R.I.P John Hughes

The man behind Ferris Bueller's Day Off has died of a heart attack (Telegraph). He was 59.

Like a lot of you I'm sure, John Hughes touched my life through his films. He made gentle, well-crafted and entertaining movies about families and growing up (and sex!) and all that stuff. He wrote and directed The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck and the aforementioned mega-classic Ferris Bueller--and a ton of other treasures (which depending on your taste may or may not include Home Alone). You can see a full resume here on the Internet Movie Database.

My top John Hughes' movie moment is the Chicago Art Institute montage in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In the scene, the three friends--Ferris (Matthew Broderick), Sloan (Mia Sara) and Cameron (Alan Ruck)--wander the museum while skipping school and dramatically/ridiculously ponder famous paintings.

Then, Ferris and Sloan sneak off to cuddle before a beautiful Marc Chagall work. And the repressed, lonely, and crazily virginal and frustrated Cameron plants himself in front of the epic Georges-Pierre Seurat pointillist painting "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte-1884".

Lost, helpless and probably half out of his mind with jealously for Ferris' relationship with his girlfriend Sloan, Cameron stares and stares and stares at Seurat's great work, looking closer and closer until he can't see anything but the dotted dabs of paint that make up a child's face.





Such are the hazards of looking at things too closely--you miss the bigger picture. Cameron is real subject of the film, the character who truly has changed by movie's end.

I'm pretty sure this scene was the reason I went to Chicago for the first time in 1992--to stare at famous dots and divine the secrets of life.

I probably learned about as much from the experience as Cameron did.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hughes.