No one else captured what it was like to be a teenager full of angst like John Hughes did. Think about it: up until the 80s not many movies with teenagers were really digging in to what a teen was experiencing. John Hughes managed to see through all the garbage and put out movies like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Pretty in Pink. Say what you will, but those movies captured the alienation that many teenagers go through all the time.
Hughes went on to write the successful Home Alone series and worked on several of the early National Lampoons movies. Other classics from him include: Dutch, Curly Sue, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Beethoven and recently Drillbit Taylor.
Many directors work hard to express themselves in their films and really relate to and pull in the audience at the same time. Hughes had a simple way of taking ordinary teenagers and putting them in ordinary situations and making everyone think that their lives could be on the big screen. Didn’t you ever wonder what it would be like to be left home alone? Not that those extremes would happen to the average person, but the fun of your imagination takes flight.
Hughes’ touch will be missed by anyone that ever laughed, cried or related to his movies. He started the careers for several movie stars and even made Ben Stein famous; anyone that can do that deserves plenty of credit. Going back and watching those movies today, although dated, kids can still see how the stories reflect their own lives and vice versa. He made Chicago feel like every small town in America.
