The Breakfast Club

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Movie
German title The Breakfast Club
Original title The Breakfast Club
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1985
length 93 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director John Hughes
script John Hughes
production John Hughes,
Ned Tanen
music Keith Forsey
camera Thomas Del Ruth
cut Dede Allen
occupation
synchronization

The Breakfast Club , also Breakfast Club - The Breakfast Club (original title: The Breakfast Club ), is a youth film by John Hughes from 1985. The leading actors were assigned to the Brat Pack and were considered promising talents of their generation. The Breakfast Club was a huge hit with critics and audiences alike, and proved influential in the teenage film genre. In 2016 it was accepted into the National Film Registry .

action

At an Illinois high school on Saturday, March 24, 1984 , five very different students met for detention. They know little about each other, but believe they have little to nothing in common with each other: the nerdy nerdy Brian Johnson; the rebel John Bender from a violent home; sports ace Andrew, a muscle-bound high school hero; Claire, the "princess" from a wealthy family; and the black-clad outsider Allison. The young people now have to sit in the school library for eight hours and are supposed to write an essay about who they are. They are supervised by the strict and overwhelmed teacher Richard Vernon, who temporarily locks John in a storage room because of his rebellious behavior, but from which he can later escape.

While the differences between the characters become visible at the beginning of the detention and the five show themselves distanced from each other, they gradually come closer to each other through provocation, quarrels and pranks. Relaxed by several joints , the five teenagers talk about their problems, fears and longings. In doing so, they are confronted with their own prejudices and compulsions until they learn to appreciate the other person. All find themselves united in their fears and their desperate search for individuality, and under their self-confessions they slowly find new sides of themselves.

All five are victims of the narrow-minded expectations of those around them: John, on the one hand envied for his freedom, but at the same time despised, is the tragic product of a primitive family; he is a regular guest at detention on Saturdays because of his provocations. The popular Claire has to go to detention for shopping with her friends at school and admits her desperation at the peer pressure that dominates her. The nerdy Brian and the wrestler Andrew suffer from the pressure of their parents' expectations: Because of a bad mark in works, Brian considered killing himself, which is why he kept a flare gun in his locker, which was triggered and earned him detention. Andrew received the punishment he the hair of a weaker boy for no reason with tape taped what he sees as a result of his own lack of opinion. The lonely Allison's personality is not recognized by her parents and classmates - she simply had nothing better to do, so she turned up for detention.

While John and Claire and Andrew and Allison form tender love bonds, Brian writes an essay for all of them. In this Brian writes to Mr. Vernon that he has already determined who they are through stereotypes and categorizations: a nerd, an athlete, an outsider, a princess and a freak. “We think you're crazy to let us write an essay about who we are. What do you care? They see us as they want to see us. ”It is emphasized that Vernon cannot reduce them to one facet, but that each of them has something of the other in them. However , it remains uncertain whether the mutual empathy will last the following Monday.

background

History of origin

Former Maine North High School , location of the film

John Hughes had already made a name for himself as a screenwriter of successful comedies in the early 1980s. Most of the script for The Breakfast Club was written in just two days. He got the idea for the film title from the nearby New Trier High School in Winnetka , where the name "Breakfast Club" for detention on Saturday mornings was first used colloquially and officially from the 1970s at the latest. When Hughes wanted to direct himself and film producers offered his screenplay for Breakfast Club , they were initially skeptical and doubted because of Hughes' lack of experience as a film director.

Finally, turning Hughes initially wrote Sixteen Candles ( Sixteen Candles , 1984) another teen comedy, which turned out to the public and most critics as a success. Then he turned back to the original film project Breakfast Club . He finally got the money from the producers together, also because the final film budget was comparatively low at around one million US dollars. Thus, even if the film were to fail, the financial risk was considered low. In addition, there was only one location with a handful of actors, which, according to producer Andy Meyer, simplified the shooting.

The library, in which the main part of the film takes place, was built especially for the film in the gym of the 1981 Maine North High School in Des Plaines , Illinois . Several scenes for the John Hughes film Ferris Makes Blue , which appeared a year later, were shot in the same building . Today there is a police station there.

The original version of the film had a running time of 150 minutes. It was cut down to the current 97 minutes, partly at the decision of John Hughes, partly because of pressure from Universal Pictures , the distribution company who did not believe in the film's potential. Universal's producers were nervous about the seriousness of the film and especially the 12-minute scene towards the end of the film where the teenagers talk to each other about their problems. The audience at the test demonstrations reacted particularly positively to these scenes, which is why they ultimately stayed there. Universal Pictures later destroyed all negatives of the cut scenes. In an interview, John Hughes, who died in 2009, said that he was the only one who still had a full version. The version is believed to have been in the possession of Hughes' widow since his death in 2009, but no release is planned so far.

actor

In the youthful leading roles, Hughes cast actors from the so-called " Brat Pack ", most of whom were already known to the audience. Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald had already played under Hughes' direction in Adult Only One year earlier ; Emilio Estevez , Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy also played together in 1985 in St. Elmo's Fire , directed by Joel Schumacher . In the fight for the role of John Bender, Judd Nelson was able to prevail against Nicolas Cage and John Cusack , who had also expressed interest. During the filming there were arguments between director Hughes and Nelson because it loud Molly Ringwald between the different settings remained in his role of Bender - in the classic tradition of method acting provoking and constantly -. At one point, Hughes was about to fire Nelson, but the other actors talked the director out of it.

Paul Gleason was cast in the role of teacher Mr. Vernon because Hughes liked his portrayal of a humorless criminal henchman in The Soldiers of Fortune (1983). For the role of caretaker Carl, the well-known comedian Rick Moranis was initially intended, but there were differences in the role interpretation, since Moranis wanted to play the caretaker as an eccentric Russian with golden teeth. Hughes found these ideas disruptive to the atmosphere of the film and replaced it with John Kapelos . In the final scenes, Hughes makes a little cameo as Brian's father, who is waiting for his son in the car.

Soundtrack

The Simple Minds had one of their biggest hits with the movie Don't You (Forget About Me) . He reached top positions in the charts of many countries. Prior to Simple Minds, The Fixx , Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol had declined to record the movie song. On February 19, 1985, four days after the film opened in theaters, the official film soundtrack was released on A&M Records . The album with a total of ten songs was able to fight its way up to number 17 on the American Billboard 200 .

  1. " Don't You (Forget About Me) " - Simple Minds
  2. "Waiting" - Elizabeth Daily
  3. "Fire in the Twilight" - Wang Chung
  4. "I'm the Dude" (instrumental) - Keith Forsey
  5. "Heart Too Hot to Hold" - Jesse Johnson and Stephanie Spruill
  6. "Dream Montage" (Instrumental) - Gary Chang
  7. "We Are Not Alone" (Instrumental) - Karla DeVito
  8. "Reggae" (instrumental) - Keith Forsey
  9. "Didn't I Tell You?" - Joyce Kennedy
  10. Love Theme (Instrumental) - Keith Forsey

Influences and parodies

The phrase "Eat my shorts" is used in the English version of the film and was transferred to Bart Simpson by Matt Groening . Groening also named the character Bender from Futurama after John Bender. It is also often reported that the character of the school principal Mr. Skinner in the Simpsons is based on the teacher Mr. Vernon in this film.

In the movie parody Not Another Teenage Movie! (2001), who satirized this film among other things, Paul Gleason played his role as Mr. Vernon again. The television series Victorious made an adaptation of the film in 2012. The episode is called The Breakfast Bunch . The television series Faking It also made an adaptation of the film in 2015. The episode is called Boiling Point . The album title you and how much of your friends from the Hamburg band Kettcar is borrowed from a dialogue between John Bender and Andrew. The song Breakfast Club of the Dead Poets from the album Kompass ohne Norden by Berlin rapper Prinz Pi is based on the characters from the film.

In the NCIS episode Bad Boy (season 14, episode 2), Leroy Gibbs' team investigates a gang of thieves who met 15 years earlier while in detention at high school and who had the idea of ​​joint criminal activity. The composition of the gang corresponds exactly to those five characters who were detained in the breakfast club. John Kapelos also has a guest appearance as high school principal.

In the series Blindspot - Episode Infinite (Season 3, Episode 14), a member of the team goes through the same day over and over again while in an artificial coma. Among other things, a scene can be seen in which the interior of an elevator is set up like a classroom. The rest of the team resembles the characters from the breakfast club.

synchronization

The dubbed version was created for the German cinema premiere of the film in 1985.

role actor Voice actor
John Bender Judd Nelson Benjamin Völz
Claire Standish Molly Ringwald Judith Brandt
Allison Reynolds Ally Sheedy Melanie Pukass
Andrew Clark Emilio Estevez Oliver Rohrbeck
Brian Johnson Anthony Michael Hall Santiago Ziesmer
Richard Vernon (Deputy Rector) Paul Gleason Harald Leipnitz
Carl (caretaker) John Kapelos Lutz Riedel
Andrew's father Ron Dean Alexander Duke
Brian's mother Mercedes Hall Sigrid Lagemann
Claire's father Tim Gamble Hans Nitschke

reception

The Breakfast Club opened in American cinemas on February 15, 1985, and in West German cinemas on July 5, 1985. It was a surprise success and grossed 51.5 million US dollars at the box office, which is with the modest budget of around $ 1 million meant a whopping profit. To this day, it is judged positively by most of the critics and has been shown to set the style for the youth film genre in the USA. For example, the film has a positive rating of 88 percent on the US critic portal Rotten Tomatoes . In 2010, Entertainment Weekly voted it "Best High School Movie Of All Time".

The film service wrote that the “sensitively crafted film” captivates with “psychological relevance and excellent young actors.” Hughes was not fooled by the “image of a 'freaky no-future generation'; it shows creativity and empathy, as in each of the adolescents stuck. Although the 'breakfast club' sometimes turns into a chatterbox, the tension of the film lies in the changeability of its characters. You can also make films about young people without lapsing into instructive or chic attitudes. Even if the five are not representative with their sensitivity, their vulnerability reveals a school system that leaves no room for talent. "

Alexander Jachmann wrote at zelluloid.de in 1997 that it was "more than just a normal teenage comedy", even if the teenagers were victorious in the end as usual. The film calls for “tolerance towards people who are different from you, or better: who are different from the ideal image of the social environment of the individual characters. The people are so different, but still very similar in their basic characteristics. ”Hughes manages to let the young people talk about their problems without it even once appearing artificial or greasy. Bernard Escher was also of the same opinion at zelluloid.de in 2007: "The Breakfast Club is a nice example of how you can make a teenage film without a sobering ending, it turns out as you would expect, but it's not quite like that." Later teenage comedies were influenced by Breakfast Club , "only nobody could imitate it really well."

Awards

The main actors of the film received retrospectively an honorary award at the MTV Movie Awards 2005 . In 2016, The Breakfast Club was listed in the National Film Registry as "historically, culturally or aesthetically significant".

literature

  • Jonathan Bernstein: Pretty in Pink. The Golden Age of Teenage Cinema. New York 1997. ISBN 0-312-15194-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Breakfast Club - The breakfast club. In: synchronkartei.de. Retrieved December 23, 2015 .
  2. ↑ The Breakfast Club: Smells Like Teen Realness . In: The Criterion Collection . ( Online [accessed February 10, 2018]).
  3. ^ Dispatches From Shermer, Illinois . In: The Airship . ( Online [accessed September 24, 2018]).
  4. ↑ She Won't Forget About Him: Molly Ringwald Remembers John Hughes . Article in the New York Times on September 17, 2010.
  5. ↑ a b Interview with Andy Meyer .
  6. ↑ You Won't Be Seeing These Alternate Editions Anytime Soon: 15 Director's Cuts That Remain Unreleased ( Memento of the original from January 3, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / styleblazer.com
  7. ^ "The Breakfast Club" at Filmspectrum
  8. ↑ She Won't Forget About Him: Molly Ringwald Remembers John Hughes , article in the New York Times, September 17, 2010
  9. ↑ How the Female Stars of The Breakfast Club Fought to Remove a Sexist Scene, and Won ; Article in Vanity Fair
  10. ↑ Rolling Stone: Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Soundtrack Songs . In: Rolling Stone . February 28, 2013 ( online [accessed September 24, 2018]).
  11. ^ Robert Schnakenberg: Sci-Fi Baby Names: 500 Out-of-this-world Baby Names from Anakin to Zardoz . Quirk Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59474-161-6 , Intellectual Names, pp. 119 .
  12. ^ Obituary in the Independent
  13. ↑ Johannes Wächter: Interview with Prince Pi: "Indirock is stupid". (No longer available online.) In: sueddeutsche.de. Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 28, 2013, archived from the original on January 24, 2015 ; accessed on January 24, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de
  14. ↑ imfernsehen GmbH & Co. KG: fernsehserien.de - episode guide, spoilers, TV series information. Retrieved January 28, 2017 .
  15. ^ The Breakfast Club. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on July 17, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Breakfast Club at Box Office Mojo .
  17. ^ The Breakfast Club at Rotten Tomatoes.
  18. ↑ Entertainment Weekly's List of Best High School Movies .
  19. ^ The Breakfast Club. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 24, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  20. ↑ Kölnische Rundschau , quoted from the Lexicon of International Films .
  21. ↑ Alexander "Heinz" Jachmann: The Breakfast Club. In: Zelluloid.de. July 17, 1997, archived from the original on September 24, 2017 ; accessed on September 30, 2018 .
  22. ^ Bernhard Escher: The Breakfast Club. In: Zelluloid.de. August 29, 2007, archived from the original on September 25, 2017 ; accessed on September 30, 2018 (film review).
  23. ↑ Complete National Film Registry Listing . ( Online [accessed September 24, 2018]).