In Piazza del Popolo in Pesaro the Mostra del nuova cinema celebrated the thirty years of a classic like Forrest Gump, with a crowded screening in the presence of the original voice actor of the protagonist Francesco Pannofino.
A box of chocolates, the most famous in the history of cinema, for its indeterminacy, since you never know what you’re going to get. But above all an invitation to run, he grew up as a problem child, capable of spanning a good thirty years of American historystarting from a feather that rests on his foot, on a bench in a park in the most beautiful town in the south. Run Forrest Gumpas you have been doing since 1994 and you confirmed in one evening crowded with hundreds of people from Pesaro and tourists, from the sea and from the cinema. An outdoor screening in the usual setting of Piazza del Popolo, a moment open to the city of Pesaro International New Cinema Exhibitionthis year in its sixtieth edition, in a special year for the city in the Marche region, the Italian capital of culture.
To see it again thirty years later keeps intact the crystalline purity of a candid soul capable of racing to global success, witness and despite himself manipulator of great eventswith the help of effects that are very special and often barely visible, such as the proverbial chats and greetings with historical figures such as presidents – John Fitzgerald Kennedy – and music icons, such as John Lennon. A very special irony, with the unique ability to Robert Zemeckis to combine emotion and the spectacle of staging with the charm of a tenderness that anticipated a rebellion against the sterile nastiness that would increasingly characterize the world of the following years. So much so that some have seen tooth decay sweetness in what was – and remains – one profound grace but also an abyss in front of which to choose whether to throw oneself without an alibi, or to pity oneself in a lamenting mantra.
Long live Forrestan antihero capable of relativizing and downplaying History and his role in it, when everyone magnifies their own micro role in this or that minor incident. Hurray Tom HanksThen, average American but not common mancapable of embodying for many years residual heroism and that search for happiness at the center of the driving force of the United States of America since its foundation. Forrest Gump earned $678 million in theaters worldwide and you’re Oscar (with thirteen nominations), starting from the aforementioned Hanks and arriving at the (non-original) screenplay of that Eric Roth who in his career has built stories between history and legend such as Munich, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ali, Killers of the Flowers Moon.
Forrest Gumo has influenced the collective imagination, starting from that iconic bench, at the bus stop, where a new Candide tells his incredible story, his phantasmatic and fantastic unfolding of an American dream lived by chance. In Pesaro they talked about the film before the screening, together with the artistic director Pedro Armocida‘Italian ultramarathon runner and marathon runner Giorgio Calcaterra, three-time world champion of the 100 km ultramarathon and winner of the 100 km del Passatore 12 consecutive times. Together with him the voice actor Francesco Pannofinoin one of his most successful works, always at the service and never excessively self-referential in making the protagonist’s speech so particular.
The actor and voice actor recalled “a month of summer work”, in a particularly rich period, given that in 1994 “I won two very important auditions as Forrest Gump and The Flintstones. Tom Hanks is clever in the film, he uses a strong southern accent, from Alabama, which is difficult to translate into Italian. We tried to do it again with difficult speaking. Chevalier usually dubbed him, but for that particular performance they made different choices and he won my audition. As they said, it wasn’t perfect but the closest to the original.”
