Sabine Moller analyzes the reasons why “Forrest Gump” had overwhelming box office and still maintains its reputation and popularity until today. She points out that how this movie makes a strong connection with baby boomers through showing vividly American historical events and why this movie can successfully lead audience into the scenes by its narrative technique. Moreover, Moller also illustrates that “Forrest Gump” targeted large group of audiences since it belongs to family movie, and she explained why this movie also has a great influence for the next generation based on its historical content.
In addition, she shows how social media play a major role for the popularity in 21st century. Moller’s opinions are very clear and her article is very straightforward. She provides many value reasons for audiences who want to know the success behind “Forrest Gump,” and it has many authentic data and analyses from psychologists and expertise. Biography Sabine Moller is a contemporary history professor at Humboldt University Berlin. And, she earned her PhD degree at the University of Hanover. She has written many journals in German.
This article is her area of expertise since she did a research about the interrelationship between films and viewers’ historical consciousness at Stanford University for 3 years. She has not written other articles about “Forrest Scott, Steven D. “”Like a Box of Chocolates’: ‘Forrest Gump’and Postmodernism. ” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1, 2001, pp. 23-31. Steven D. Scott discusses the commercial strategies and the theme of postmodernism, which “Forrest Gump” adopted leading to the success of this movie in Hollywood history. He discusses the selling tactics that “Forrest Gump” uses to hit the box office.
Moreover, he states that how the director Robert Zmemckis use technology, values of American dream, Gump’s image and historical events to reflect the idea of postmodernism and make it become a major part of popular history of America. He also talks about the reason why writer decides to use Forrest Gump as the character’s name and the effect of lenny as a negative example. This article is worth to read because Scott explains the success from another angle to watch this movie critically and the value of this movie in Hollywood. Thus, people who want to dig into and analyze this remarkable movie might be the audience for this article.
Biography Steven D. Scott is an assistant professor of English language and literature at Brock University, Canada. He is interested in postmodern and contemporary literature area. He earned his PhD degree at Brock University. Since he is studying postmodern literature, he analyzes this movie through his expertise, and he does not have any relevant article about this movie. Lavery, David. “No Box of Chocolates’: The Adaptation of ‘Forrest Gump. ” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 1, 1997, pp. 18-22. David Lavery discusses the contrast between novel “Forrest Gump” and movie “Forrest Gump” in his article.
He points out how the screenwriter Eric Roth changed the tone, personality of characters and plot and why Roth made those decisions. And, he states that Roth rewrite the content more logical because the different characteristics between Tom Hanks and Gump in the novel and the different settings. He also lists some questions about adaption from novel Forrest Gump and analyzes them. Moreover, he believes that all the changes in the movie is for marketing purpose. It is interested to see that Lavery layouts different angles of adaption by raising many question.
And, this article can solve people who are curious about the changing between novel and movie and want to know why it is different in the movie. Although this article raises many good points about the difference, the author does not answer all the answer that he shows. Biography David Lavery is an English professor and popular culture, philosophy, and English literature scholar at Middle Tennessee State University. He received his PhD degree from Middle Tennessee State University. He was a professor in Film and Television at Brunel University during 2006 to 2008.
He has written many books on popular culture such as “Late for the Sky: The Mentality of the Space Age”. The article is his expertise but he has not written other articles about “Forrest Gump”. Part 3 All of those three articles can help me answer my research question: What is the marketing strategy that Hollywood uses for selling their movie in 90s? since they mention the tactics that “Forrest Gump” used made it become popular and successful movie. In the article, “Like a Box of Chocolates’: ‘Forrest Gump’ and Postmodernism,” Scott states that the video is available after two Christmases after the movie released, which was ncluded in a box of chocolate. It matches the famous line in Forrest Gump “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’ll get”; in the meanwhile, it is a suitable present for family to enjoy chocolate while watching this film during Christmas. Lavery also talks about his experience of this combination of chocolate and video Forrest Gump in a local Kroger store, and he believes that this signature line is for marketing decision since the original sentence in the novel is “being an idiot is no box of chocolates” because audience did not expect to see such ironic and dark theme appear in this pure and inspirational movie.
Moreover, Scott claims that Forrest Gump caught the main popular culture during 90s. Since everyone has an American dream, Scott states that the value of a successful person or hero is having abilities to create wealth and he says all of Gump’s enterprises are profoundly commercial: everything he touches makes him money. ” Furthermore, the new technology in the movie attracted audience.
Scott argues that on the first scene the director Robert Zemeckis elaborately applies a feather by long unbroken pan shot falling to Gump which “is a remarkable piece of work” and he believes that this falling feather reflects the romantic and tragic love between Jenny and Gump. Similarly, Sabine Moller talks about new technology in his article. She says that this movie reappears those famous historical person and events are new for everyone. In addition, the range of audience is large because this movie is defined as a family movie.
Moller claims that baby boomers as their main audience which is a very large group of people in the society would like to take their children to enjoy this movie with them because they want to tell their children the experiences they have been went through and they want to teach their children about the history of America since this movie contains the major events that happened on the last century. More importantly, she mentions that many magazines and newspaper gave Forrest Gump positive reviews which expand its publicity and popularity. Furthermore, the article Blockbusting history: Forrest Gump as a powerful medium of American cultural memory” can help me answer my second research question why this movie is still popular until today? Moller points out that the legend of Forrest Gump is still living in many American minds today because of its social and media networks. She says, “Forrest Gump has been used as an intergenerational medium to great effect. ” Based on its historical theme, about 78 percent of students who participated a survey showed they have been watched Forrest Gump in their US history class.
In other words, Forrest Gump’s function in the society is profound which beyond entertainment. It also be labeled a PG-13 for no barriers as an educational tool for students. In addition, another way that Forrest Gump maintains its popularity through social media such as Facebook which it has more than 500 thousand friends. Many people show their trips on social media for following the tours that Forrest does in the movie. And, there are many “Bubba Gump Shrimp Restaurants” open in the world so that people who has experience in these restaurants sharing their photos in social media.
My last research question: Compared with the novel Forrest Gump, Why the screenwriter make some changes in the movie Forrest Gump? I can get answer from the article “No Box of Chocolates’: The Adaptation of ‘Forrest Gump” David Lavery shows many adaptation from characters” personality, tone, theme. The screenwriter made many changes based on the actors and marketing purpose. Because Tom Hanks is one of the hottest man in Hollywood, he has some characteristics different from the original Forrest Gump, so the screenwriter had to make some changes to make the plots smoother.
For example, shrimp boat captain is more suitable for Hanks’s image instead of a “very un-cinematic shrimp farmer. ” Moreover, because movie has limited time to run, the screenwriter has to delete some plots that are unnecessary showing to audiences. In addition, the movie wants to highlight the themes that can motivate audiences. Gump in the novel never cares about his mother, but in the film, he is a completely devoted son. Lavery believes that the screenwriter made this adaptation for his mother famous line “life is like a box of chocolates”, and his mother is one of the reasons that Gump becomes an outstanding person.
Lavery also explains the reason why makes Bubba an African-American in the movie because the shrimp business is largely controlled by African-American enterprise so that Gump chose to establish Bubba Shrimp company after Bubba died to commemorate him. Moller uses many authors’ opinions from other scholarly articles to support his argument about how those historical events work in Forrest Gump, and she also uses some psychological research from psychanalysts to show how “individual memories are reconstructed based on present social frameworks” and why audience are moved by those historical events.
Moreover, she supports how popular Forrest Gump is through some survey. In Scott’s article, he uses many articles from people who are experts of literature and film to discuss the postmodernism in Forrest Gump and American dream, and he also analyzes other experts’ opinions about why Forrest Gump is so popular. In addition, Lavery uses article about the analysis of Forrest Gump’s characteristics in the movie, and he uses film critic’s opinion to explain Jenny’s characteristics in the movie.
More importantly, these primary sources were written in the last century. I think these same primary sources could be used in my research because all of the authors are trying to answer my research questions by providing different angles. More importantly, those primary sources are reliable because they are adopted by scholars at some University.
