In this context, “interpretation” is basically short hand for, “how the movie made me feel, and how I am able to intellectualize that emotional response.” As it is being used in this conversation, it’s pretty all-encompassing term for any reaction one has to the film, negative or positive. The only reasons for liking or disliking the film that would not fall under the umbrella of “interpretation” would be something wholly external to the film itself. Like, if you hated it because Tom Hanks once kicked your dog, that would be a non-interpretive reason for hating the film. What you’ve written here is a tautology. You could rewrite it as “if your reason to hate a movie is mainly the reason you hated the movie…” while still perfectly preserving the meaning.
I apologize for my failure to entertain.
If I’m trying to claim that interpretation as an objective truth, yes, I’m certainly wrong. But interpretation is not about objective truth, it’s about subjective response. If I read Jane Eyre, and all I can think about as I read it is how much it reminds me of the Berlin Wall, missiles in Cuba, and proxy wars in Southeast Asia… well, that’s admittedly a highly idiosyncratic reaction, but if that’s how I honestly respond to the work, in what way is that wrong? It’s my genuine emotional/intellectual reaction. This is the essence of reader response theory. It’s the idea of art, not as message, but as a mirror. That what we see in a work of art is not the artist, but a reflection of ourselves. That’s what makes art the most amazing, uniquely human thing in the world: that you can take a single object, with precisely measurable properties, show it to a million people, and receive a million different ideas about what it means. I find that the most astonishing thing imaginable. As a stone cold atheist, I find that damned close to miraculous. And that’s big reason why I respond very strongly when someone says, “You’re objectively wrong,” or (even worse), “You’re only saying that because you’re bitter/don’t get it/a fanboy,” and so forth, because I find that sort of sentiment profoundly disrespectful, not just to the other person, but to entire concept of art as a human endeavor itself.
I disliked Forrest Gump because it was boring.
Admittedly it’s been years since I watched it, but I have absolutely no desire to see it again.
Bahhh
Lets say there is a movie.
The people that love it claim this the story is as follows. Girl in trouble. Girl meets boy. Boy rescues girl. They live happily ever after.
This is the general interpretation and the reason why folks that love it love it.
Now, someone comes along and exclaims they hate that kinda of movie. Fine, thats all well and good and makes perfect sense and you like what you like and you hate what you hate.
Now, instead, lets say the haters have some interpretation that has little to nothing to do with the general/folks that love it interpretation. They claim the story is some kind of metaphor about why shopping at yard sales leads to the distruction of democracy. Lets also say their arguements as to why THEIR interpretation is the ONLY correct one is rather weak when it comes to their logic/analysis of the movie.
In the later case, I would argue that the haters are more the problem moreso than the movie itself.
Yes, yes, we liberal arts majors spend a lot of time talking about this, I get it. There is, I hope you see, a difference between a) saying you didn’t like because it reminds you of something, or makes you feel a way, that may (not) have been the creator’s intent, and b) not liking a work because its theme or underlying premise is [abc], when it objectively is not [abc].
Anyway, I’ve grown tired of defending a film that I said in my first post to this thread that I think is over-rated. But really, I’m not defending the film here, I’m – ahh, if we don’t get what I’m driving at by now, we won’t ever.
Btw, that edit was way outside of the five minute window.
I don’t think a theme or underlying premise can be objectively determined. I think those are ultimately subjective criteria.
And I’m not attacking a film I said in my first post I don’t recall well enough to discuss intelligently. I’m more interested in discussing process than results, anyway.
What can I say? I’m a mod. I cheat.
Also a more practical consideration: regardless of how good a person he was or how much he loved you, could you be happy long term with somebody who was borderline retarded?
In one of the After Hours shorts one of the characters mentions that a reverse sex Forrest Gump would be horrifying: a guy of normal intelligence brings a borderline retarded female childhood friend to orgasm in his dorm room and later returns and impregnates her- he’d be considered a total villain.
Very interesting and probably correct observation there.
You’re right. I’ll say what I was afraid to say in section all this time: Jane Eyre was a treatise on war, and ultimately a commentary whose premise was built on the futility of dissent. That’s why I didn’t like it.
True but Jenny wasn’t an evil person at all. She grew up under really hard circumstances herself. Her mother was gone and her father was molesting alcoholic. It isn’t any wonder that she got screwed up so much for so long. She was more like a sister to Forrest but they weren’t biologically related. She realized that he could probably never have a normal girl on his own so she filled in for it one night just to give him the experience. She was lucky that his mental condition wasn’t genetic for Little Forrest’s sake. Jenny was mostly straightened out when she found out she was dying of AIDS because she had a son to take care of. The question remains open if she would have told Big Forrest about Little Forrest at all if she wasn’t dying.
I find it really odd when people say the movie doesn’t have a plot or the characters are one-dimensional. All of them grew through circumstances and it all came together at the end for both good and bad.
Like I said back in post 106, this approach to critical theory relies on the supposition that the person offering up his opinion is doing so honestly. If you’re trying to demonstrate its flaws by presenting an interpretation you don’t actually support, you aren’t really understanding the point of the approach.
The most chilling scene in the movie to me was when Jenny was outside the strip club and was obviously contemplating jumping, then got in the truck with a stranger instead as the only way out. It also defined most of her life choices- acting impulsively was her coping mechanism.
I remember wondering when I watched it what became of her sisters. The movie never says, and the character’s completely different in the book.
I don’t think it was trying to do that, at all. Happenstance.
To me the best plausibility of the role model in FG was that he was just an inherently good person. It had nothing to do with “Hey, even a retard can get rich in America by letting things fall into his lap” or any other cynical viewpoint of the film. The message to me was “hey…sometimes even good things befall those that are in some way less intellectually prepared for life than others”.
And failing that, Forrest was a good person, always having loyal and good intentions. I fail to see anything wrong with celebrating that in a movie where suspension of disbelief is paramount, although I hear the protestations of those that think it was undeserving of its rewards based on the other films it was up against.
But its still a really good movie on its own merits, IMO. Obviously, MMV. Its a well polished feel-good story that came out at a proper time. That cannot be emphasized enough. When a movie comes out can often dictate its reception.
I’m certainly not going to anoint the film with laureate-worthy accolades or anything, but I too share the puzzlement of the OP WRT to hatred for the film. Its a really well-done film, in fact, and I still stand by the cynicism comment. Because it might make you cry.
I saw it with two Eurobabes and didn’t get laid by either of them.
Forrest is ultimately left with a son that he didn’t know for the first few years of his life, no other family, a job mowing a high school football field and 2/3rds of Lieutenant Dan. I am not sure where the criticisms about it being a confectionery piece of Americana are coming from. I had no idea some people thought that until I started this thread.
Some people see the Lieutenant 2/3 full. Others see it 1/3 empty I guess.
Hey, wth is going on. This thread is to list reasons for why people who hate FG hate FG. This is not supposed to be a thread for people who like FG to convince those who hate FG why they are wrong.
Dude, he’s loaded. Lt. Dan invested their shrimp money in Apple.