Saturday 9 September 2023

Forest Gump (1994 Robert Zemeckis)

Billy Wilder to Cameron Crowe: "I loved it. I just thought, there lived among us a very normal human being that is slightly on the minus side. Forrest was not retarded. He was honest, and good, and true... and a little slow. He's a naive man.. A straight man to the world. And how the world looks through his eyes, that is just wonderful, I think. It is a picture about America that could only have been made in America. I love it."

We know the film well but hadn't seen it for nine years. It's very well written by Eric Roth, from Winston Groom novel. Screenplay, film, Hanks and Zemeckis won Oscars, as did Arthur Schmidt (assisted Jim Clark on Marathon Man) for editing, and the visual effects team. Don Burgess's cinematography was nominated - he also shot Cast Away.

Amazing that we'd just seen Mykelti Williamson (Bubba) in a completely different role in 12 Angry Men. I seem to remember Hanks saying that his accent was based on that of the boy who plays him young, Michel Connor Humphreys.

As an aside, and to take us full circle, Schmidt's dad Arthur P. worked with Billy cutting Sabrina, Ace in the Hole, Sunset Bldv,. The Spirit of St Louis and Some Like It Hot.


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