JOHN HUGHES:
Making lha Movies
Young Peopio Love
HH erris Heuller's Day Off, says John
Hughes, "is about this high sch<x>l
kit) who tuts class and goes to the
■ big ciry for the day with his best
friend and girlfriend But, it really is
about personal freedom and how differ
ent things are when you have decided for
just one day to be free."
Hughes, world class creator and cutter
of films ranging from Mr Mom to Sixteen
Candles and The Breakfast Club, is
perched on the edge of a long grey couch
at his offices at Paramount Studios in Hoi
lywood With the exception of Stephen
Spielberg, no recent young filmmaker
has enjoyed such speedy success. During
the past three years or so, his efforts have
made hundreds of millions of dollars and
displayed the comic verve and range of a
Charlie Chaplin or Wbody Allen Just by
making movies about kids
Some, like The breakfast Ctuh, are
tightly choreographed, literate ballets
One or two others, like the National
Lampoon s Summer Vacation, may have
had their most crucial scenes conjured on
the back of a cocktail napkin
But, mostly, Hughes’ work is ambi
tious, smart, riveting and funny And no
current movie maker is as gtxid at mixing
belly laughs with heart and compassion.
Terris Heuller is his latest
“It's about freedom from worry Ferris
doesn't worry, doesn't sweat anything
It's also about a change in reality If
you've ever stayed home from school or
work for reasons other than being sick,
you see how different the world looks "
Hughes looks far less like the stereo
typical tanned Hollywood mogul than,
BY MARK CHRISTENSEN
.say. a rather bookish member of an En
glish rock howl Tall An explosive mane
of long, (lark hlorul Ivair. Glasses A black
cloth coat, thoroughly wrinkled silver
slacks and a white shirt with sleeves so
long that his cuffs touch his knuckles
"I’d much rather be a musician than a
movie maker, but I'm |ust about tone
deaf To me, tuning a guitar correctly Is
one of the world's major mysteries ' Nev
ertheless, his aggressive use- of new mu
sic has become a stock in trade "Simple
Minds sold SO,000 albums until 'Don't
You' broke on breakfast Club
"But there will lx- a change with the
music on hems. What 1 want to do is use a
big sound, a state of the an production
using edge bands that press the enve
lope or whatever the spac e people call
it bands like Zig Zag Sputnik, then,
couple that with a more accessible sound
I want to foc us my movies on bands
who have the right to be heard by the
great Top Forty masses New stuff Be
cause, like, when I go to Chicago, I listen
to three stations and get nothing but San
tana and Layla ' It's like somt-bexly fell
asleep on the 1972 button."
A former writer for National Lampoon,
Hughes left the magazine several years
ago to wrile wliat are popularly perceived
as "teen flicks," a realm previously domi
nated by big breasts, beer drinking and
fart jokes His efforts (usually) to elevate
the genre have made for films that re
create adolescence with an energy, in
ventiveness and exactitude that can be
drop dead eerie.
Who can forget Anthony Michael Hall
in Sixteen Canities, the kid with the spi
dery hands and concave chest who, while
wooing Molly Kingwald, allows, some
what parenthetically, that his social status
in the school is insured by the fact that he
is "king of the dipshits " Or, later, when
he wakes after a drunken night of evident
debauchery and de virgmizing with his
high school s brassiest sex|x>t, the new,
rather blithely unanchored Hall asking
her, "Did I enjoy it?"
Hughes' cmhuMa.Mii for these kinds of
shenanigans is surprising in light of the
fart ihai his own adolescent experience
was not idylic In high school, I was a
serious outcast. a laughingstock I look li
I look ti ami I thought. I'll show you, I II
show you This was, like, in 196"'
"I went to a |ock y school. \X'c hail a
serious dress code I almost didn't gradu
ate, Ix-iause my liair touched my collar
Hack then, I wanted to lx- Picasso, Mi
t helangelo, James Joyce or Boll Dylan
That's where I took my solace IVople
would make fun of me, anil I'd think,
'That's okay Picasso would like me ’ I'd
come home at uighi, and I'd sit ai my win
dow and pul on my albums and read my
British music magazines I didn't waul lo
belong, because I couldn't belong
"The guy who was the teacher in
Hrvakfast (Hub was my gym teat her He
didn't like me because of my hair, so he
flunked me senior year in gym, which
meant, to graduate. I hail to lake double
gym anil healih You know, sit in i lass
anil look at VI) ravaged genitals anil slide
shows alNHil how to brush your teeth
Were other characters in his films taken
directly from experience? ' Yeah The
(erk rich kid in I’rvtty In link I hail a guy
like him haunt me all the way through
high school Money to burn His older
brother had an Alfa, the big nice one, and
parked it outside with the lop down in the
rain I would walk by and see the rose
wood but klmg on ihe dash I couldn't un
derstand how kills could live like that I
just wasn't part of that world
And college was scarcely an Improve
ment. " I hated it intensely I was enor
mously homesick and felt completely
displaced I went to college in Ari/.o
na, a big party school, a big fraternity
school The anti war movement was very
small, and the cops were very tough
"I was des|x-rately in love with my
wife, wIki was then my girlfriend She was
still in high school I spent 91,000 lirst
semester just on phone bills.
”1 had problems with the six ial nature
of the school I wasn't a fraternity type
Ami I had a knack for attracting hostile
authority figures I mean, during the Rev
olutlonary VKtr 1 would have been over at
Tom Payne's house saying. Hey. let's get
some boats, cross the Atlantic and make
them live under US for a while' " Finally,
after two or three and a half years, Hughes
got a belly full of academia and. on hear
« Ing John larnnon'*"VHirking Class Hero".
'{■ decided to head hack home
Conditions did not improve immedi
ately "Nancy and I she was 20, I was
3 21 lived in a converted boxcar The rent
was only II10 a m< >nth Hut. we couldn't
make it and ended up living in my par
ents' basement for eight months," But
things got better After failing the'wrlttng
tests"of half the ad agencies In Chicago,
he got a fob at l.ei i Burnett where he final
ly found a niche
"I went to work in the day and came
home In the dark I started ai IK.S00 a
year, doubled my salary within six
months and doubled it again a year after
that I (list ke(H eating up Kisses One
time the guy above me did an ad the com
pany didn't like I asked fora shot at it and
stayed up all night doing sixteen varla
lions on lIk- Itlea I had They liked one
and. the next thing I knew. I had Ins job I
was a creative director at 2S or 26 "
Then came National lamfxton, where
Hughes filled upwards of 120 magazine
pages a year with stories like "sexual Har
rassment I low to 1 >o It The rest, as they
A
say, Is history
So. has success changed John Hughes?
Evidently, not much Hughes still spends
as much time as possible back home in
Chicago "I still own a house there I just
put a new roof on it, so, if there are winos
living there while I'm gone, they won't
get wet I don't mix much socially out
here I've only gone to two so called
Hollywood' parties in my life, one be
cause I’J O'Rourke made me, and the
other because it was an MTV premiere for
/Ve'/rv In Pink "
Big Money doesn't seem to Interest
him either "I've got a business manager 1
haven't seen in a year and a half Basically,
I know I'm better off now betause I can
afford to buy lots more records "
But what about the future? "I'd like to
have my own building, my own o|>era
tlon I'm not that nuts about movie lots
I'd like to write a Ivxik, maybe a novel,
but I don't think I've mastered that form
yet I'd love to do some 9,000 page thing.
"I've got another him scheduled to
start shooting this summer. Some Kind of
VHwderful It s college, my first foray into
college Its about the difference between
the first year and the last, the struggle for
dignity and identity
Right now, I'm making two movies a
year with very direct involvement But I
could do three a year, produce two and
direct one The thing is, I 've got a million
ideas It's choosing which ones to exe
cute that's tough
11
if mu
■
Above: A* th* ciass-cutbng lead m Ftrrit Btuler't Day Oft, Matthew Broderick indtAget in tome eenoui ratax
atton. Hughe* deicnbet hit dm about the high achooier't day on ttte Imi m “about perioral freedom," and “a
change in reaHy.Hyou*ve ever Hayed horn* from achool or work for reoaonaofherbian being »ck, you raaiz*
now wTWtfn me wono toons
Lett Annie Potts, who start as a
funky record store manager, re*
Irves some of her senior prom
memories wiui atony nwtgwaKi in
^ «.-< **-.«— *—-i_
rfVUj W rmm. DwOW MUVV
McCarthy (Left with Pnttym Pink
-» “ - «* »*’— —i-i-s »-i-~
cottars wosy ningwaw ana jonn
Cryer) pity* the “jerk rich Wd”
inspeed by s reaHMe Hughes high
school classmate who partied his
Alfa "outside with the top down in
the ram. I would wak by and see
the rosewood buckling on the
dash."
"la high school, I was a
soploas outcast,...
Pooplo would aiaho fun
at me sad I'd thlak,
'That's okay. Picasso
woald like mo'.''