 There are lots of great teen films from
many talented directors. When it comes down to it, though, only
one filmmaker truly made a career out of it – John Hughes.
I don’t know if he is the type of guy who never grew
up, or the type who lamented for high school days gone by.
To be honest, I just don’t know that much about him.
Certainly he isn’t celebrated in the same way as Stanley
Kubrick, Alfred
Hitchcock or Martin Scorsese, and that his major successes are almost exclusively in one genre
may limit fair analysis  of his directorial talent. But that
only brings up a larger question:
Who cares?
Sometimes
things just don’t need to be dissected and
examined with scalpel and probe. In my opinion, the catalogue
of '80s films that Hughes either wrote or directed is
immune to this type of scrutiny. Starting with his script
for National
Lampoon’s Vacation in
1983 and continuing straight on through  Uncle Buck and
finally, National
Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation in
1989 nearly everything the man touched was solid gold entertainment
on at least some level. But specifically, it was
his teen flicks that resonated (and still resonate) with
audiences. In a society where generation gaps get smaller
yet parents become more preoccupied with work, Hughes recognized
this and was able to implement it in his films. He was on
a tear throughout the decade, so it’s worth
more to examine why his films work than
look for whatever minor flaws they might have.
Despite
being in his thirties during the 1980s, he had a complete
grasp on the teenage lifestyle. He understood the universal
qualities of all teenagers, regardless of background. They
didn’t/don’t
want to go to school, they were/are on some level concerned
with being cool and fitting in, and it’s likely that
they and their parents either didn’t/don’t
get along or see eye-to-eye on most things. These themes
are
evident in almost all of Hughes' catalogue, but it was
never more pronounced than
in The Breakfast Club.
The reason the themes are so well developed no doubt comes
from the fact that this was the first film that Hughes wrote,
produced and directed. Of all the films he made up
to this point, this one was his.
Spending
time discussing the plot of The Breakfast
Club is almost moot for a couple of reasons. First,
it’s an incredibly popular movie that most people have
already seen. Second, it’s an ensemble film and the
plot is little more than a set-up to get dialog going.
But for the sake of the six people reading this who might
not have seen it, here  it is, in a nutshell: the film takes
place entirely in a high-school library. Five students
of different backgrounds are sentenced to serve out a Saturday
together. Confined to the school’s library, they must
remain quiet, and contemplate their individual reasons
for being there. All of the students are serving their
detentions for different reasons, none of which are revealed
for the first 50 minutes of the film. Aside from the
students, there are only two other people in the school;
principal Vernon (Paul Gleason) and the janitor Carl (John
Kapelos).
 Nearly everyone loves this movie because they can easily
relate to any or all of the students. Andrew (Emilio Estevez)
is the jock of the group who feels he has to live up to the
expectations of his father and his peers. Brian (Anthony Michael
Hall) is the brainy geek of the bunch, overstressed by his
parents’ desire for him to succeed. Claire (Molly Ringwald)
is the prom queen and stereotypical rich girl. Allison (Ally
Sheedy) is the silent mysterious type who attracts attention
to herself by pretending not to want attention herself. Finally,
John Bender (Judd Nelson) is the “criminal” who
in effort to cause a ruckus, ends up being the catalyst that
causes the group to come together and open up to one another.
As you can see, every major school clique is represented here,
and once the students finally get together and open up to
one another they reveal that they’re all going through
the same things, struggling with the same issues and sharing
similar dissatisfactions with themselves.
 Whenever The
Breakfast Club is examined,
the supporting characters often go overlooked. Early in the
film, Vernon is set up as your typical, take-no-shit commanding
voice of authority. He’s justifiably angry about having
to baby-sit students on a Saturday - specifically Bender,
who’s obviously been there before and goes out of his
way to push the principal’s buttons. In a particularly
difficult scene after Bender sacrifices himself in order
to allow the other kids to get out of trouble, Vernon isolates
Bender into a separate room and challenges him to a fight,
boasting pridefully about how important he is, and how insignificant
the student is. This is an important turning point for Vernon,
as it shows that it isn’t just the students who project
a fake image, but the adults do the same. Vernon would never
let his true feelings show back in the library in front of
the other students. This makes the Vernon character a perfect
counterpoint to Carl the janitor. Here is a man whose occupation
is filth, but who is the most pure and wise of them all and
has a much clearer viewing of “the big picture” than
the educated Vernon does. In a film full of fantastic dialog,
it’s Carl who has the most fitting line:
Vernon: Now this is the thought that wakes me up in
the middle of the night. When I get older, these kids are
gonna take care of me.
Carl: I wouldn’t count on it.
 This could easily be written off as blatant generational
pessimism, but it takes the tone of from-the-heart observation
following a previous statement Carl made, telling Vernon, “The
kids haven’t changed. You have.” It’s a
wonderful exchange, which can be taken in various ways. Directly,
it means the younger generation won’t take care of the
older. More appropriately, it means the kids won’t care
about people like Vernon. The kids will remember the people
who stepped on and humiliated them. It is interesting to
remember that while Bender may have been the main recipient
of Vernon’s
attacks, not a single student escaped his wrath that day.
Carl’s statement was as true then as it is now. Kids
really don’t change, and they certainly haven’t
changed much in the 20+ years since The Breakfast
Club finished its theatrical run. The realization
of this may be the biggest testament to why Hughes’ film
remains so endearing. Regardless of how outdated the soundtrack
is today, and despite the fact that the fashion trends have
long since passed; all of this can be overlooked. The film’s
message, the relatable characters and their recognition and
acceptance of their flaws transcend time. Never has there
been a better meditation on alienation and never has there
been a better high school film. It must be because Hughes
exposes the fact that alienation and high school are practically
interchangeable.
Film fanatics and cinephiles can connect with Citizen
Kane, but everyone can connect with The
Breakfast Club.
The DVD Presentation
The presentation on this disc is completely solid, if not
as stellar as possible. This disc represents the first time
ever that The Breakfast Club was made available
anamorphically enhanced and in its original aspect ratio.
The transfer is clean, if a bit soft, but not to any bothersome
degree. This alone would be cause for celebration but, this
is also the first time that The Breakfast Club was
made available with its original soundtrack intact. Some
songs were cut out for television broadcast and previous
VHS releases. For this DVD release, all the original songs
have been restored. What little you do lose from the original
DVD is that this release doesn’t have the Mono tracks
(English, Spanish and French) that were included on the 1998
DVD. These have been replaced by remixed 5.1 surround tracks
in both Dolby Digital and DTS flavors. Purists might dislike
this move; I don’t mind – it’s mixed well.
Subtitles are available here in English, Spanish and French.
And the Extras Are?
Theatrical Trailer – (1:24)
The trailer is presented in full-screen and looks fairly
rough, as though it was from a VHS release. It’s a
decent enough trailer, I suppose. It really understates
the film and makes it seem much more comical than it really
is but it sells the picture well enough.
Recommendations –
“If you like The Breakfast Club, you may also like Weird
Science and Sixteen Candles”… imagine
that!
Aside for some forced trailers at the start of the DVD (The
High School Reunion Collection, Animal House:
Double Secret Probation Edition and Monty Python’s
The Meaning Of Life: Two-Disc Special Edition) these
are all the features you are getting.
 Near
the end of 2002, Universal announced that they were discontinuing
the previous release of The Breakfast
Club and were going to be releasing full fledged
special editions of all three John Hughes films mentioned
above. This didn’t happen. In 2005 they re-released
them yet again as a box set only with an additional CD of
80s music that anyone who has ever bought more than
one 80s compilation CD already had. As I write this,
2006 is over half over, and while Paramount has released
special editions of their Hughes films, Ferris
Bueller’s
Day Off, Pretty In Pink, and Some
Kind Of Wonderful, (Well… he wrote all three,
but only directed Ferris) Universal has yet
to step up to the plate they promised over four years ago.
A reissue of The Breakfast Club, with cast
commentary, would be the best thing that ever happened to
DVD. It’s these undelivered promises that keep the film
from its five pants potential.
The Bottom Line
If you have a list of favorite teen movies or favorite 80s
movies and The Breakfast Club doesn’t
make your top 10, you must not have seen it. It isn’t
possible to rate this film any lower. If you hate The
Breakfast Club, how do you keep breathing? You really
need to ask yourself what’s wrong. Get help. Quickly.
For those who love the movie, this DVD release of The
Breakfast Club is the best available, even in light
of the painful lack of substantial extras, which is curious
considering that the John Hughes fan base spans multiple
generations now. There’s no excuse for neglecting The
Breakfast Club when so many lesser John Hughes films
are out in fully packed special editions. But with the reasonably
cheap retail cost, and the strongest transfer to date, The
Breakfast Club should be in everyone’s collection.
While the '80s are long gone, the themes of the film
never will be. Get it for yourself, get it for your kids,
just get it. There is something in The Breakfast
Club for
everyone, and it always rewards repeated, frequent viewings.
|
