American Cinema: MAIN EVENTS OF THE LATTER HALF OF 20TH CENTURY IN USA IN FORREST GUMP

This is an American film directed by Robert Zemeckis in 1994, whose topics are romance, comedy and drama. It is based on the novel written by Winston Groom in 1986 which has the same name. The main actors are Tom Hanks playing the role of Forrest Gump, Robin Wright as Jenny, Gary Sinise playing as Lt. Dan Taylor, Mykelti Williamson as Bubba and Sally Field. The music was by Alan Silvestri and it was produced by Paramount Pictures Company.
Tom Hanks won an Oscar to the Best Actor in 1955 thanks to his role in Forrest Gump. This was not the only prix that this fantastic film won in 1995. Some of those prix were the following:

Oscar to the best movie
Oscar to the best director
Oscar to the best picture
Oscar to the best adapted screenplay
Oscar to the best film aditing
Oscar to the best visual effects

Forrest Gump is a man from Alabama who has a mental disability. During the film, he is going over old times while waiting a bus talking about his childhood, youth and all the memories that he has. He is always telling all the advices that his mother told him. Of course, he always mentions his great love, Jenny, with whom he has a special relationship all over the film. At the end, a surprising final will make this film one of your favorites.
Here you can have a look to the official trailer:

Watching this film, you can understand more about the recent American history. Of course, it shows a critic in some aspects of that American period. First of all, it shows the Vietnam War (1959-1975), how it was and who belonged to the American Army at that time. As you can see, a lot of black people fight and died in the American army against Vietnam. Also, it shows how black people started to be more protected and people did mass meeting to fight against the participation of black people in the Vietnam War. Also, black people started to be included in the Universities.

It is also the period when the AIDS appears. It can be observed very well at the very end of the film when they speak about an unknow illness due to a virus.

Also, we can see the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963 and the Watergate affair is also mentioned and appears in the film. It was a political scandal of the US when Nixon was the President in the 70’s. Moreover, the film also shows when somebody tried to assassinate the president Ronald Reagan a few days after he assumed the presidency in 1981.
To know more about those events, here you have some videos in which are everything explained:

It can be observed a controversy with the religion. At first, it appears a scene in which Jenny told Forrest to pray with her and they prayed together. Then, Lt. Dan Taylor told Forrest that God doesn’t exist.

In my opinion, this film shows important values in our lives: love and friendship. With this film we can learn that to keep the promises is very important. Also, we can observe how the relationship between Bubba and Forrest is when they know each other. They made a lot of plans and are together until the end, the same happens with love. The love is very important in our live and it goes further away than a mental disability. Everybody loves in a personal way, not matter the phisical appearance, disabilities, ilness, color or wherever.

I have learnt a lot thanks to this film and of course it has became one of my favorites movies. I have understood better a little more about the recent American history. Thanks to some events that are shown in that film we have now a better world in which there is more equality among people (black and white, people with some disability, etc.).

American Cinema

Sunday, May 10, 2015

MAIN EVENTS OF THE LATTER HALF OF 20TH CENTURY IN USA IN FORREST GUMP

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