: "Dear fellas, I can't believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile once when I was a kid, but now they're everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry. The parole board got me into this halfway house called "The Brewer" and a job bagging groceries at the Foodway. It's hard work and I try to keep up, but my hands hurt most of the time. I don't think the store manager likes me very much. Sometimes after work, I go to the park and feed the birds. I keep thinking Jake might just show up and say hello, but he never does. I hope wherever he is, he's doin' okay and makin' new friends. I have trouble sleepin' at night. I have bad dreams like I'm falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun and rob the Foodway so they'd send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I'm too old for that sort of nonsense any more. I don't like it here. I'm tired of being afraid all the time. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me. P.S: Tell Heywood I'm sorry I put a knife to his throat. No hard feeling, Brooks.
Andy works hard, finding ways to obtain more
books for the library, handling the warden's crooked financial dealings, helping a young inmate, Tommy Williams, get an education, and periodically doings small things to brighten the lives of his fellow prisoners -such as offering Captain Hadley financial help in exchange for beer for his friends ("We sat and drank with the sun on our shoulders and felt like free men. Hell, we could have been tarring the roof of one of our own houses. We were the lords of all creation. As for Andy -he spent that break hunkered in the shade, a strange little smile on his face, watching us drink his beer."), and barring himself in a room in order to play music over the intercom, even though he gets in trouble for this effort ("I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.").
When Tommy reveals that he has evidence that could prove Andy's innocence, the warden has him killed by Captain Hadley, because Andy knows too much about his corrupt financial dealings to go free.
This is the last straw for Andy Dufresne.
Thus ensues one of the best endings to a movie ever.
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| Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lay within." |
Parole Hearing Man: Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?
Red: Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means.
Parole Hearing Man: Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...
Red: I know what you think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?
Parole Hearing Man: Well, are you?
Red: There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.It's all around amazing.
It's a tough choice, but I would give The Shawshank Redemption the edge in the Oscar race.
ADDENDUM: After watching Forrest Gump again, I've changed my mind -I give it the edge.
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