Under the shape of the obelisk of the Washington Monument, there is a very large but relatively shallow pool called the "Reflecting Pool".
The pool is two thousand feet long, one hundred and seventy feet wide, but only about twenty inches deep. The only effect is to reflect the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, creating a spectacular sight that enhances the monument's
Solemn visual impact.
Martin Luther King, the former leader of the civil rights movement, delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech here.
In the script of Forrest Gump, the speech Forrest Gump gave here in front of the anti-war marchers has a special meaning.
Forrest Gump is a very peculiar character. Many historical events in America in the past twenty years seem to have been experienced by him. Of course, this is impossible in reality, but the narrative of the movie is to make this kind of
Brings a sense of reality to the audience.
Of all the historical events he has experienced, only the anti-war speech delivered at the Washington Monument is fictional. And only this event was Forrest Gump's initiative, and he was not just a witness to history.
Moreover, this is also the first time that Forrest Gump and Jenny meet each other since they parted ways on the Vietnam battlefield. In any case, it is a significant point in the movie. From the structure of the movie, this reunion between Forrest Gump and Jenny happens to be within the length of the movie.
the middle point of.
After A-Gump went through this incident, due to the increase in life experience and the frustration of emotional experiences, he obviously became more proactive than before. Since then, A-Gump has made more decisions about his own life, rather than
I just passively accept orders from others.
"One, two, three, go up the steps, the camera rises, pans, turns, and then takes a panoramic view of the two hundred extras below, and finally Tom Hanks makes his declaration here, just like Martin Luther King
Like Dr. King…”
What Ronald is doing here is a rehearsal. Below are two hundred troupes, directed by Ken Ralston, making various movements, various anti-war slogans, who raises first, who raises last, camera
Wherever he sweeps and how he moves, he is responsible for everything.
On stage, Ronald is more responsible for the overall camera movement and lens scheduling. When, what pictures appear, how to move them, and what characters and scenes appear in the viewfinder.
There are also some performances by Tom Hanks that Ronald needs to watch and nod for confirmation.
"Okay, let's do it again!"
The rehearsal was carried out step by step throughout the morning, and finally everyone was able to smoothly perform a series of actions such as raising placards. Ronald motioned for the whole group to do it again.
"Fuck..." A man wearing a star-striped shirt was the host of the rally. He was full of swear words and could not speak a complete sentence without using the word "fuck". But in that turbulent era, the audience was
I like how straightforward it is.
Forrest Gump was pushed onto the podium, and the camera went over his head and filmed the crowd below. Inside, an actor who looked a bit like Helen Slater's mother was holding a large sign that read "Long Island Residents"
Against the Vietnam War" words.
When the time comes, the camera will give her a shot of less than one second, which can be regarded as a gesture of kindness from Ronald to Helen's mother, allowing her to relive her days as an anti-war activist on the screen.
When Tom Hanks came up and faced the crowd below, he was welcomed with thunderous applause. Because he was a man wearing an active military uniform and had many medals. There were more veterans at the scene.
The veterans, and some hippies pretending to be veterans, just came to meet some female hippies who came to say a few anti-war slogans.
Such an authentic soldier was welcomed by the people at the scene, and a veteran came up to encourage him, saying that he was very brave.
But Forrest Gump would not speak in public. He was a little frightened by the applause and froze on the stage. The host, wearing a star-spangled shirt, came over and hugged Forrest Gump and said softly, "Tell us
Let’s talk about this war…”
"This war in Vietnam?" Tom Hanks still looked sheepish. Forrest Gump's words were not ironic, just a normal inquiry. But instead, it aroused another emotional surge in the audience.
When the host saw Forrest Gump talking like this, he blurted out, "That fucking war in Vietnam!"
There was another burst of cheers from below, and then they shouted loudly while holding various anti-war slogans.
Forrest Gump was obviously nervous. He hesitated for a long time. Under everyone's urging, he finally remembered the experience of Babu dying in his arms and Lieutenant Dan unfortunately losing his legs and becoming disabled.
Although Tom Hanks was rehearsing and only used three-thirds of his strength, his expression was still very special.
Once he was in place and spoke, he broke through the tension and said:
"Sometimes, when people go to Vietnam, they come home without legs. Sometimes they don't come home at all. It's a very bad thing, and that's all I have to say."
"yeah……"
The two hundred people started cheering again.
In fact, there is nothing sensational about this speech. It simply states Forrest Gump's own experience. But in the ears of anti-war listeners, it is tantamount to an accusation against the government and the army!
"Tsk..."
Ronald suddenly felt that the sense of power in this paragraph was not enough. What Forrest Gump said seemed like the reaction of the extras was not sincere enough.
Sometimes, this kind of sincere speech needs to be uttered by a person with status and already familiar to the audience, so that it can have that kind of unusual power. But at the time when Forrest Gump was in the finished film, he was still just a person.
A retired soldier, his life legend has not yet unfolded.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Moreover, such remarks also diluted the emotional intensity of Jenny's recognition of him and her jumping into the reflecting pool and hugging him.
"Something's not right..."
Ronald brought Tom Hanks and screenwriter Eric Roth together to discuss a solution with them.
"There is indeed a problem. Such a speech can easily be compared with Dr. Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream. In this way, some black viewers will be dissatisfied, and some viewers who support the Vietnam War will also be dissatisfied..."
Eric Roth is very sensitive. Black audiences have a characteristic of being particularly concerned about the status of great men from their own race. If Forrest Gump said something at the same place, and they thought it was trying to steal the limelight of the black leader, there would be potential consequences.
risk.
Black people do often discuss these issues. For example, they believe that jazz was invented by black people, and later white people took it. Rock music was also invented by black people, and Elvis Presley copied it. Now they also want to discredit Michael Jackson's pop music.
, and then grab it.
And those in the South, especially white evangelicals, also disagreed with the hippie anti-war movement taking place in the big cities on the east and west coasts. Especially those who raised the Stars and Stripes to protest the war, they considered it a heinous crime.
Forrest Gump did not talk about the benefits of the Vietnam War in maintaining the Free World Alliance, but only talked about the misfortune of a few comrades. Perhaps in their eyes, it was also a kind of betrayal.
After hearing this, Ronald also felt that it made sense. The main theme of Forrest Gump's story is to bridge the conflict of values. No matter what ethnic group you are or what your position is, the common memory of everyone is that of the Vietnam War.
A series of historical events. As for how to evaluate it, it is best not to say anything about the movie and let different audiences draw their own conclusions.
"Either we don't say it, the microphone is broken, or A-Gump is so nervous that he can't speak..." Ronald said.
"Otherwise, I arranged for a military representative to observe any anti-America behavior at this rally. When he saw a soldier like Forrest Gump wearing an active military uniform and carrying a Congressional Medal of Honor, he went up to speak and felt that he would
It caused controversy on TV, so the audio cable was ripped off..."
Eric Roth had an idea. Such a character actually took away all the controversial aspects of Forrest Gump in this scene. All the controversy was on this character, and Forrest Gump was speaking and others didn't listen.
In this way, everyone maintains a good impression of him, and the black people will not be resentful because he did not give a speech.
"Let's rehearse again..."
Sure enough, after adding a character, the plot of Forrest Gump became much smoother.
"Action!"
The camera showed the military representative who was on duty. After tearing off the audio cable, he was beaten up by two girls from an anti-war organization, and then he hurriedly reconnected the cable. After a scream, Tom Hanks was on the stage.
He said the last words, "That's all I want to say."
"That's right, you said it very well. Dude, what's your name?" The host wearing a star-spangled shirt came over and grabbed Forrest Gump's shoulders. This was such a pity. It's impossible to let him say it again now.
, I had to ask my name as usual and then ended.
"Cut!"
Ronald put on a headset and stopped filming.
This was already the morning after the rehearsal. Ronald took the key shot of the speech and then paused the filming.
Twenty minutes later, the rearranged camera was in place. Robin Wright, wearing hippie clothes, leather boots, and a wreath on his head, walked to a place on the left side of the reflecting pool, and then motioned to Ronald
I'm ready.
"Action!"
Tom Hanks took over the last scene and said his name, "Forrest, my name is Forrest Gump..."
"Forrest! Forrest!" Robin Wright shouted Forrest Gump's name loudly, and then walked into the reflecting pool.
The shallow water had just covered the uppers of her shoes, and Jenny walked one foot at a time, struggling against the resistance of the water, towards the podium at the Lincoln Memorial.
"Jenny!"
Forrest Gump, played by Tom Hanks, also shouted and jumped down from the podium in three steps and two steps at a time. He clumsily walked toward Jenny.
The extras next to them automatically separated to both sides. Forrest Gump and Jenny approached each other, one step, two steps, and finally came together.
The two actors had bright smiles on their faces, and they hugged each other in the reflecting pool.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoosh..." There was a roar, and the audience was so excited by this unexpected reunion that they all let out a loud shout and raised their hands in the air to cheer for the reunion of the two young lovers (as they thought they were).
"Cut!"
After Ronald confirmed that this line could be used, he immediately had the group move to the location where Jenny entered the water just now. Then he asked them to line up in several rows there. He then directed the camera crew to run to the right side of the reflecting pool to take the shot.
I filmed this scene again. This time the background was full of the extras’ pants and shoes. It seemed like the place where Jenny went into the water was also full of people.
After several shots from different angles were completed, Ronald handed the guide tube to Ken Ralston, the on-site supervisor of the special effects team, "It's up to you to shoot the next one..."
Because it was impossible to find thousands of extras to fill the surroundings of the reflecting pool, nor to direct them. This scene was superimposed using post-production computer special effects. Two hundred extras were drawn by Ken Ralston
Areas, photographed one by one.
After filling up an area, we shot footage of them cheering there. After each area was photographed, we went to the studio in Los Angeles to superimpose the film from these dozen areas into one frame through the computer.
If there are any inconsistencies, such as the water in the pool, the lighting conditions are different at different times today and tomorrow, and the Washington Monument reflected in the pool may not be able to be photographed.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! However, you can take a good shot and then paste it at the same position of the lens. In the future, if this technology becomes popular and the cost drops significantly, what will happen?
If the framing is wrong, such as a modern airplane appearing in the sky in a historical movie, you can use an eraser to erase it.
"Everyone who has heard of me is in the first box from the left. Everyone, stand here."
Ken Ralston is full of confidence. The difficult scenes with Ronald have been filmed. Now it’s just some extras filling the space. It can be filmed even if you don’t know how to act.
Ronald took several protagonists, as well as a part of the camera crew and sound crew, to the White House and Capitol Hill for filming.
This was the plot before the speech. Forrest Gump had just accepted the Medal of Honor from Commander-in-Chief Johnson. His mother felt tired and was resting in the hotel. He was alone with a point-and-shoot camera and was inexplicably squeezed into the famous classic tour in DC.
After joining the ranks of veterans, he was taken to the Washington Monument to deliver a speech.
Later, at the speech site, the two found the anti-war girl who was destroying the sound system by military representatives and was directing order in front of a bus.
"Rodham, are all the veterans here? Where do you want them to go?" an anti-war girl wearing a helmet with anti-war symbols on it said to another girl named Hillary.
The girl named Rodham wore a southern women's hat, a corduroy short coat, and jeans underneath. She didn't look like a hippie, but more like a good southern wife and mother, and she was quite pretty..."
"Cut!"
After taking this shot, Ronald completed the shooting for the day. He looked around and it seemed that no one was aware of it.
Only his cousin-in-law, little Doug, who was visiting the scene, came over and whispered in his ear, "Did you do it on purpose? Will our first lady be unhappy?"
"She will definitely be happy. The actor I chose is prettier than her..."