[Writing] John Hughes
Aug. 15th, 2009 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jon_chaisson[Yeah, I know...it's a bit late, but given how much his work inspired me, I felt I had to post. :) ]
I wasn't the biggest fan of those high school/college screwball comedies in the 80s, being that I was a bit too young or distracted to enjoy movies like Class, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Midnight Madness and so on. If anything, I only got to watch and enjoy them once they appeared on a friend's cable box on HBO or The Movie Channel. It wasn't until my family and I went to see Sixteen Candles that I really started paying attention to the genre, though. I didn't quite connect with the film, but it was fun to watch nonetheless.
That same year (1984) was about the time I also started seriously listening to music. I started buying more albums, started listening to and taping from the radio (not just straight ahead rock, but American Top 40 as well), and also enjoying the endless videos played on MTV. From this sudden immersion into music as well as its integration into a visual medium, I came up with the "video treatment" style of writing scenes, specifically for the Infamous War Novel, which I'd started that year.
Come 1985, my family and I went to see The Breakfast Club. By that time, though music and writing was still important, I was definitely growing into my teenage years, having brief relationships with some local girls, and also growing into who I'd eventually become. This movie was a real eye-opener for me at the time, it being such a spot-on story about growing up and trying to figure out who you are. It also grabbed me because of the music--it was in the forefront rather than in the background, used as part of the story rather than just a mood setting, as if a soundtrack for life rather than a movie. And of course, the Simple Minds theme song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" was one of my biggest personal favorites of the time. It was also about this time that some of my earliest non-IWN writing came about, partly inspired by these two Hughes movies and full of music references.
I didn't quite gel with Weird Science (also in 1985), but the year after that, he released what many consider his best Brat Pack movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The 80s had grown out of its post-70s discomfort and become flashy and fun again, and this one was released during a great wave of pop music. Everything was right about this movie, from a great soundtrack to brilliant timing and humor to some of Hughes' best-known and remembered scenes and dialogue. That same year, he'd written and produced (but not directed) Pretty in Pink, another of my personal favorites in terms of use of story and music and dealing with nonconformity...and featuring one of my all-time favorite Hughes scenes ever:
In 1987, after finishing the IWN, I'd started writing a silly Hughes-esque screenplay called One Step Closer to You, a nerd-tries-to-win-popular-girl story heavily inspired by his movies. Many of the scenes had a song playing, either as background or as something to push the story. I came nowhere near the level of Hughes' work with it, but I really enjoyed writing it and it was a refreshing change from the moody stuff I was writing then. By that time I'd realized that though I was different, I could still fit in somehow.
Also that year, Hughes had written and produced Some Kind of Wonderful--a sort of "what if Pretty In Pink had ended differently" story, and yet another slice-of-life movie that hit home for me, this time showing that being different from everyone else was actually a good thing...and by that time, I was heavily into college radio, writing more moody and strange things, and figuring out who I was.
I'd say the last of the Hughes movies that really struck a chord with me at that point was 1988's She's Having a Baby--not so much in story, but in music. It had a great soundtrack and a well-written story which, though I wasn't there yet, made me think about what I was going to do once I got to post-college life. With its Alec Baldwin subplot, it also made me wonder just how people would change in the years to come.
I didn't watch too many of his post-80s work, though the first Home Alone, Dutch, and Maid in Manhattan were well-made and enjoyable. All told, his 80s work had the biggest impact on me, on my writing, my music tastes, and on my life. To this day I create soundtracks for my stories, and though I don't use the "video treatment" method anymore, the songs I choose complement the scenes I write. His deft use of humor, specifically used to laugh at the situation and not at the character, still impresses me. He was brilliant with his dialogue--quirky and smart, never dated, and always quotable.
He was definitely one of my biggest influences, and he will be missed. Thinking about it, most of his 80s work pretty much paralleled my life at the time, from uncomfortable adolescence to the thrill of nonconformity to the pains of growing up. All with a soundtrack.
I wasn't the biggest fan of those high school/college screwball comedies in the 80s, being that I was a bit too young or distracted to enjoy movies like Class, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Midnight Madness and so on. If anything, I only got to watch and enjoy them once they appeared on a friend's cable box on HBO or The Movie Channel. It wasn't until my family and I went to see Sixteen Candles that I really started paying attention to the genre, though. I didn't quite connect with the film, but it was fun to watch nonetheless.
That same year (1984) was about the time I also started seriously listening to music. I started buying more albums, started listening to and taping from the radio (not just straight ahead rock, but American Top 40 as well), and also enjoying the endless videos played on MTV. From this sudden immersion into music as well as its integration into a visual medium, I came up with the "video treatment" style of writing scenes, specifically for the Infamous War Novel, which I'd started that year.
Come 1985, my family and I went to see The Breakfast Club. By that time, though music and writing was still important, I was definitely growing into my teenage years, having brief relationships with some local girls, and also growing into who I'd eventually become. This movie was a real eye-opener for me at the time, it being such a spot-on story about growing up and trying to figure out who you are. It also grabbed me because of the music--it was in the forefront rather than in the background, used as part of the story rather than just a mood setting, as if a soundtrack for life rather than a movie. And of course, the Simple Minds theme song "Don't You (Forget About Me)" was one of my biggest personal favorites of the time. It was also about this time that some of my earliest non-IWN writing came about, partly inspired by these two Hughes movies and full of music references.
I didn't quite gel with Weird Science (also in 1985), but the year after that, he released what many consider his best Brat Pack movie, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The 80s had grown out of its post-70s discomfort and become flashy and fun again, and this one was released during a great wave of pop music. Everything was right about this movie, from a great soundtrack to brilliant timing and humor to some of Hughes' best-known and remembered scenes and dialogue. That same year, he'd written and produced (but not directed) Pretty in Pink, another of my personal favorites in terms of use of story and music and dealing with nonconformity...and featuring one of my all-time favorite Hughes scenes ever:
In 1987, after finishing the IWN, I'd started writing a silly Hughes-esque screenplay called One Step Closer to You, a nerd-tries-to-win-popular-girl story heavily inspired by his movies. Many of the scenes had a song playing, either as background or as something to push the story. I came nowhere near the level of Hughes' work with it, but I really enjoyed writing it and it was a refreshing change from the moody stuff I was writing then. By that time I'd realized that though I was different, I could still fit in somehow.
Also that year, Hughes had written and produced Some Kind of Wonderful--a sort of "what if Pretty In Pink had ended differently" story, and yet another slice-of-life movie that hit home for me, this time showing that being different from everyone else was actually a good thing...and by that time, I was heavily into college radio, writing more moody and strange things, and figuring out who I was.
I'd say the last of the Hughes movies that really struck a chord with me at that point was 1988's She's Having a Baby--not so much in story, but in music. It had a great soundtrack and a well-written story which, though I wasn't there yet, made me think about what I was going to do once I got to post-college life. With its Alec Baldwin subplot, it also made me wonder just how people would change in the years to come.
I didn't watch too many of his post-80s work, though the first Home Alone, Dutch, and Maid in Manhattan were well-made and enjoyable. All told, his 80s work had the biggest impact on me, on my writing, my music tastes, and on my life. To this day I create soundtracks for my stories, and though I don't use the "video treatment" method anymore, the songs I choose complement the scenes I write. His deft use of humor, specifically used to laugh at the situation and not at the character, still impresses me. He was brilliant with his dialogue--quirky and smart, never dated, and always quotable.
He was definitely one of my biggest influences, and he will be missed. Thinking about it, most of his 80s work pretty much paralleled my life at the time, from uncomfortable adolescence to the thrill of nonconformity to the pains of growing up. All with a soundtrack.
