It has been a week since director John Hughes died of a heart attack in New York.
I wrote about this last Thursday, but I didn't really feel the same sense of loss that others did. Many of his movies represented something of a transitional period for a different age group. I mean, I enjoyed his films, like "The Breakfast Club," "Sixteen Candles" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," but they weren't my personal statements of adolescence. I had already been through that phase of my life.
Last week, I don't think I fully realized what Hughes' passing meant to many people. To me, he was a gifted director. To others, his death was another nail in the coffins of their childhoods.
Actress Molly Ringwald, who appeared in several of Hughes' films, summed things up rather well in a guest column she wrote this week for the New York Times.
If you haven't read it already, please click on the link and read it when you have a few minutes. I'm not going to quote from it or analyze it or add to it in any way. I would prefer to let her words speak for themselves. Hughes' death was more personal for her than it was for most because she knew and worked with the man, but she shared the same affiliation with his movies that others of her generation did.
And that is all I am going to say — except that I encourage you to read Ringwald's column — especially if you belong to what is known as "Generation X."
