John Hughes, R.I.P.

The above video features a wonderful montage of scenes from John Hughes' films.

Filmmaker John Hughes died of a heart attack yesterday, August 6, 2009 while visiting family in New York City. For many of us, Hughes was the cultural icon of the 1980s, a talented writer and director that captured the angst, frustration and heartbreak of the teen years unlike any artist before or since.

Born in 1950 in Lansing, Michigan, Hughes moved with his family to the Chicago, Illinois suburb of Northbrook, where he later graduated from high school. Hughes began his career writing advertising copy, freelancing as a joke writer for comedians like Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers. A short story that he wrote based on his family vacations as a child became the basis for the National Lampoon's Vacation film and earned Hughes a staff position with the humor magazine.

During the decade of the '80s, Hughes unreeled an incredibly successful string of teen-oriented movies that were not only welcomed due to their unusual insight, but also for the richness of their characters. As both writer and director, Hughes created such cinematic moments as Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), Weird Science (1985), and the immortal Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986).

As a screenwriter, Hughes penned such gems as the aforementioned National Lampoon's Vacation (1983); but also National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), a holiday classic shown every year; Pretty In Pink (1986); Some Kind Of Wonderful (1987); Home Alone (1990); and Home Alone 2 (1992), both of which are also dragged out every Christmas. Hughes also served as producer on many of these films.

Hughes' teen films featured the budding talents of many young actors and actresses, many of which would go on to one degree of fame and fortune, including Molly Ringwald (in three Hughes films), Anthony Michael Hall (in four), John Cusak, Matthew Broderick, Jon Cryer, Ally Sheedy, James Spader, Charlie Sheen, and Macaulay Culkin, among others. Hughes also worked with talented young directors, as well, providing folks like Chris Columbus, Howard Deutch, Amy Heckerling, and Harold Ramis with essential early experience.

During the late-80s, Hughes tried to leave his teen comedies behind with a slate of moderately successful, more adult-oriented films. The most successful of these was, perhaps, 1987's Planes, Trains & Automobiles starring Steve Martin and John Candy. In Candy, Hughes found the perfect comedic actor for his everyman humor, and the late comedian enjoyed roles in six different Hughes films, starring in the aforementioned Planes, Trains & Automobiles as well as The Great Outdoors (1988) and Uncle Buck (1989). Candy also had brief, but hilarious cameos in movies like National Lampoon's Vacation and Home Alone.

Often overlooked in critiques of Hughes' films is the role of class in his writing. Growing up in suburban, middle-class Illinois, Hughes eschewed the spotlight of fame, and although he worked with the Hollywood machine, he never bought into the L.A. lifestyle, preferring to live and raise his family in Illinois.

Hughes was a populist auteur, working in an updated, albeit similar vein as Frank Capra. Like Capra's films, a Hughes movie revolved around one or two main characters that were sympathetic extensions of his target audience. The rich were often mocked in Hughes films, their machinations against the less fortunate foiled. Hughes protagonists like Eric Stoltz's "Keith" and Mary Stuart Masterson's "Watts" in Some Kind Of Wonderful, or Molly Ringwald's "Andie" in Pretty In Pink resonated with teen audiences because of their vulnerability, loyalty, and romanticism.

More than any other filmmaker during the 1980s, Hughes had his thumb on the sound of teen America, and his movies reflected and reflected the music that young adults wanted to hear. His use of the Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me" in The Breakfast Club broke the band in the U.S. while the Psychedelic Furs re-recorded "Pretty In Pink to be used in the film named after the song. Another song from Pretty In Pink, the lovely "If You Leave," was written and recorded specifically for the movie by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. Hughes' film soundtracks favored British new waves bands, and many teens first heard the music of the Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, the Jesus & Mary Chain, or Flesh For Lulu in one of his movies.

Hughes 1980s-era films were influenced by and, in turn, also influenced MTV. Many of his movies include video-ready musical montages such as Jon Cryer's take on the Otis Redding classic "Try A Little Tenderness" in Pretty In Pink, or Matthew Broderick's legendary performance of the Beatles' "Twist & Shout" during Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Music was often entwined in his character's lives, or used to build emotion in a scene, as with Irish band Lick The Tins' cover of "Can't Help Falling In Love" at the end of Some Kind Of Wonderful.

Hughes' found his greatest commercial success with the movie Home Alone, starring Macaulay Culkin as a precocious child accidentally left behind when his family goes on vacation. At the time, Home Alone was the most successful comedy of all time, grossing in excess of $280 million and spawning three sequels, only the second of which is really worth your time.

During the 1990s, Hughes' found his box office magic waning, and although he wrote a few commercially successful films like the awful crazy-dog flick Beethoven (1992), which also spun off a couple of sequels that Hughes had nothing to do with, he more often than not cranked out milk-duds like Dennis The Menace (1993). Hughes last film as a director was Curly Sue in 1991, after which he retired from Hollywood save for the occasional screenplay which, as I've pointed out, provided diminishing returns.

Although I was probably a good decade older than the audience for most of Hughes' 1980s-era teen comedies, I appreciated the well-written characters, the romantic storylines, the movie soundtracks, and Hughes attention to detail – like the Simple Minds poster on the wall of Ferris Bueller's bedroom. Some Kind Of Wonderful remains my favorite of his many movies, Eric Stoltz's lovelorn working class stiff and Mary Stuart Masterson's tough-but-tender beauty characters I would have liked as real people. Jon Cryer's "Duckie Dale" from Pretty In Pink, Anthony Michael Hall's geek "Ted" from Sixteen Candles, and Matthew Broderick's ever-cool "Ferris Bueller" are all memorable characters as well, and those films are among my favorites of all time by any writer or director.

John Hughes never wrote or directed anything that may be considered "high art," but his films remain pop culture classics nonetheless. Long after people have forgotten today's critically-acclaimed snoozefests, they'll be laughing at Ferris Beuller and that kid getting the best of the inept crooks...and that's not a bad legacy to have.

Check it out: memories of John Hughes from a former "pen pal"

(Click on the DVD covers to buy from Amazon.com)