Remembering John Hughes, 1950-2009

by John P. Hanlon

In the well-known 1980’s film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Mr. Bueller famously says, “Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” That line could refer to the death of John Hughes who wrote and directed that film and who died last week at the young age of 59. However, that line could also refer to some of the themes from some of Hughes’ most well-known and iconic films that are still loved by many today.

Admittedly, I have not seen every John Hughes movie. Before his passing, though, I had seen only a few of his most well-known pictures like “The Breakfast Club,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” and “Home Alone.”  Last weekend, after the death of Hughes, I watched two of his other well-known movies, “Pretty in Pink” and “Sixteen Candles,” for the first time in commemoration of his death and to see why these films had such an effect on the young people of the 1980’s.

Because I was not a teenager during the 80’s, I did not have the opportunity to watch Hughes’ movies during the decade that Hughes helped define for so many young moviegoers. I was a child of the “Home Alone” era, not a teenager of the “Breakfast Club.”

However, after watching “Pretty” and “Sixteen” last weekend, it is clear why Hughes was such a phenomenon as a writer for so many young people of that generation. Each Hughes film that I have seen has a simple and often an easily relatable premise. A group of complicated and unique teenagers spend detention together. A mischievous high school boy skips school with his friends. A high school girl deals with social and class distinctions in dating.

However, these overall plots do not tell the whole stories of these films because in these films, the characters are dealing with more than the premise suggests and many of those characters discover things about themselves and about others that they might have missed had they not looked “around every once in a while.” The group in detention learns about how complicated fellow students who are often defined by high school “stereotypes” (i.e. the athlete, the nerd, the rebel etc.) can be. The high school boy who skips class realizes, among other things, his best friend’s deep frustration with his father who seems to love his car more than his son. The girl who deals with class distinctions learns how people can defy their social classes and their peers if they choose to.

Renowned film critic Roger Ebert recently wrote, “Few directors have left a more distinctive or influential body of work than John Hughes. The creator of the modern American teenager film, who died Thursday in New York, made a group of films that are still watched and quoted today.”

Even though many would say that John Hughes reached his peak in the 1980’s, people are still watching and enjoying his films today for the first time (I can personally attest to that fact).  The number of tributes to Hughes over the past several days shows how important Hughes was as a writer and as a director. Taking Ferris Bueller’s advice, since John Hughes died last week, many people have stopped and looked around and they have realized how much they will miss John Hughes.


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Posted Aug 12th 2009 at 5:18 pm in Culture, Entertainment | 41 Comments