THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060606
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
WHO IS Forrest Gump, and how did he get linked to most of the pivotal characters of the '60s?
And why does everyone now link Gump, actor Tom Hanks and Oscar?
We first meet Forrest Gump on a park bench in Savannah, Ga., where he tells his story - and quite a story it is. Forrest has an IQ that falls below normal, but his mama tells him he'll be OK anyway. And he believes his mama.
Good thing, too. Gump becomes, in turn, a football star, Vietnam hero and millionaire, and he eventually meets everyone from JFK to LBJ to Nixon.
The title role of ``Forrest Gump,'' which opens in local theaters today, is being talked up as a serious contender to win actor Tom Hanks an Academy Award.
``Am I like Forrest Gump?'' Tom Hanks pondered. ``Well, I like to think that I'm levelheaded like him and that maybe I have some of his common sense and judgment. But, who can say? Forrest is only concerned with making sure someone loves him. My life should be so simple.''
Hanks and his co-stars were gathered the morning after the long-awaited press screening of ``Forrest Gump'' - a joyous event for the cast. The usually cynical press seemed disarmed by Forrest and his Southern openness.
Sally Field, who plays Forrest's mama, was there.
``Someone has GOT to tell Tom to stop calling me `Mama!' '' she exclaimed.
Robin Wright, who plays Jenny, Forrest's true love (in real life, she's Sean Penn's replacement for Madonna) was there, too, and said: ``I'm worried that Jenny isn't sympathetic enough. Forrest loves her for all her life and she knows that, yet she keeps running off. I hope we countered that enough.''
Forrest Gump is an innocent-at-large. Forrest trusts everyone and believes, mainly, in doing what he's told to do. When girlfriend Jenny urges him, ``Run, Forrest, run'' he becomes an All-American football player. Only trouble is, he has to be told to stop running.
In Vietnam, Bubba becomes his surrogate brother. Because Bubba is an expert at shrimping, Forrest goes into the shrimp business and becomes a millionaire.
Forrest is the simple-minded guy who outsmarts the sophisticated world. In a way, ``Forrest Gump'' is a madcap parable. In another way, it's an allegory of our times. Forrest can clearly be compared to the character played so memorably by Peter Sellers in ``Being There.''
The eccentricities are comparable to those in ``The World According to Garp,'' as well as John Irving's writings not transferred to the screen.
The Winston Groom novel on which the screenplay is based has not been widely read, but Bob Zemeckis, a director known for flashy entertainments like ``Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' and the ``Back to the Future'' trilogy, has been wanting to film it for 10 years.
Steve Starkey, one of the producers, says Zemeckis should not be a surprising choice for this character-driven project. ``He's a great filmmaker, and this was a film that required technical wizardry as well as perception,'' Starkey said. ``We sent the script to Tom Hanks because he was the only one who could play it. Tom has a kind of Everyman quality about him that brings identity to each member of the audience. About an hour and a half after he started reading it, Tom called and said, `I'm in.' From that point on, we knew we could get the movie made.''
Filmed mainly in Beaufort, S.C., and in parts of North Carolina, the movie is actually set in Alabama. Hanks, who is 37 but still looks like a college freshman, admits that ``I was scared, real scared, of the accent. Forrest has a Southern drawl like no other - and it's all written out, syllable by syllable, in the novel. I asked Bob if we couldn't soften it a bit. He said, `No. You gotta do it. The accent is what it's all about. All the great ones do it.' I started thinking, `Well, maybe I'm just not one of the great ones.' ''
Hanks won the Oscar last year for ``Philadelphia'' but firmly contends: ``I'm not a craftsman or an artist. I just play parts. The Oscar floats around the house. Sometimes it's in the kitchen. Right now, it's in the kid's room - in his, sorta, trophy case. The whole thing is a real rush. I really recommend it. It's all that you'd expect it to be - all the attention.''
``But,'' he added, ``it's a little like seeking the white whale in `Moby Dick.' I'm glad I got it off my back this early in life. Now, that's done. It's like I have an Oscar, so let's not worry about that any more and get on to other things. It should last about 14 days, which it did. Then it's over.''
Hanks was particularly pleased to have Field, a two-time Oscar winner, play his mother. Just a few years ago, she was cast as his slightly older love interest in ``Punchline.''
``She is one of the treasures of Americana - one of our great actresses,'' Hanks said. ``We needed someone who could hold the little Forrest in their arms and yet would still be there for the adult Forrest. Sally was the only one who could do it. Ageism doesn't worry her. It was just a matter of makeup.''
Field, passing in the hallway, said: ``Yeah. Yeah. It's nice what you said, but could you stop calling me `Mama' now?''
Hanks believes that ``the bonding between a son and his mother is something special. Personally, I was raised by my father. My mother was not around a lot, but still I could play this. I realized, when my mom was around, that a son listens more intently to her. I think it's because of the differences of sex. When she told me that there was no excuse for bad table manners, I believed it.''
Born and raised in Oakland, Calif., Hanks attended California State University in Sacramento. He married at age 21 and had two children in short order. He divorced and, in 1988, married actress Rita Wilson. Their son, Chester, is 4.
Wright, his co-star, said: ``Forrest is so much a part of Tom. He's good-hearted and with no pretense.''
Mykelti Williamson, who plays Bubba, said: ``The guy's a card. He's an accomplished actor and he's serious about it, but he likes to joke. Once, in South Carolina, we were passing a wedding crowd that was leaving the church. Tom jumped out of the car, kissed both the bride and the groom, and then jumped back in and we left. They kept asking, `Was that Tom Hanks?' as we drove away.''
Gary Sinise, who plays Lt. Dan, the macho military man who is saved by Forrest in Vietnam, opined: ``Tom is a very generous actor. He's very easy. You're very comfortable playing a scene with him.''
Not all of Hanks' career has been easy, though. Not many remember the flop ``Joe Versus the Volcano,'' but ``Bonfires of the Vanities'' was a famous failure.
``I had no idea it was going wrong when we were filming it,'' he said. `` `Bonfire of the Vanities' was a famous book, much in the national consciousness. I knew we'd either make a `Gone With the Wind' or `The Fountainhead.' We made `The Fountainhead.' Now, looking back, I see some things that could have been done differently, but I didn't notice them at the time.''
The makers of ``Forrest Gump'' had to go through thousands of newsreel clips to put Forrest in the Rose Garden with John F. Kennedy and in the same spot as Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon and even John Lennon. The process is a refinement of the technology used by Woody Allen in ``Zelig.''
For a scene filmed at the Lincoln Memorial and Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., a huge crowd was needed to simulate a Vietnam-era peace rally. Look closely and you'll see lookalikes for Abbie Hoffman, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Benjamin Spock and Peter, Paul and Mary. Only 1,500 extras were used for the scene. With the help of computers, they are multiplied to look like hundreds of thousands in the finished film.
Forrest also becomes a world-class table tennis champion.
``I wasn't very good,'' Hanks admits. ``What you see is movie magic. It's like you know Paul Newman didn't eat all those eggs in `Cool Hand Luke.' ''
Next, Hanks will play an astronaut in ``Apollo 13'' for director Ron Howard.
He admits, though, that it will take awhile - perhaps forever - to get Gump out of his system.
``I hope I will always keep the simplicity of Forrest,'' he said. ``We all know life isn't that simple, but that's why we like Forrest. He has it all down to basics.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
In ``Forrest Gump,'' Tom Hanks races through adventures. At left, he
meets a man he saved in Vietnam. Sally Field, right, plays his
mother.
Photo
Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) finds his one true love in Jenny Curran
(Robin Wright) in the movie ``Forrest Gump.''
Graphic
MOVIE REVIEW
``Forrest Gump''
Cast: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson,
Sally Field
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenplay: Eric Roth
Music: Alan Silvestri
MPAA rating: PG-13 (some language)
Mal's rating: Four stars
Locations: Movies 10 in Chesapeake; Janaf in Norfolk; Kemps
River, Lynnhaven Mall, Pembroke, Surf-n-Sand in Virginia Beach
by CNB