Gump’s Musical Box of Chocolates Essay

Project Overview   Audience worldwide was hit by the wisdom of a mentally challenged character named Forrest Gump who lived in America throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. Forrest Gump lived a full life despite his mental condition. He participated and became a very special part in the many histories that shaped the nation. As important events surround the main character, he also essentially evolves into a man with his sense of American values intact, unstirred and pure.   At the least, theme of the film revolves around the circumstances found in one’s environment that eventually shapes the citizen but moreso, the movie is about how a most unlikely American citizen was able to help shape his country just by being true to himself. But more than anything else, the movie adaptation of the 1985 novel by Winston Groom sets itself apart as a film inspired by its musical scores. Forest Gump, the movie, was born during the time when Hollywood films were relentlessly doing films in order to sell its soundtracks. At most times, a movie fan would find himself realizing that all the songs used in the movie are packaged in music CDs sold in stores. The more familiar these songs were, the better a young group of audience would enjoy and remember the film, but not the movie Forrest Gump. This paper aims to discuss the history surrounding the film and how it was used to weave the story into a creative fiction that borders the documentary film genre. The paper will choose one scene and proceed with an in depth music analysis of the scene in relation to the whole theme of the movie. And finally, the discourse will point out arguments that make and unmake categorizing this film under fiction or under the documentary genre. History of work surrounding the film   Highlights in America’s history were used in throughout the film so much so that the viewer will realize this pattern a few minutes after the opening of the movie. The screenwriters was able to do this by focusing on the life of Forrest Gump from being a child with braces to becoming a millionaire who just had to send his son to school for the rest of his life. Amongst the highlights of the film worth discourse is Forrest Gump’s joining the Vietnam war without even understanding the whole issues of the war. For some critics looking just above the movie’s thesis, they would be enraged at the idea that the film espouses dumb American college graduates that join in the war are the ones who actually live and become a hero. However, the beauty of the war scenes is the ability of the movie to present the reality of the actual era using music and songs juxtaposed in those scenes. Scene Analysis   The effectiveness of film music lie in its capacity to set a scene to transform itself from the usual to the memorable. Many of the scenes in the movie elaborate on three levels of symbolisms. It’s narrative deals with the life of one man, it’s visuals elaborate on the life of a nation while the music used presented that cultural insights found by the generation as synthesized into a hallmark hit song. The scenes that relate to the interactions of Forrest and Jenny, the girl in Forrest life from childhood to adulthood are the bookmarks of the film. Each meeting is juxtaposed with a popular music very much relevant to the year being shown. The popular music are sung by musicians that topped the charts during their era due to the creativity of their songs to project the general sentiments of the prevailing American Culture. For example, in the scene when Jenny who was at the hippie stage of the flower power culture met Forrest who was at that time was just given a congressional medal by the government for being a hero during the Vietnam war where he was able to save his whole platoon except for his best friend Bubba, met at the national capital. Though they were dressed differently, the two friends had the time of their lives to exchange what happened to them while one was away. This slow movement of two friends circling the D.C. monument was surrounded with the music of The Byrds entitled â€Å"Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There is a Season†. The Byrds was considered a major band in the 1960s that helped bridge the gap between Bob Dylan’s socially conscious folk music and the Beatles’ hybrid pop creations. The Byrds was in the crossroads, much like where Forrest and Jenny were in the scene at the Washington DC monument. The band helped facilitate other rock subgenres such as the folk, space, raga, psychedelic, jangle and country rock. â€Å"Turn! Turn! Turn!† was one of the many markers of the band. The song theme revolved around change that was happening to America in the 60s. So much decision and events were happening causing many things to change including worldview, lifestyles and cultures. In the Washington DC scene, the audience is given a breather to hope for the possibility of Forrest and Jenny to finally be together since Forrest was now a medaled soldier. The music even helped suggest this because the lyrics involved the fact of life where there is a time for everything. â€Å"To everything – turn, turn, turn, there is a season – turn, turn, turn And a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born, a time to die A time to plant, a time to reap, a time to kill, a time to heal A time to laugh, a time to weep† The lyrics above prove that the music chosen for this scene carried the deeper subtext of the scene. To illustrate, the Vietnam war was a monumental venue where America had the chance to ‘turn’ and change its worldviews. If it was Jenny being asked to ‘turn’ during the scenes in Washington DC, the scene ended up with Jenny boarding a bus away from Forrest Gump who have just professed his love and wanting to take care of her. Unfortunately, much like war hungry politicians, Jenny still decided not to turn and continue living the American disparate life. With this kind of music use in film format, the success of the scoring lie in its ability to stand strongly at par with the particular scene being performed. â€Å"The deeper reality of film music, the necessity which found body in its lucky accident, involves the way the film tries to evoke a sort of temporary and illusive â€Å"film-subjectivity,† which closely mimics our everyday subjectivity. To do this, the film must rely on tactics far beyond simply spinning a good yarn. The film experience must imitate in some way all three overlapping dimensions of subjective reality: the symbolic, the real and the imaginary. The method by which this is done involves very heavily the use of film music.† (Spande, 2006) For example, the song â€Å"Fortunate Sons† that was used in the Vietnam war scenes was actually a hit during the 60s because it exposed the discrimination of the times. On the scene, Forrest and Bubba becomes good friends despite their differences in race but the subtext of the song used reminded the audience that during that time the discrimination against sending governments officials’ sons to the war was an issue that was never discussed lengthly in the movies.   But using â€Å"Fortunate Sons† is just one of the film’s tactics using music to get the movie theme’s a little deeper into analysis. Argument of the Film’s Genre   The film is definitely a documentary film if the scholar would take the character of Forrest Gump out of every historical scene set up. Since one cannot do that, the film becomes categorized under the ‘mockumentary’ film genre that is also known as fictional documentary or also called as false documentary. When filmmakers would want to project satire and parodies in historical events or real life documentaries, they would opt to use mockumentaries. Gump’s being an artfilm type of mockumentary is done by its creative and effective choice of music that would highlight each scene. Forrest Gump is one of those films where the audience would get to realize that each song played has a purposive element attached to the movie and not merely placed just to make the soundtrack sell.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Forrest Gump has elements that would tend to mock at historical events established and regarded highly by society. One example to visualize the genre in the film is the scene where Forrest Gump narrates how it just simply rained in Vietnam. Describing the rain borders on the ultimate mockery made on film against the Vietnam war where thousands of American soldiers died just to experience rain coming from all sides of a walking, sleeping or running soldier. Another example would be the juxtaposing Forrest on filmed documentaries where the President of the United States shakes hands with Forrest, not knowing the Vietnam war veteran hero and the Ping-Pong American Champion who conquered China had below average IQ. And the most ingenius mockery at real documentaries is when Forrest Gump is insinuated as part ‘creator’ of Elvis Presley famous rock and roll dance steps and John Lennon’s hit song ‘Imagine’.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Though the movie follows the mock documentary genre, it trail blazes the particular film genre by its crafty juxtaposition of the very effective music. The musical scores of the scenes help the mock documentary be elevated into a higher kind of mock documentary film. What may be trivial onscreen is transformed into an author’s stand on the issue by means of the theme that the particular song is playing. The scene, for scholarly viewers therefore becomes an essay. This effective soundtrack helps the film elevate itself towards being an art film. The fact that producers said that the film did not earn as much proves that Forrest Gump can sit with art films under the mockumentary category. Summary   Forrest Gump is a classic piece of modern art film where it successfully used music, history and a timeless piece of character to present the wisdom in surviving American life during the decades of the 50s throughout the early 80s. The movie did not solely focused on Gump’s being mentally challenged. The movie started with that situation but ended up triumphantly with Gump achieving so much more than a lot other people would be able to do so. And he did that by just remaining as true to himself. Just like all the music used throughout the film, these cuts all came from hit albums of the composers who have achieved leadership not only in the song charts during their time. These songs and their composers have essentially becomes historical bookmarks, elements of change, transformation agents of history in both their fields and in American society. References: Forrest Gump. DVD. 1994 Spande, Robert. 2006. Three Regimes: A Theory of Film Music [http://web.archive.org/web/20031208182300/http://www.franklinmarketplace.com/filmmusic.html]