Talking to Tom Hanks wasn't all jokey. After fun with "Big" and "Toy Story", I showed him the opera scene from "Philadelphia", which many have problems with, as he admitted. Then he (reluctantly) watched his Oscar acceptance speech for the same film and firmly batted back my criticism of it. From that it was on to "Forrest Gump", of which he seems proud and about which he volunteered the information that they actually recorded Gump's speech at the anti-war rally but cut it out to increase the ambiguity of the scene. When I asked him what he thought of the right wing's fondness for the film he carefully said that even the film makers themselves dispute what it is about.
Judge for yourself the result of this "Scene by Scene". I think it revealed some of the less familiar sides of Hanks. Since doing the interview, people have come up to me and said, "Well? What did you reckon? Did you suss why he's such a box office phenomenon?" As if sitting with the guy for a while would answer these questions.
To do so, if you ask me, what you have to do is look at the movies. Hanks has made a pact with the audience - no sex, no immoral violence. We know from interviews and from the rhythms of his films that he's not reckless. He told me that "Gump" did well because "we're all still here," that the baby-boomers survived the turmoil of the 60s, the deaths of their idols, the slump in the space travel adventure. And I think he's right. The message in a Hanks movie is that contemporary America has problems but that it will survive them. The films often look backwards (to romance before Aids, 50s toys, the Second World War). Nora Ephron, who directed him in the retro chick-flicks "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail" said that Hanks represents America at "its pre-Freudian finest."
She might not make great movies, but perhaps she's right about Tom.
Tom Hanks - Master of the Multiplex.
You can see Mark Cousins talking with Tom Hanks in "Scene by Scene" on BBC2, Sunday 21st January 2001 at 11.25pm.
