In Memoriam: John Hughes
Dear Mr. Vernon,
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. But we think you're crazy to make use write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... and an athlete... and a basket case... a princess... and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely yours,
The Breakfast Club
To those of us who were teenagers in the 1980s, John Hughes was a spiritual big brother. Not a father figure with the accompanying implications of authority, because fatherhood was usually represented in his movies as benign indifference, if not outright absenteeism, and authority figures in general were foolish and petty. No, he was our buddy, the cool grown-up guy who was still close enough to us in sensibility, if not actual age, to talk to us about things that mattered without bullshitting us. In a decade filled with dumb movies populated by ersatz teens who were some corporate cigar-chomper's idea of what we were like, Hughes' flicks stood out because he knew what teens were really like. Sure, Sixteen Candles is a farcical cartoon, and Sam, Farmer Ted, and Jake Ryan are broad caricatures intended to represent different high school cliques, but they all have a spark of authenticity at their core. They're all volatile mixtures of bravado and vulnerability. Everyone in the movie is desperate to avoid saying or doing the wrong thing. Even the cool kid, Jake, is unsure of his place within his particular clique, and he's tired of the games he's forced to play by the cultural stratum in which he exists. They're all striving to fit in, to gain approval and validation, to experience something genuine instead of just going through the motions. I knew kids just like them; I was a kid just like them. We all were.
As for Hughes' best-known character, the immortal Ferris Bueller, well, nobody knew a kid like Ferris... but we all wanted to. Through Ferris, an idealized, superhero version of everyone's best friend, the guy whose advice was actually worth listening to, Hughes accomplished the unlikely task of slipping my generation a powerful "seize the day" message without arousing our natural teenage cynicism (unlike, say, Dead Poets Society, a movie I like but which is So Very Serious and Self-Important that it ultimately seems more phony than all of Ferris' improbable adventures). And of course Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a damn funny movie.
If Hughes' movies were nothing more than funny, though, I don't think anyone would be thinking of them of classics today. His real talent was combining various forms of comedy -- farce, one-liners, and absurdity -- with a deep sentimental streak. This is evident even in one of his earliest film, National Lampoon's Vacation, which Hughes wrote but did not direct. The whole movie is driven by Clark Griswold's determination to simply spend some quality time with his family, before the kids are grown and it's too late. Another writer may have taken Vacation's premise -- a disastrous family road trip -- and just strung together a bunch of gags, resulting in an entertaining movie that no one remembered five minutes after leaving the theater. But what makes Vacation more than it probably should have been is the moments between the gags, when Clark expresses regrets and frustrations that his plans just aren't working out. And those moments of course feed into the movie's hysterical conclusion, when he completely loses it and forces his way into a closed-for-renovation Wally World at gunpoint. (As much as I love Vacation, I think one of its sequels, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, was actually a more perfect blending of the pathos and silliness; again, it was a Hughes script directed by someone else.)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles is another fine example of Hughes balancing opposing emotional forces. I don't think I've ever seen anything as funny as Steve Martin's obscene breakdown in front of a less-than-helpful car-rental clerk (played by the sublime Edie McClure, a regular fixture in Hughes' work), but the revelation of the sad truth of John Candy's life at the end makes the movie into something much more valuable and enduring than a mere laugh-a-thon. This is one of my favorite holiday-season films, and one of my all-time favorite comedies.
Hughes made his share of less-than-successful projects. Curly Sue was a treacly flop, Some Kind of Wonderful felt like a retread of Sixteen Candles, and She's Having a Baby didn't quite manage the Hughesian emotional balancing act, resulting in a wildly uneven experience for the audience. Also, I've never quite understood the appeal of Pretty in Pink -- another variant of Sixteen Candles -- and, despite its popularity, I think Home Alone is an abomination. Still, between 1983, when he wrote Vacation and the Michael Keaton vehicle Mr. Mom, and 1990, when Home Alone was released, Hughes had an impressive run, writing and/or directing no less than 15 movies that people still remember with varying degrees of fondness.
His masterpiece, though, must surely be The Breakfast Club, a movie that encapsulates pretty much the entire experience of being a teenager in a perceptive, funny, accessible, and above all genuine package. I know this movie has its detractors, people for whom the premise was too contrived or the characters too obnoxious, but for me at least, seeing The Breakfast Club for the first time was a profound and highly moving experience.
I was 15 at the time, and didn't yet have my driver's license. My friend Chad Skinner, who was a year and a half older than me, had already seen it and he thought I ought to see it as well. So he drove us in his '56 Ford pickup to the Sandy Starships, a strip-mall fourplex that had seen its better days but was still a going concern. I was expecting something along the lines of Sixteen Candles, a lightweight, funny, feel-good flick. What I got instead was a revelation of something that should have been obvious, but somehow wasn't, because no one I knew dared to talk about this stuff. Namely, that we weren't alone in our angst, that everybody, no matter what clique we belonged to, or how pretty or cool we were, or what our talents and interests may have been, were all struggling with the same insecurities and fears. Learning this was deeply reassuring, and even liberating.
Oh, and for the record, The Breakfast Club was the first R-rated movie I saw in a theater without my parents. You always remember your first, as they say.
John Hughes became something of a recluse after the release of the final movie he directed, Curly Sue, in 1991. I understand that he left Hollywood and moved back to his native Chicago, although he continued to write screenplays and produce, mostly projects for the family-friendly backwaters of Disney. As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, he died unexpectedly on Thursday, stricken by a heart attack while visiting family in Manhattan. He was only 59 years old, which doesn't seem all that old to me from the precipice that overlooks 40.
I always hoped he would someday return and direct a movie that does for thirtysomething (and now fortysomething) Gen-Xers what The Breakfast Club did for us when we were kids. That's no longer possible, obviously... but movies endure, and I suspect teens are going to be identifying with The Breakfast Club for a long time to come. And Ferris Bueller's observation about how quickly life moves has never seemed more relevant.
Comments
OK, first I need to once again compliment you on your skill in writing these. Quite a morose talent to have, I guess, but I consistently find them insightful. Your point about funny movies that make their point without being too serious is pure genius (and the reason that the message of Ferris Bueller is so much better remembered than that of Dead Poets). Excellent points...
Second, while I was never that heavily invested in Farrah Fawcett and didn't even know who Billy Mays was until he died, I am still curious about your take on Michael Jackson, so consider that an actual request, I guess (one that you're, of course, free to ignore, given how much I pay to read your content...).
Finally, to your point about another John Hughes movie that does for 30/40-somethings what Breakfast Club did for us as teenagers: you and I may disagree about this, but I think Breakfast Club actually worked on two levels - 1) it gave the angsty teenagers people they can truly relate to, and 2) it gave teenagers who didn't really feel all the angst they were "supposed" to be feeling an opportunity to relate to characters that were similar to them, but exaggerated in a dramatic fashion to fill in those "deep thoughts."
As you can probably guess, I'd put myself in that second category. Of the Breakfast Club archetypes, I clearly fell into "the brain" category (and yes, he named that character "Brian" - thanks a million, Mr. Hughes...). And while, like the character, I was simultaneously proud of my straight A's and cognizant of how totally uncool they made me, it would never, ever, ever had occurred to me to commit suicide if I got a "B" in shop class. Same is true elsewhere in the movie. I knew athletes who were driven (or over-driven) to win, but no one assaulted smaller kids in the locker room to prove something to his old man. I knew princesses, to be sure, but their version of rebellion was gossip and girl talk - not screwing the local bad boy.
My point? Now that we're "all grown up," I don't know that we have that need for dramatic hyperbole that we had in high school. I mean, sure, there are plenty of "midlife crisis" movies out there, but if anything, I find myself avoiding the urge to identify with the 40-ish guy who has the sports car and the trophy wife, rather than yearning for such comparisons. Perhaps, as Mr. Hughes might say, we are now more mature - still demented and sad - but more mature than we were back then.
Posted by: Brian Greenberg | August 10, 2009 11:50 AM
As always, Brian, thanks for the compliment. I am truly pleased when my writing works for people, in whatever way it might happen to work. Especially when it comes to these tributes. An ex-girlfriend once accused me of being morbid for being so interested in the passing of public figures; I guess that's still lurking in the back of my head when I'm writing these, making me wonder if anybody really cares or if I'm chasing people away with my weird obsession.
Regarding Michael Jackson, I still hope to write something a little more substantial about him, but my basic feeling about his death is one of sympathy. My Psych 101 analysis of a man I never met is that he was filled with an almost incomprehensible level of self-loathing, based on what he did to his face, his skin color (I don't believe that was entirely the result of any medical condition), and what we're now learning about the sorts of drugs he was taking. Many people are convinced he was a pedophile. I'm not myself, but the accusations of such, regardless of their validity, would surely have contributed to hating himself. And I do think that, much like Howard Hughes, Michael was probably being victimized in various ways by the very sycophants and enablers he kept around to insulate himself from the world. I think he had a very sad and pathetic life, and that his death reflected that. And I think Thriller is still an amazing album, for whatever that's worth. I actually like it more now than I did when it was new. I have much to say on this subject, obviously, but that's the Cliff Notes version.
As to John Hughes, I actually agree with your assessment of The Breakfast Club. There is no question the characters are intended as archetypes -- the narration that opens and closes the movie basically confirms that -- and exaggerated (even though they feel quite authentic). And like you, I wasn't all that angsty compared to a lot of kids. I am the rare mutant who actually enjoyed high school, for the most part. (Also like you, I was closest in nature to Brian, although I dressed and tried to act like Bender. I wanted to be a bad boy, I just wasn't bad enough to really do more than the surface level of badness.)
That said, I stand by my contention that this movie was true to life in a way that no other teen movies before had been, and it managed to speak of a lot of things that we weren't talking about amongst ourselves. At least, I didn't know anyone who was talking about performance anxiety and the pressure to live up to what we thought our parents expectations were. I was fairly well adjusted, as I said, but I still felt those things.
As for what a Hughes-ian version of The Big Chill might have looked like, now that I think about it, maybe he already said what he had to say about that via Mr. Vernon in TBC. We haven't all matured into bitter jerks like him -- at least, I hope we haven't -- but the discussion between Vernon and Carl the janitor is right on about how grown-ups often tend to forget what it's like to be a kid, and kids today are little different than we were at that age. Hm. I might have to ponder that one for a while...
Posted by: jason | August 10, 2009 9:48 PM
Re: Michael Jackson - I think you're spot on, although I'd add to the self-loathing a psyche that was so fractured as to never advance beyond childhood. Like you, I never met the man, but most of the things he did in his life fit that profile, IMHO.
For example: I can tell you that my kids see absolutely nothing wrong with sharing a bed with another kid (male or female). At their young ages (9 and 6), there is nothing taboo or remotely sexual about it, so it's just something cool to do. I suspect, but obviously can't prove, that MJ felt exactly the same way about the kids he let sleep in his bed with him. And, like my kids would be confused if they were suddenly and publicly humiliated for doing it, he seemed confused and hurt by the way society branded that behavior deviant & molesting. I could go on & on (the guy bought himself his own amusement park for chrissake), but it's all just theory.
Another quick thought: so many of the world's geniuses have been mentally unstable in one way or another. I wonder if Michelangelo or DaVinci would have been viewed as a freak today, just as MJ was...
Posted by: Brian Greenberg | August 11, 2009 11:06 AM
...so many of the world's geniuses have been mentally unstable in one way or another. I wonder if Michelangelo or DaVinci would have been viewed as a freak today...
That's an interesting question. I don't know enough about Michelangelo and Da Vinci's lives to speculate, but I have read somewhere a theory that the unique color and extravagance of Van Gogh's paintings represent the way he actually perceived the world -- i.e., his psychological condition caused him to actually see the sky the way he painted it in "Starry Night." Also, based on some of my reading about Howard Hughes, it seems likely that his extreme OCD would be easily treatable today, but it's possible he wouldn't have made his contributions to aviation without the obsessive urge to solve the problems. So it seems likely to me that mental problems and genius are, at least in some cases, a matching set.
Posted by: jason | August 11, 2009 3:44 PM
Jas- I think this is the best post I have ever read on your page! You nailed it!
All of his (Hughes) movies have left an impression on who I am today. Almost all of his movies are like a right of passage for me. I think Planes, Trains and Automobiles was the first rated R movie I watched. I still laugh uncontrollably during that movie. I’ll never forget the rank mouthed rental car scene or Clark Griswald’s artful use of swear words when a family Christmas turns sour. Previous to these movies, I thought that the swearing talent was held by mechanics that worked for Kennecott or on Fords -the ability to string swear words together in a colorful montage of speech.
The movies of today lack the insight that Hughes had.
I Liked the YouTube video you posted and this one is a close 2nd for me. (The quotes are great.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5IlsgtkFbA&annotation_id=annotation_306334&feature=iv
Posted by: Cord | August 12, 2009 9:06 PM
Hey, Cord, good to see your signature again... I wasn't sure you were still reading my little ramble here. Thanks for the compliment!
That's a good video you linked... man, there are all kinds of those tributes once you start looking...
Posted by: jason | August 12, 2009 10:00 PM