Finally an American Classic
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Year released: June 11th 1986 Rating: PG-13
Genre: Comedy Type of film: Blockbuster Length: 103 min’s
Writer/Director: John Hughes Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto
Major Actors: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara
Ferris Bueller's Day Off has finally made it way into the
National Film Registry Archives, making it officially and American Classic.
This is a great feet, for a movie that is classified as a modern film according
to archiving standers. Every year at the end of the year the National Film
Registry selects 25 movies to preserve and place in the archives; these movies
are protected as American Classics. It is every rare for newer films to make
the list normally the archives select older films for example for the 1950 and
under, but this year for the first time in archive history seven newer films
made the cut and Ferris Bueller's Day Off was one of them. So to extend
congratulations to everyone who made this amazing film possible here is the
Coffee Blow Ferris Bueller's Day Off film critique.
Plot Summery/Synopsis
Ferris Bueller may seems like your average American
teenager, but when he decides to take a day off of from school is friends began
to realize there is nothing average about Ferris. Ferris' best friend is a nerd
by the name of Cameron Frye who always follows the rules, never does anything
wrong, is a hypochondriac, and is scared of everything. Early one morning
before school starts Ferris decides to call Cameron who is seemingly very sick
in bed with cold that is killing him. Ferris tells Cameron about his plans to
take the off or as it is known to Cameron as skipping school, and he wants
Cameron and Cameron’s fathers prize Ferrari to join him. After finally
convincing his friend to steal his father’s favorite car to go on a road trip
around Chicago, Ferris decides the trip wouldn't be complete without his
girlfriend Sloane Peterson. He devises a plan to sneak her out of school
without being caught by Principal Ed Rooney who wants to catch Ferris is the
act of skipping school so bad that it doesn't seem healthy. Ferris and Cameron
manage to sneak Sloane out of school and set out on a world win adventure. As
they start out on the tour de Chicago, back home Ferris sister Jeanie is being
terrorized by his principal who she thinks is a burglar. She calls the police
only to be asked if her bother is feeling better only to have to take matters
into her own hands. Back in Chicago everything was going wonderfully for Ferris
and his friends they were having a good time until Cameron goes into shock.
There is a blank stare on his face as his eyes glaze over read, and Ferris and
Sloane try different things to knock him out of shock. After a long time
Cameron starts to talk, he wasn't in shock; he was meditating and taking what
he called a deep look at himself from within. Cameron realizes what Ferris was
secretly trying to get him to realize all along, that he needs to stop being
scared and stand up for him. So when the miles on the Ferrari wont roll back
Cameron decides not to let Ferris roll them back by hand because he wants to
stand up for himself against his dad. He goes into a rant about how he is
treated unfairly and hates that his own father treats the Ferrari better than
he treats him. As he leans on the car thinking of his father’s faces has he
stands up to him and tells him what he did, the car roll out of the show room
and falls into the large cliff outside of Cameron house becoming totaled. After
killing the car Cameron decides to take the complete fall for what happened
even when Ferris says it was his fault entirely, and just when you think the
movie is over the race begins. The epic Ferris Bueller's race home to be back
in bed before his parents get home from work, when he arrives him however he
finds himself confronted by a mangled principal Ed Rooney who is holding the
key he needs to get back into his house. Jeanie rushes home and save manages to
save Ferris as she opens the door to let him in pretends his she was looking
for him and that he was sick, she falsely thank the principal for driving
Ferris home from the hospital and principal Ed Rooney almost starts to cry.
When Ferris goes inside the house she spitefully throws the principal wallet
that he dropped on their kitchen floor after he broke in to the family guard
dog. Ferris makes it to bed just in time for his parents to walk into his room
to check on him, the principal ends up having to ride the school bus home and
see a sign that says save Ferris on one of the kids note books. Back at Ferris
house he walks out into the hallway and tells the views the movie is over and
tells them all to go home.
The people be hound the camera
Everyone
knows that great movies don't make themselves; we all know it takes a lot of
people to make a movie come to life. So let’s look at some of the main people
who help make this movie what it has become today find out what role they play
in the outcome of the movie.
The Write/Director
John Hughes
It took
John Hughes less than a week to write the screen play for Ferris Bueller's Day
off and three months to shoot the movie. The reason he had to do this was the
studio knew that there was going to be a big protest and they would have to shut
down while the protesting took place. John Hughes wanted to make this move so
much that he stayed out long hours and some say he did really rest until the
movie was done. Why? Well the movie is what he called his, "lover letter
to the city." the city of Chicago, but it was so much more than that. His
movie was a lesson for teenage youth the message that is so clear throughout
the move it even inspired a famous quote that people still use to this day the quote
is from the character Ferris himself, "Life moves pretty fast. If you
don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." John
Hughes made this clear not only in famous quotes for the characters but also
from the filming itself. It was the first teen movie to include Mise en Scene
shots and implication shots. One implication/Mise en Scene shot in the movie is
When Cameron was looking at a painting of a little girl and Hughes did montage
shots mixed with close ups to show that there was a something in common between
Cameron and the little girl in the painting. He wanted the viewer to learn life
lessons and to learn about Chicago. He always gets criticized for shouting in
Chicago and he as he pointed out another famous director, "doesn’t get criticized
for shooting in New York all the time." He wanted to show the wonder of Chicago
and all the things it was famous for, “I really wanted to capture as much of
Chicago as I could. Not just in the architecture, and landscape, but the
spirit." Hughes states.
Cinematographer
Tak Fujimoto seemed to share the
same vision as Hughes his images incased every scene and captured some deep and
enriching moments in the move. His shots themselves are artful and meaning and
people use them to pictures and points, they are lessons in themselves. Which
makes it so hard to believe that Tak Fujimoto actually got his start working on
Ferris Bueller's Day Off was. That’s right Ferris Bueller's Day Off was Tak
Fujimoto's first movie. His scene coloring and style shaped the depth of the
movie. Just looking at his cinematography alone captures the mind and makes the
viewer thinks. Tak Fujimoto uses color and symmetry to draw out these emotions
not only in the audience but also in the characters. One of his shots is well
known at the museum shot it shows the characters standing in front of a
painting in line with their arms crossed. What someone don't notice or
sometimes cut out of the shot when they turn it into a photo is the fourth man
in the shot, who also has his arms crossed. His present not only makes the shot
more symmetrical and eye pleasing but the color of his suite also rounds out
the shot (http://collegefilmandmediastudies.com/cinematography/ collegefilmandmediastudies.com)The shot has a lot of light spectrum and a few medium spectrums, but
it didn't really have a dark spectrum. When you take the man away the only
items left to make up the dark spectrums are the strips in Ferris jacket and a
small painting in the background. Some of his other famous shots are Cameron
look outside at his father’s car from inside the showroom, the couch shot with
Jeanie and the boy in the police station, and the fake moonlight scene in the
museum.
Actors
The
main actors in the movie are Matthew Broderick who played Ferris Bueller, Alan
Ruck who played Cameron Frye, and Mia Sara who played Sloane Peterson. Hughes
said he had Matthew Broderick in mind while writing the script, he needed
someone who looked young, charming, and innocence, yet manipulative. It might
come as a surprise to some that Matthew was 24 when Ferris Bueller's Day Off
was filmed, although he looks 17 at best in the movie. He's charm is one of the
first things you notice in the movie, his presents in the film could have been
seen as an immature teenager but his character came across more as the overly immature
teenager who was trying to prepare his friend Cameron for the real world and
life as an adult. Alan Ruck played Cameron and at the start of the movie his
character seemed to be the mature one of the twos friends, but we soon came to
realize that he was the average immature teenager, or maybe even overly immature
teenager. Alan Ruck was 30 at the time of shooting and he was cast for the part
as Cameron because he could come across as the neglected and alienated scare of
his own shadow teenager, and play the role and a strong and fearless character.
Some say he could have been cast as Ferris which at the end of the movie his
character does break out of his shell and start to act more like Ferris. So
Alan's rule in the movie is critical his personality needed to clash with
Matthew's rule, they needed to be complete opposites yet still have a reason or
something in common that makes then friends. Cameron’s inner Ferris like
personality traits seemed to be that reason. At the same time Ferris also had
some inner personality traits that match Cameron’s outer traits. Toward the end
of the movie it was clear that what we thought in the beginning of the movie wasn’t
true. Ferris wasn't the careless teenager, who only thought about himself, but
he was more like Cameron, and Cameron wasn't the overly cautious, rule follower,
but he was more like Ferris. Showing their friendship on screen wasn't too hard
for the director to convey because they were best friends in real life, and
that translated well onto the screen. In fact the casting was so good that some
of the actors ended up becoming real couples and even getting married and
almost married. Sloane was the only teenager on the set at the time of filming,
and her character brings the out the adult side of Ferris and shows him as
having a mature and adult relationship with her instead of a crazily passionate
teenage relationship, it helps to show is grown up said, and in one scene on
the movie when Ferris and Cameron are arguing about the cars odometer Mia and
Matthew's character start acting like Cameron’s parents (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/11/ferris-bueller-_n_5461339.html Hiffinton Post). She is Matthew's
characters support and Alan's characters nature, she tries to help Cameron
recover from shock and in fights against Ferris, and she plays a parental role
that balances out what could lead to a scene of teenage drama that could take
over the movie she turns into a mature affair.
Why Ferris Bueller's Day off made the Nathional Film Registry
It takes a long list of criteria for a film to get into the Library of congress, the film has to be meaning full an make a big impact on society. Ferris Bueller's Day Off wasn't just a teen movie, it intersted all age groups, but it also made a big statment and was historical as well. In was a amazing depection of 20th centry younth but also of Chicago. (http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2014/14-210.html library of congress)
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