by Chris Marshall:
Never judge a Best Picture winner based on the quality of
its competition. I brought this point up more than ten posts ago, but the 1994
Academy Awards were a prime example of this phenomenon. Because Forrest Gump won in a year when Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption were both nominated, it’s easy to fall
into the trap of criticizing the film based not on its own merit, but on the
fact that it beat out arguably superior competition.
That’s not to say this is the only criticism of Forrest Gump, of course, but it is a
current of thought I’ve heard expressed before. Yes, I think Pulp Fiction is a better movie[1],
one of the best ever made, but that has nothing to do with the quality of Forrest Gump, which I think is a
perfectly fine film in its own right. Maybe that’s due to sheer repetition; I’ve
mentioned before that I’ve likely seen it more than any other Best Picture
winner. But whatever the reason, I think its quality should only be judged on
criteria intrinsic to the film.
For all his acclaim, it still surprises me that this is the
only winner Tom Hanks has ever appeared in. He also won Best Actor for playing
the title role, his second year in a row to win the top acting award. In this
film, he creates one of the most iconic characters of the last 20 years. With
the possible exception of Titanic, I’d
argue that Forrest Gump is more
ingrained in pop culture than any other Best Picture winner of the 1990s.
