"FORREST GUMP" Screenplay by Eric Roth Based on tha novel by Winston Groom. First Draft December 18, 1992 FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLYA lot of this is true... We've watching a feather, lighter then air, floating, like time passing, slowly fleating by. And we it’s over city. A breeze catches it, moving it here and there above the city. It slowly floats down past the tall buildings It seems to hover for a moment over a busy street. And it lightly falls, and silently lands, as all things, by chance, at this place, at this tine, in this street, in New Orleans. EXT. A NEW ORLEANS STREET, THE PRESENT - DAY And we see a Man, sitting on a Bus bench, reach to pick it up. _ ia his forties, ne looks like he snalla like fish. Dirty clothes, work boots, a shopping bag filled with a conglomeration of his th: longside hin, he’s ingly honel what distingy: him from the faceless honeless everywhere, is his eyes. He has the body and the face of a man, and the eyes of a boy. He hasn’t learned a thing. There’s something in the way he carries himself, awkward, like a duck out of water, that he’s sonew! between retarded and slow. He studies thi feather for a moment, and for no particular reason puts it in his pocket. exhausted, wearing a nurses uniform, sits heavily on the Bus bench beside him. He looks at her. And It’s a sweet, stupid smile. And as if she THE MAN Hello, i'm Forrest. I’m Forrest Gump. She nods, not much interested. He takes an old candy kiss out of his pocket. Offering it to hi FORREST (cont’d) Do you want a chocolate? She shakes "no." He unvraps it, popping it in his mouth. FORREST (cont’d) I could eat about a million and a half of the: Mama said, "Lit was just a box of chocolate: (CONTINUED)CONTINUED: And he smiles, a chocolatey smile. She’s inpassive. and he notices her white nurse’s sho FORREST (cont’d) (admiring her shoes) Those must be very comfortable shoes. I'l] bet you could walk all day in those shoes and not thing. She doesn’t say anything. FORREST (cont’d) sure like a pair of shoes like that. All she can cay is: THE BLACK WOMAN My feet hurt. FORREST (oblivious) Mama said you could tell an awful lot about a person by their shoes. Where they've been, and where they’re going...Floppy ones and shiny ones, and all laced up on She doesn’t say anything. FORREST (cont/d) (after a ceat) I’ve worn a lot of shoes... (nis smile) I guess you could say I’ve lived a pretty interesting lite, so to speak... She clo: eyes, too tired to listen. FORREST (cont’d) If I think about it real hard I bat I could remember ny first pair of sho (CONTINUED)