07/29/10 - Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986, 103 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042/

This movie is a rewatch of a movie I have already written about. The previous post is here:
01/29/10 - Ferris Bueller's Day Off

For this viewing I wanted to do a few things: first, again look at seeing the movie as completely taking place in Cameron's mind; and second, to look at my own theory some more that I first mentioned in the above post, namely that Cameron is the main character of the film.

So, as for the first, I maintain this is impossible. With this interpretation, we are restricted to placing Cameron as only existing really on his bed while sick. Or at least that's what I figure. And we're supposed to assume the whole thing after that is like a sick dream or some vision he has while lying there. Maybe the part where he goes to his car also exists or something. And maybe he in some way crashes the Ferrari, but those are minor details. What I want to point out here is that this theory falls apart in a few points for me. First, when Ferris speaks to the camera before we even meet Cameron and second are the occasional times when Cameron has no idea what's going on or when he completely fails at something. The Ferris existing before Cameron stuff points out in my opinion that this is grounded in some reality. Otherwise, who is Ferris? Does he actually exist or is Cameron making him up? And if so, why do we meet him before we meet Cameron? For the next points, if Cameron is making this all up, there's no reason for his occasional confusion or complete failure. In fact, if Cameron is just lying in his bed making this all up, there's really no reason for him to fail at anything so I think that makes this theory completely bogus. Granted, he could still have drifted off to sleep and imagined everything. But here, there's no reason to explain the times when he's clueless as to what's going on (such as when they "lose" Ferris or when him and Ferris fumble around on getting Sloane out of school. When I think back on my dreams, never do I have dreams where I'm just completely clueless about a situation - sure, looking back dreams frequently make no sense, but while dreaming, everything just follows without question. All in all, I think these are just two big faults in the theory that Cameron dreams the whole adventure. It's interesting but not really all that plausible in my mind.

Now, on to my own theory that I came up with in the middle of my previous viewing: Cameron is the main character. Sadly, I think it has quite a few chinks and could easily be taken apart piece by piece. When I've mentioned it to a few friends they naturally scoffed at me. The name of the film is Ferris Bueller's Day Off after all and there's no mention of Cameron Frye there. However, on a "literary level" or something, I believe my theory holds some water. Does Ferris change at all throughout the film? Nope - he's still the same lovable goofball he was a the start. Does Cameron change? Yes - by the end, he's ready to face his fears and take a new step in his life. Granted, this doesn't mean that any of this will actually happen as when his dad comes home he might immediately return to his old self, but we are left with a sense of hope for the guy. As for the other characters, none of them really change except Jeanie but this is just a side point in the main story arc of the three friends and their great day. I think the biggest piece of evidence for my claim is the monologue that Cameron gives by the car. It's important to note (again, I mentioned this in my previous comments) that neither Ferris nor Sloane talk during this time. It's the most important (literary) point of the film and Cameron rests right at the center of it. Could this easily be interpreted as a side effect of Ferris (being the main character) and his ability to change someone? Naturally, I have to concede that this could be true and is probably the most common and obvious interpretation. But, I maintain with very small a stretch (easily much less than is required to accept that the whole film happens in Cameron's mind) one can believe that this is because Cameron (actually existing as the main character) has gone through a transformation throughout the film. Regrettably, many simple things plague this interpretation: why is Ferris introduced before Cameron? why do we focus on Ferris and Sloane leaving at the end if Cameron is the main character? what happens when Cameron's parents comes home? and what point do all the extra characters revolving around Ferris have to do with the film then? Okay, maybe some of these aren't simple things (explaining that last question for instance), and because of that I guess I'll have to change up my theory a little bit. I guess at the end of the day, what I can say is that the movie revolves around Ferris Bueller but that Cameron is the most important character from a literary perspective (I'll add that I basically use the term "literary perspective" to mean if you were analyzing the film as if it were a novel, which I admit does have some problems in and of itself, but for the most part is sound). I can easily back this point up. Can I say Cameron is the main character? Yeah, I can easily say it and I've seen the film enough times to be able to back up this claim pretty well, but it's just really too much of a stretch to be taken seriously.

Finally, I'd like to again say that the pacing of Ferris Bueller's Day Off is brilliant. The perfect balance between serious moments and hilarious moments along with never a dull moment leaves constantly satisfying moments. It's something for which I don't think the movie gets near enough recognition.

Overall, I gave this film a 10/10 again. It's still my favorite film ever. And with moving out of my old apartment, it was the obvious choice as the last movie that I would watch there (though ironically, had I not watched Inferno, I probably wouldn't have watched this either as it would have made Forgetting Sarah Marshall be both the first and last movie that I watched there which would have been pretty cool). But, as it was, I wanted to end on a good note and I selected the perfect film that is Ferris Bueller's Day Off.