Gem – 1994: Forrest Gump
1994 was a stellar Oscar year to say the least. All of the Best Picture nominees have since continued to gather critical and public praise, standing the harsh test of time dished out by Mother Hollywood. Pulp Fiction; the cult classic which crosses the threshold between geek appreciation and critic’s darling, Quiz Show; a subtle slow burning drama with a game-shows-are-fixed story way ahead of its time, Four Weddings And A Funeral; one of the most successful comedic introductions to a foreign cinema, and The Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont’s life-changing tale of the everyman vs. the man.
So why did Forrest Gump win, and why is it so undeserving? The moment Gump won a simple message was sent by the Academy to Hollywood, one which has resonated throughout the history of the Oscars. If your running time is 30 minutes too long, if your story follows a person’s struggle with overcoming adversity, if an actor uglies themselves up, and if there’s a tear-jerking death: you will retreat home at the end of Oscar night with a shopping trolley full of awards. That’s not to say that the Academy doesn’t recognise brilliance outside of its traditions. For example, in 1986 a landmark nomination for Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Ellen Ripley in the sci-fi masterpiece, Aliens, was considered daring. Rarely do these nominees go on to win, however, and Forrest Gump fulfils the Academy’s prerequisite list of award-worthy attributes with devastating accuracy.
What it fails to do is emerge from its category as undoubtedly better than its competitors. How can any one person who knows a smidgen about cinema say straight faced that Forrest Gump is a better example of an “outstanding achievement” in cinema than Pulp Fiction? Gump’s director Robert Zemeckis could have taken an innovative approach to tackling a typical biopic, and yet at few points does the film stretch its boundaries. It plods forward like a cow to slaughter; knowing it’ll end up a burger or stuffed by the front door to scare the Avon lady. It’s slow, steady and predictable.
There were two obvious competitors for Forrest Gump. Pulp Fiction, the strongest contender for originality, yanked its narrative structure from the norm, punched it in the face a few times then reassembled it while also trying to frost a cake. It triumphs. The non-chronological narrative serves not as distraction but as a part of the plot itself, while weaving multiple story strands across time, recasting Hollywood’s has-beens (Travolta, Willis) and generating counter culture dialogue. You cannot doubt that it changed cinema in 1994.
And of course, The Shawshank Redemption. What’s interesting to note now is the boom of post-1994 popularity the film has garnered. It failed to rake it in at the box office and went on to become a classic on home video, so it’s no surprise that it didn’t bring home the Best Picture award. Why is that? Surely it adheres to the same rigid unspoken rules by which Gump won. Following the tale of Andy Dufresne as he is wrongly incarcerated for his wife and her lover’s death, Shawshank knows when to urge melodrama and when to tell its story without costume. It succeeds in marrying the two via the performances of Tim Robbins as Dufresne, Morgan Freeman as his best friend Red, and Bob Gunton in his most memorable role as the Warden. Like Pulp Fiction, it has changed film; quotable dialogue, a triumphant tale without twee ceremony, and the endlessly-spoofed crane shot of Robbins in the rain, arms outstretched to the sky.
It’s a wonder if the Academy took into consideration Gump’s most popular quotation: “Life is a like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Because with Forrest Gump, you knew exactly what you were getting, and that is not the mettle of which Oscar winners are made.