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Cinematic Retards
The evil Piper over at Lazy Eye Theater has written this article about what he considers to be Tom Hanks’ terrible performance in Forrest Gump. Our other dear friend Burbanked chimed in with a slightly approving comment regarding Piper’s blasphemy.
I respectfully disagree, and here’s why.
The cinematic portrayal of mentally-challenged people - more correctly known as “retards” - has long been Oscar-bait. Of Mice And Men was first adapted onto film in 1939 and led to four Oscar nominations including Best Picture. From then on, mentally-challenged people were portrayed in a usually violent way - think Psycho - but still garnered high praise.
But the current trend began with One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nestin 1977. The film featured several unforgettable performances, led by Jack Nicholson as Randle Patrick McMurphy. Notice how well everyone comes off in this scene:
Many people - apparently Piper included - mistakenly believes that “acting crazy” is easy to do as an actor. Flail your arms, drool, and scream - that’s all of the acting required to pull off a scene or performance like this. However, roles of this sort beg to be overplayed, and only the smart actor can raise it above the level of maudlin or painfully obvious.
As a double-dip, check out how subtley Nicholson “plays dumb” while enhancing a raw, excruciating scene like this:
The touchstone for this type of performance is probably Dustin Hoffmann’s in Rainman. While I consider the movie to be a tad overrated, it is shocking how well Hoffman manages to pull a credible performance out of the peculiar mannerisms and dialect of Raymond in this film.
The character of Raymond could have very easily tipped over into something unbelievable had Hoffman not carefully calibrated his performance.
The same could be said of a comedically-oriented performance like Jeff Daniels in Dumb And Dumber. Even though the film is played broadly - even by Farrelly standards - Daniels still grounds his character in a slapstick reality that sells the performance:
Contrasting that is something like I Am Sam, Sean Penn’s ill-conceived Oscar grab. Maudlin and over-the-top from the very beginning, the performance is marred both by terrible writing and Penn’s insistence on wringing every last drop of pathos from the character.
So what about Hanks? His Forrest Gump performance was certainly a risky one, with a halting, affected vocal delivery and cutesy mannerisms. In fact, the trailers I saw prior to seeing the film made me wary of Hanks in the role. Even during the first viewing, I cringed slightly over a few moments.
However, Hanks managed to overcome objections by revealing the humanity and decency inside the caricature. It’s hard to find a decent clip from the movie (damn copyright infringement!), but this is definitely a great scene from Hanks. Forrest is slow, he knows it, but he also has an essential pride. Who hasn’t felt this way about an unrequited love?
Piper, I think you’re wrong about this one. Forrest might not be the best Hanks creation, nor my absolute favorite performance of his (that might be The Money Pit, hilariously enough), but it is a powerful, career-defining performance worthy of most of the accolades heaped on it.
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16 Responses to “Cinematic Retards”
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I have to agree with Ray here. I think Forrest Gump is a brilliant movie and it is mostly due to the performance by Hanks. Don’t get me wrong, I think Gary Sinise and Sally Field were also great in their roles, but the movie is nothing without Hanks as Gump. I’m not sure another actor could have captivated an audience playing Forrest like Hanks did, just image Sean Penn, John Travolta or Nicolas Cage playing the part.
He could have easily just went took the role and done the usually flailing arms, drooling, oblivious retard, but he choose not too. He took the Gump character and made him something special. He gave him just enough qualities that your normal everyday person could relate to and to that he added the lovable simple mindedness of a disillusioned retard.
Good Lord, I can’t believe there are people out there defending Forrest Gump. If I knew that I would have created Gump sympathizers, I would have never written the piece. Is there a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant in St. Louis?
As I said in response to Eric. I’m not dissing Tom Hanks. I like Tom Hanks. It’s just a stupid character and a bad movie. Yes, he made him something more than he could have been, but it’s still a stupid movie. Sorry, that’s where I am on this.
How great would it be if there was a Bubba Gump Shrimp in St. Louis. I would go an eat there just so I could watch all the retards that would be running the place. Thanks Piper for getting me all excited with that thought. Well, I guess I’ll have to settle with Joe’s Crab Shack.
“The cinematic portrayal of mentally-challenged people - more correctly known as “retards”
@ Ray - You are going to a very special hell when you die.
@ Piper - Bizarre. You actually think Forrest Gump is a bad movie. Hard to believe. It has its faults, but it is certainly a well-constructed, well-acted, and crowd-pleasing piece of entertainment.
@ Jared - I know, Isn’t it flattering to think that the Creator would make a place like that just for ME???
Well Ray, it’s official. I honestly can’t tell where you’re being sarcastic here and where you’re not. Whether that’s a tribute to your brilliant writing or my own thick-headedness, I’m not sure but there it is.
The anti-GUMP backlash following the movie’s Oscar wins was quick, decisive and brutal, and to some extent I understand it. I find Zemeckis to be a frustrating filmmaker - technically brilliant, emotionally solid but at times so wrong-headed in terms of story and editing that I sit, confounded and frustrated, by his flaws.
But I don’t think - on balance - that the movie’s shortcomings take away from Hanks’ performance. To be sure, there are many of the stock actor tricks when it comes to playing these kinds of parts, but the late-story moment when Gump asks Jenny “Is he smart” about their son is pretty much worth the price of admission right there.
And the fact that you include DUMB AND DUMBER here to actually support your point is, I think, both delightful and maddening. MAD, I TELL YOU.
@Burbanked - Seriously, please … someone tell me where the movie’s flaws are. I don’t believe it has serious flaws. I mean, it’s not perfect; I’m sure there are continuity errors, some special effects that don’t completely work, etc. But I feel that the characters and situations are unique and well-handled, the performances are iconic and fun, and it asks serious questions about our modern world that are worth examining.
Where are these flaws?????
I agree that the movie doesn’t have serious flaws, Ray, but I think it suffers from the same thing as a number of Zemeckis movies in that he’s not sure where to draw the line. Gump’s travels through history, and the instinct to insert him into SO MANY cultural moments has the effect, I think, of slamming the movie’s point home a bit too hard sometimes. The “shit happens” bit and invention of the smiley face icon are two good examples of this - as far as punchlines go, they’re ponderously set up, poorly paid off and really add nothing to the story or Gump’s impact on history. They’re throwaways, and I think if the movie suffers at all it’s from this kind of overdoingitness.
I’ve also read some critics who feel the movie short-changes the counter-culture movement of the 60s and 70s. Specifically, that the youths/hippies are seen not as agents of change or revolution but rather as silly, ineffectual and kind of pointless - and that Jenny is set up purely as a casualty of those times: a drifting, drug-addled whore who pays for her excesses with a sinner-deserving case of AIDS.
That’s the criticism I’ve read, anyway, and I’d welcome anyone to discuss it in more depth. I don’t completely agree with it, but on some level I can understand interpreting some of the movie’s themes that way.
Just because Zemeckis isn’t Tarantino, and Gump isn’t PulpFiction this movie will always be hated by those who were between the ages of 16 and 30 in 1994. And wrongfully so.
Is Pulp Fiction a better film? Probably. Is it better written? Maybe. Does it have better performances? I doubt it.
The truth is that once every one saw Resivour Dogs and Pulp Fiction, their little 16 year old balls started to hang really low and they felt really cool inside. Kind of how seeing the Godfather might make one feel.(Though make no mistake I am not putting Pulp Fiction on the same level with the Godfather.)
Tarantino made you feel tough and cool, Zemeckis didn’t. Therein lies the backlash of this generation toward the film. Had Forrest Gump come out 3 years earlier I doubt that many would feel this way about the film or Hank’s performance.
Don’t hate Hanks or Zemeckis because you perfer Pulp Fiction. Hate them for Polar Express.
I don’t like Forrest Gump because I like Reservoir Dogs? Nah, I don’t like Forrest Gump because it’s cheap entertainment. I will admit, if this movie didn’t win the Oscars, I might think differently of it. But it did, and it wasn’t deserving. It’s not the worst film, but it’s certainly not the best of the year. I can handle good, sappy, feel-good stuff just as much as the next metro-sexual, but this movie tried to do too much. And the heavy-handedness of the message here is no different from that of I Am Sam or K-Pax or any of that other shiite. And that is that we can learn a lot from simpletons.
@ Burbanked - Um, the film was an adaptation of a pre-existing novel. Zemekis didn’t make it up; he just filmed the story. And while I think that the story has some problems in the way you mention, it still is not supposed to be a docudrama, it’s a fantasy film.
@ Piper - No doubt that it’s heavy-handed, but I think the film mostly falls on the side of good judgement rather than bad judgement (as in the case of I AM SAM or K-PAX … I mean, really … K-PAX????). I think the message of GUMP had less to do with retards as it had to do with our changing times, and that examination alone is well done and interestingly handled.
Although I agree that Oscar snubs might have helped it in many eyes.
Ray, are you suggesting that a filmmaker has never screwed up a novel adaptation? That a director has never imbued an existing story with his own slant - whether that slant was good, bad, wrong-headed, too political, not funny enough, or simply misguided?
It sounds as though you’ve interpreted my comments to mean that I didn’t like GUMP, and actually I do. I think it goes a bit too far, it’s a bit too on-the-nose in some parts, but in general I like the movie and find it very re-watchable - and more to the point, I find it so primarily because of what Hanks brings to it, despite some of the story’s flaws.
You asked for citings of the movie’s flaws and I cited a few I’d read about. I don’t completely agree with them, but perhaps those who don’t like the movie likely wouldn’t have liked the source novel, either.
And I think that Chris makes a good point that comparatively speaking, PULP FICTION remains sacrosanct in the minds of movie lovers, more so than GUMP. The perceived slighting of one at the praise of another could be a motivating factor in the backlash.
Thank you Burbanked
Wow.
@ Ray - Do not worry, my own personal hell will be to join you for eternity.
If you want to see a great acting performance see The Lives Of Others.