Goodbye Mr Hughes

John Hughes, the cinematic Dickens of eighties suburban teenage life, died last week of a heart attack while walking through Manhattan early one morning. He was only 59 years old. That, of course, makes me feel old. I grew up with his work, as so many others have, and it feels like a large portion of my visual memory has been brought back to bear on movies that came far too close to the truth. And as uncomfortable as I feel doing so, I have to look back.
It starts with a poll. The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper, ran a poll on the most popular John Hughes film. I chose The Breakfast Club; most of the World Wide Web chose Ferris Bueller's Day Off. How naive of me. I thought that the tale of a group of detentioneers discovering themselves and each others' foibles would be on top (it only received 16% of the vote). Ferris is the tale of a smart-ass kid who is always on top of things, always breaking the rules, and always getting away with it. It was almost too cartoonish a choice. But I understand why it came out on top (36% chose it).
1986 and I am twelve years old, waiting in line at the Odeon theatre to see the film in its first week (I still have a poster and button with the film's logo and Save Ferris written on it). I sit and watch. And then I just gape. I had never seen a film with a direct address to the audience. I had never seen a film with a direct address to a teenage audience (one which I was near enough to qualify for). I just could not believe that they got away with it. The only problem was I saw the film with my mom (hey, I was only twelve and had to go downtown to see it). It was the wrong choice of companion for a day at the movies.
I am serious about that. John Hughes understood a particular type of moment in life: the state of youthdom when things are becoming defined and hardened around you, and there is little you can do to change it. It would be hard to imagine him making a film about post-secondary life that followed these same type of characters. The director who made Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink does not seem to be the same one who made Uncle Buck or Planes, Trains and Automobiles. He found a space and occupied it well. I still feel like I was Anthony Michael Hall looking for that eternal Molly Ringwald who wanted nothing to do with me (like I said, he really understood adolescence, especially my own teenage life).
In the same paper, Globe and Mail writer Lynn Crosbie commented on how she felt a distance from the people on the film because of their age. I do admit that I sometimes felt the same way. There is something cynical and sweet, distant and perceptive in how Hughes draws you into his films while teasing his audience with the idea that the characters are who you are (esp. if you were white, middle-class and living in an area that looked remarkably like Chicago in every film).
But that is a critique that will fade and disappear as his films are reassessed, re-examined and remembered. We needed to have this type of filmmaker in 1980s America and I cannot imagine my moviegoing life without those stories.
Mr Hughes, I thank you.