11 - Clueless Times at the Ferris Bueller Club: A Critical Analysis of the Directorial Works of Amy Heckerling and John Hughes

Summary

Amy Heckerling perfected a style of filmmaking that influenced both the teen and the family film genres. Films like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Clueless (1995), and the first two Look Who's Talking films (1989–90) revealed Heckerling to be a versatile filmmaker who is willing to take risks. Heckerling pushed the boundaries of humor into an area of low comedy that had not been used before by any mainstream director. Through her unique style, Amy Heckerling set the pace for teen films and paved the way for modern examples like She's All That (Robert Iscove, 1999) and Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004), which include both overt and subtle homages to Heckerling's work in the form of, among other things, makeover sequences and humorous, yet realistic, teenaged drama.

Heckerling's work parallels and intersects the work of likeminded teen and family director John Hughes, who was the creative force behind such films as Sixteen Candles (1984), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and the Home Alone films (1990–2002). Like Heckerling, Hughes did much to establish and impact on the teen and family genres, though his style is all his own. For instance, Hughes's musical tastes and ability to make characters who would typically be outcasts into heroes allowed his films to secure their own place in film history.

This analysis argues that Amy Heckerling and John Hughes are unique directors whose individual works (and one collaboration) have defined and furthered the teen and family film genres. Although some similar characteristics of Hughes's and Heckerling's works are noted, there are numerous other ways in which each director is distinct. Because each director has created films that can be specifically tied to later films that fit in the same genres, it is possible to state that each could be called an “auteur.” Andrew Sarris states that a seminal aspect of auteur theory is that of a “distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value. Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style, which serve as his signature.” I argue that this criterion applies to both Heckerling and Hughes in their defined bodies of work in the teen and family film genres.