Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546034
38 C I N E M O N T A G E B O O K R E V I E W By Peter Tonguette S peaking with the authority of one who watched the event from his liv- ing room, I'd say the 1995 Academy Awards had a quality of inevitability. On the whole, the previous year had been top-notch, movie-wise: Among the five Best Picture nominees, Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and Mike Newell's "Four Weddings a n d a F u n e ra l " o f f e re d t w o sides of the indie film coin — the first a keyed-up noir epic, the second a gently comic bauble — while Robert Redford's "Quiz Show" and Frank Darabont's "The Shawshank Redemption" represented something like a last stand for the sober-minded, thoughtfully directed medi- um-budget studio movie. But then there was "Forrest Gump" — the latest example, af- ter "Back to the Future" (1985), "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988), and "Death Becomes H e r " ( 1 9 9 2 ) , o f f i l m m a k e r Robert Zemeckis's facility at marshaling visual effects tech- nology to tell a story that would be otherwise untellable without such effects. As we all remem- b e r, To m H a n k s s t a r r e d a s Forrest Gump, whose kindly dis- position proves no impediment to his integral if inconspicuous role in the pageant of contempo- rary American history. Thanks to Zemeckis and company, Hanks-as-Forrest was seen to share the screen with Lyndon B. John- son, Abbie Hoffman, and Richard Nixon, among others. RUN, FORREST, RUN HOW AN UNLIKELY MOVIE FABLE TOUCHED A GENERATIONAL CHORD The f ilm's companionable storytell- i n g — a n d , o f c o u r s e, t h o s e te c h n i c a l innovations — rendered it a shoo-in on Oscar night, at least from where I sat. Not that I shared, at the time, what I assumed to be the Academy's enthusiasm: Being a film-buff-in-training, I would have cast my vote for nearly any of the other films in contention: "Pulp Fiction," sure, but I also loved the stateliness of "Quiz Show" and the unapologetic cheer of "Four Weddings," to say nothing of the hilarity of Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway" and the magis- terial command of Krzysztof Kieslowki's "Three Colors: Red" (whose directors were nominated that night). But I was certain that Tarantino was right when he said, upon accepting Best Original Screenplay with "Pulp Fiction" cowriter Roger Avary: "I think this is probably the only award I'm going to win here tonight!" Reading between the lines, even Tarantino must have known: a "Forrest Gump" sweep was a fait accompli. Well, "we" were right: "For- rest Gump" won Best Picture, Best Director for Zemeckis, Best Actor for Hanks, Best Adapted Screenplay for Eric Roth (adapt- ing the novel by Winston Groom), B e s t F i l m E d i t i n g fo r A r t h u r Schmidt, ACE, and Best Visual Effects for Ken Ralston, George Murphy, Allen Hall, and Stephen R o s e n b a u m . ( Fo r t h e re co rd , having set aside some of my ado- lescent pretensions, I have come to admire "Forrest Gump.") Reading the excellent new b o o k "O n t h e S e t o f ' Fo r re s t Gump'" by Steve Starkey — one of the film's producers and, thus, one of those who walked home with a Best Picture statuette 31 years ago — is a lesson in how the triumph that seemed so obvious to some of us was not at all obvious to Holly- wood, especially higher-ups at its studio, Paramount Pictures. The book opens with a remarkably candid account of a preview P H OT O : P H OT O F E S T Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump."