Friday 7 August 2009

John Hughes will never die

The man who was the 1980s is dead. John Hughes, the producer, writer and director of Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) as well as the writer and producer of Pretty in Pink (1986) and Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). These films are smart, sweet, funny and sometimes rather brilliant. None more so than Ferris Bueller's Day Off, to these eyes one of the best films of the 1980s, even if it doesn't star Hughes star actress, Molly Ringwald.

Unfortunately Hughes vanished in the 90s, only sometimes writing scripts of inferior quality. That's a pity but maybe it's just as well that he didn't direct anymore because if he had continued he wouldn't be so definitively of the 80s. It's too much to call him his generation's Preston Sturges, but there are similarites. R.I.P.

The New York Times obituary
The Guardian obituary and collection of youtube clips

Howard Deutch directed Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful. After that he's made episodes of tv-shows and various sequels. I think it's safe to say that Hughes was the creative force behind those two films.