The 67th Academy Awards in 1995 will always be remembered as the night Robert Zemeckis’ saccharine dramedy Forrest Gump confirmed its standing as one of the greats of modern cinema, turning 13 nominations into six wins, including for the coveted best picture, best director and best actor.
It became such an integral part of the cinematic zeitgeist that it was eventually selected for preservation in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, in part for its engagement with the more contentious aspects of America’s turbulent past.
But while Tom Hanks’ protagonist literally stumbles through iconiic scenes and historic scandals, such as the war in Vietnam and Watergate, even influencing their outcome, his experience of the era’s defining health crisis — the HIV epidemic — is far subtler, with just the implication that the condition which causes his wife’s death is, in fact, HIV/Aids.