This is the second of two essays originally written while an undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine, in April-May 1998 (the first being my essay on Autumn Moon, here). The two essays follow up some similar ideas. As I’ve said on the page for the Autumn Moon essay, these were the first times I’d really started to write on the subject of cities in film.
Film
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An essay originally written while an undergraduate at the University of California, Irvine, in April-May 1998. While I’ve taken most of my undergraduate work offline over the years, I still have a sneaking fondness for this one as the first real thing I wrote that linked film and urban planning.
Contact (Robert Zemeckis), 1997
An afterword at the end of the late Carl Sagan’s novel Contact notes that it started as a film treatment written in the early 1980s. For several years it was a project for Australian director George Miller, but he jumped ship as the budget skyrocketed. Now, finally, Contact arrives courtesy of Robert Zemeckis and preceded by ecstatic reviews from the US critics.
Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis), 1994
“Being an idiot is no box of chocolates.” – Forrest Gump, by Winston Groom
“Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get.” – Forrest Gump, by Robert Zemeckis
You know the plot: idiot grows up in Alabama and wanders through recent American history, witnessing astounding events and meeting great men (plus a few US Presidents). Academy Awards follow his every step.