Simplicity is a virtue, so sayeth the proverb. But is it the best virtue? Robert Zemeckis's and Tom Hanks's respective films and their collaborations provide an interesting point/counterpoint on determining the statement's truth, if not its accuracy.
The duo's most popular effort is Forrest Gump in which the unassuming, guileless title character is able to get one over on the whole world. Whether it's winning national championships for the University of Alabama, starting the jogging craze in the United States, becoming the catalyst for the anti-war movement, or inspiring Elvis's famous gyrating hips, Forrest's greatest attribute is his credulity. The film embraces a dangerous anti-intellectualism. More than just championing Forrest's ignorant ingenuity, it reimagines famous moments in history, not as products of greatness or genius, but as the hapless happy accidents of the artless dodger. These are moments where we know the stories and know the participants, and as a society, we aspire to emulate their abilities, but Zemeckis seems content to reorient their achievement away from Edison's inspiration and perspiration toward coincidence.
A similar theme underlies Zemeckis's Back to the Future franchise. Canyons are named after famous western actors and names are mistaken for underwear designers because of the past and the future colliding in chance encounters. It's amusing that most of the planned interventions in the series are foiled time and time again, but the unintended ripples spiral outward early and often with little resistance. Most interpretations, including those by Cracked, focus on the racial overtones of Marty McFly's wrinkles in time. He tells the black menial worker at the diner that he should run for mayor and plays Chuck Berry's “Johnny B. Goode” years before either of those events happen. Similar to Forrest Gump, Zemeckis again rewrites the Civil Rights movement and the history of rock 'n' roll as products of white influence rather than black activism to comedic effect.
However, rather than racial, there are other dimensions to Marty's misadventures, namely democratic populism. Like Tom Hanks most well known characters including Forrest Gump, Marty McFly is an everyman, even if the suburban 80s teenager version. He is doing poorly at school due to lack of effort and disillusionment with the system. When he auditions for the school talent show, he is immediately disqualified due to being “too loud.” His family fares no better. As the film lays out the family dynamics at the beginning, they are well-meaning, “average,” middle class and share much in common with Middle America – an important populist touch. His dad works an unsatisfying job for an unappreciative, abusive supervisor, Biff Tannen. His mother's family has a few relatives in jail, possibly unjustly. Despite being out of high school, his older brother and sister still live at home working dead end, minimum wage jobs. The family all share a car that Biff wrecks and shamelessly refuses to pay for repairs.
But, by film's end, through the deus ex machina of nefarious time travel, Marty's family has been given, not earned, the American Dream. His father is a successful science fiction writer, his brother and sister have better jobs and better clothes, his mother is thin and has given up her alcoholism, Marty has a brand new truck and Biff now works for them washing cars and other odd jobs. His "new" family bears more resemblance to his happy, Republican home from Family Ties than his family from the film's beginning. Also, there is no sense that they are more talented or smarter than Biff or that their new circumstances are the result of effort. Instead, Marty's mad scientist routine has realigned his new 1985 and derived even his parent's successes from his DeLorean eucastrophe. Of course, there is no eulogy or remorse for Biff's plight, because in the film's universe, he deserves his new station because he's a jerk (and attempted rapist) and Marty's family “deserves” their success because they aren't.
Not all of Zemeckis's films follow this pattern. Another collaboration with Tom Hanks, Castaway is about a higher level executive with Fed Ex whose plane tragically crashes and strands him on a deserted island for 2 years. Chuck Nolan is no everyman; he is the Nietzschian superman, a demigod who makes fire and creates beings (Wilson) in his own image. He is ingenuous in his efforts to survive and thrive in the island's harsh, Hobbesian environment. Perhaps, Zemeckis's politics had changed or Hanks had a stronger voice in the creative direction as he is listed as a producer.
Tom Hanks's initial directorial effort from 1996, That Thing You Do, seemed to openly dispute Zemeckis's worldview offered in Forrest Gump and Back to the Future. That Thing You Do is a melancholy tale about how smalltown success does not always translate to life in the big city. Hanks's TTYD at the outset gestures toward a similar Zemeckis-esque conclusion and theme. Initially, the band is unsuccessful and Guy Patterson, between costing his parents' money at the family-owned store and being a terrible salesman, plays drums late at night to records. But an accident takes the drummer out of the picture and fate comes knocking for Guy to join The Oneders (later The Wonders). All that's missing is a phone call from the lead singer's cousin overhearing Calvin Klein playing Beatles hits at a high school dance. Yet, the film takes a different course: they don't end up conquering the music industry to become rock stars. The base player joins the army, the rhythm guitarist marries a showgirl, the lead singer breaches his contract by refusing the record the album in Spanish, and Guy leaves show business for the married life. Hanks as Mr. White has an important speech that flies in the face of Zemeckis's triumphant simplicity: “You know, Horace was right about you, Guy; you are the smart one. Lenny is the fool, Jimmy is the talent, and Faye is well, now, Faye is special, isn't she? And you are the smart one. That's what I think, anyway.” In Hanks's film universe, talent and intelligence exist and can lead to great things, but they are often clashing and prone to self-destruction.
With the just released, Larry Crowne, Hanks might be repositioning himself back in line with Zemeckis's initial philosophy though. Crowne shares the quality of consummate, professional adequacy with Forrest Gump. The marketing campaign has centered on Crowne as a multiple employee of the month award winner at a department store but is fired for not having a college degree. While sharing the bittersweet quality with TTYD's ending, Crowne's set up appears headed for a crowd-pleasing finale where the average man is able to succeed without the noisome prerequisites of gainful employment like education and training. If the moral of the story is that skills and abilities are unnecessary and “ah shucks” camaraderie takes priority, Larry Crowne could be an endorsement for a race to the middle.
It's very comforting to feel that success is a result of luck rather than hard work and that fringe benefits are given rather than earned. It's tempting to believe that the towering achievements of history are the result of Forrest Gumps rather than Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandi. The comfort and temptation of these modern myths mystifies the true labors that lie at the heart of our fruit. If nothing else, though, at least our children can save us from perpetual mediocrity and redeem us thanks to the flux capacitor.
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