Legendary Movie Man John Hughes Dead At Age 59
I have a serious case of the sads (hattip MK at Dlisted) today upon learning the man who defined my youth on film has gone to the great big movie screen in the sky.
John Hughes, responsible for some of the greatest movies ever made in the 80’s, died of a heart attack yesterday at the age of 59. Oddly, we’ve recently embarked on a journey of his films, including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, Breakfast Club, National Lampoon’s Vacation (the whole series), and Home Alone (1 and 2). This list is merely touching the surface of the films Hughes was responsible for either writing, directing or producing.
John Hughes single-handedly made Molly Ringwald a household name, and quite honestly, no other filmmaker has come close to capturing the teen-angst of Generation X better than he did.
John began his career writing for the parody magazine National Lampoon (responsible for the great Animal House — another one of my favorite movies – though Hughes was not involved in that film.) Specifically, I am most fond of Pretty In Pink, which pretty much summed up my one and only major heartbreak in high school (except mine didn’t end happily ever after) and for that, I will forever be in debt to Mr. Hughes.
Here’s more on the legend from the LATimes:
Filmmaker John Hughes burned brightest in the ’80s, when he defined teen angst in terms of the caste system of the suburban high school experience, a thread that others would pick up again and again.
His films were talky, in a good way. Like the kids whose stories he was telling, he let them ramble. Teen self-absorption was treated with reverence, not ridicule. The world might make fun of them, their classmates, their brothers and sisters too, but never John Hughes.
And a generation of kids and future filmmakers like Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow embraced it.
Hughes, who died Thursday at age 59, was fascinated with the human as outsider. Outsiders like “Pretty in Pink’s” Molly Ringwald who just wanted to fit in. And outsiders who couldn’t care less: Matthew Broderick as Ferris Bueller on his legendary day off, Judd Nelson’s not quite broken Bender in “The Breakfast Club,” Anthony Michael Hall’s martini-mixing geek in “Sixteen Candles,” all members of the players club before they were 17.
But Hughes’ outsiders lived in a different part of town than, say, Francis Ford Coppola’s gritty, wrong side of the tracks “The Outsiders.” Hughes outsiders were white, comfortably middle-class and probably from one of Chicago’s affluent suburbs, where he grew up and returned in the ’90s when he’d had his fill of Hollywood. Things were only slightly sad or bad in his films, there were no serious train wrecks — only feelings got hurt, and the endings were usually happy ones.
He reflected a very specific slice of Americana that like many, I understood. A pop culture filmmaker adored in the heartland, he knew how to hit all the light notes – an easy sentimentality, a measured angst, an outrageous sense of fun. His was a spoon-full-of-sugar kind of filmmaking that was often exactly what I wanted, if not what I needed.
The slights that life hands us was one of his favorite playgrounds. Forgotten birthdays, forgotten kids, forgotten families — “Sixteen Candles,” “Home Alone,” “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” — someone was forever being overlooked.
When you’re Ringwald, and a soft, pouty, still awkward 16, it hurts; when you’re an 8-year-old screaming terror embodied by Macaulay Culkin, it’s the best Christmas gift ever; and when you’re John Candy’s middle-aged lonely traveling salesman in a life where nothing, including the suit, fits, it’s tragic.
For a period of time, Hughes was so dominant — certainly in the U.S. where he always played best — that it’s hard to believe that he only directed eight films. He wrote 30 others — the “Home Alones,” most notably — that were produced, 16 of them in the ’80s, 13 in the ’90s, and contributed characters or ideas to a handful of others.
Of all of his films, there are two that will forever be quintessentially Hughes for me: “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” absolutely swimming in attitude, which captured brilliantly and irritatingly the kind of cockiness that you envy as a teen, hate as an adult, recognize no matter what age you are, and “The Breakfast Club,” life deconstructed in high school detention, the archetypes and the anxiety playing out in real time.
By “Curly Sue” in 1991, Hughes had apparently tired of fighting battles with studio executives who second-guessed him.
He left Hollywood behind and headed back to the Chicago area, where he would still dabble in the business from a distance.
But really, Hughes was a creature of the ’80s, and if he hadn’t left Hollywood, it was on its way to leaving him.
Comedy took on more of an edge, went raunchier, darker, meaner than Hughes ever could.
In the end, like so many of the characters he created, Hughes had become a cinematic memory stream of another time when things didn’t seem so bad.
I will light 16 candles and remember.
As will I. Honestly, I don’t think any person before or after, captured a cultural phenomenon like that of the 80’s as well as Hughes did, therein lies his genius. And quite frankly, the movie industry has yet to replace Hughes’ unique insight into the teen psyche, and for that, we are a little less rich as a society.
R.I.P John Hughes, thanks for smoothing the edges of my teen years and making them seem almost normal.
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Very well put D. Although I enjoyed all of Hughes’ films, my favorites are Nat’l Lampoons “Vacation” and “Christmas Vacation”. I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched those 2 movies, they never get old for me.
What a great era for movies and music. I miss those days.
Comment by Rachel — August 7, 2009 @ 9:15 pm
That is very sad, I watched the breakfast club online about a week ago.
,They are what I remember most about my childhood.
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Comment by runescape gold — August 7, 2009 @ 9:37 pm
My Condolences to his family, I loved some of his movies especially the breakfast club, Home Alone and Home Alone 2. Definitely his movies defined a generation as well as gave us plenty of chuckles. For all his fans I have collected some good sites and articles (more than 250 sites ) related to his latest news coverage, biography, Movies, Movie Quotes and Interviews. If you are interested take a look at the below link
http://markthispage.blogspot.com/2009/08/all-you-want-to-know-about-john-hughes.html
Comment by sri — August 8, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Sixteen Candles was one of my favorites.
A great man whos work will be missed
Comment by Righteous Retribution — August 9, 2009 @ 10:34 am
‘Pretty in Pink’ and ‘The Breakfast Club’ defined a generation, Mine, I look forward to introducing them to my kids, and will miss the talent that brought them to the silver screen.
Comment by bridexiii — August 11, 2009 @ 9:23 pm