It took Susannah Gora more than 100 interviews over the course of three years to put together her portrait of John Hughes and the Brat Pack. But despite never getting to speak to Hughes himself—the filmmaker was famously averse to media and the Hollywood machine—it didn’t make the teen-film virtuoso’s death last August any less devastating.
“I will never, for as long as I live, forget what it felt like,” Gora said. “I cried, I couldn’t believe it. I had been so immersed in his world for so many years—every day of my life, really—that I did feel like I knew him.”
Hughes died at 59 after having established a legacy in American film that, to this day, remains one of the most viable of any filmmaker. His work as a writer includes Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and Home Alone (1990). He also directed the first three of these films, all of which remain adored by those who grew up with the movies and by newer generations.
And though Hughes’ repertoire seems to stand on its own, Gora’s book You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation should go another step toward keeping his movies in the cultural consciousness.
Gora has had the idea for a study of the Hughes oeuvre since she was a student at Duke from 1995 to 1999, watching his movies back-to-back-to-back in her dorm room.
“This idea swept across my mind that I wanted to one day write a book about the history behind how all the films were made, and also examine the kind of impact the movies had had on pop culture,” she said. “Once I had that idea, it became a driving force in my life.”
In the book, Gora explores her theory of cinesociology, which she describes as “studying the concrete sociological impacts that movies can have on our lives.”
You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried analyzes this effect in regards to the films of Hughes. It also takes a closer look at the actors who made them hits, nicknamed the “Brat Pack,” a label that came from a New York Magazine cover article on the group. The article had more than just a labeling effect, and Gora said its portrait of decadent young actors partying in Hollywood helped to trivialize those involved in these movies, even individuals who were never mentioned in the article.
What stood out were the films’ storylines, characters and epochal music, even a decade later.
“[Young people] used the movies as a prism through which to talk about issues in their life, like love, friendship, fashion, music and class distinction,” she said. “These movies were more than just fun teen flicks; these were important contributions to pop culture.”
As an undergraduate at Duke, Gora majored in English, studied film, and wrote for Recess as a film critic. Professor of English Joseph Ashby Porter, Gora’s second cousin, taught Gora in both Shakespeare and fiction writing courses, which provided some of her favorite memories.
“In particular, she thinks that my fiction writing course helped her get into writing this book, a lot of which is narrative in content,” Porter said. “She was a wonderful student.” Porter still remembers a story Gora wrote that included tales he and Gora’s mother had told for years about their small-town Kentucky childhood. Her works hinted at the ability to absorb history she would later demonstrate in creating her book.
After graduation, Gora got a job at the now-defunct film magazine Premier and worked there as a film journalist. Eventually, she left the magazine and put her plan in motion. In 2007, a contract for a John Hughes book with the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, enabled her to begin work in earnest on the project that she had conceived a decade earlier.
The wealth of interviews she conducted—which amount to over 2,000 pages—were what formed the basis of the book’s research. She spoke with all of the key players in the Brat Pack-Hughes contingent, including actors Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, Judd Nelson and John Cusack; filmmakers Cameron Crowe and Joel Schumacher; St. Elmo’s Fire writer and Duke alum Carl Kurlander, T ’82; and outside individuals like Duke professor of music Bryan Gilliam. Kurlander’s involvement in particular is interesting from a Duke perspective: St. Elmo’s Fire is based on a short story he wrote while enrolled in college.
Gora was also a student in Gilliam’s class on Hollywood film music, which the professor is teaching again this semester. Gilliam contributed to the book by providing input on film music’s importance.
“Basically she wanted me to remind her of some of the basic concepts that we talked about: the role of the musical score in a film,” Gilliam said. “The music can give us a strong sense of time, a setting, in many ways more powerful than the costumes or the styles of cars and the like.”
Now, with the interviews complete and the book in print, Gora spoke of Duke as a major influence in her success.
“What I learned about reading and writing and the wonders of words has stayed with me all these years and has had such an incredible influence on the person I am,” Gora said. “To this day, I actually keep framed on my desk a photograph that I took of the entrance to the Allen Building, and I look at that when I’m writing.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.