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Scene Analysis: The Museum Scene from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

2/5/2014

27 Comments

 

Picture
The first couple times I watched John Hughes’s classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, I was a bit puzzled over the Museum scene that occurs about halfway through the film. The scene is overlaid with calming instrumental music from the song “Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want” by The Smiths. The three main characters of the film, Ferris Bueller, Sloane Peterson, and Cameron Frye go into the museum together and look at several paintings. At the conclusion of the scene, Cameron ends up staring at a particular painting---focusing on a woman and her daughter. There are several shot-reverse-shots of Cameron looking deeper and deeper into the painting. Each time Cameron looks, the camera zooms in farther and farther into the painting so that eventually the viewer can’t see anything.

To learn more about the scene, I searched for and found writer and director John Hughes’s commentary on the film. (Who better to explain the scene than Hughes himself?) In the commentary, Hughes stated that the scene was filmed at the Chicago Art Institute, a museum that was a place of “refuge” for him when he himself was in high school. Hughes remarked, “This was a chance for me to go back into this building and show the paintings that were my favorite.” During the scene, several paintings are shown. Eventually we come to a couple paintings that show a mother and a child. Regarding these paintings, Hughes stated, “This I thought was very relevant to Cameron---the tenderness of a mother and a child which he didn’t have.”

As previously mentioned, at the end of the scene, Cameron is shown staring at a large painting. Hughes explained the “mystery” as to why Cameron stares: “I used it in this context to see---he’s looking at that little girl—which again is, a mother and a child. The closer he looks at the child, the less he sees, of course, with this style of painting. But the more he looks at it, there’s nothing there. He fears that the more you look at him (Cameron), the less you see. There isn’t anything there. That’s him.”

So, in the end, the museum scene focuses on Cameron’s character---a struggling, motherless teenager living under the dominance of his father. Cameron’s brokenness and submission to his materialistic father is referenced throughout the film in various ways. Ultimately, the Museum scene adds to these references, subtly conveying Cameron’s dispirited state. Hughes’s creative way of telling the audience about Cameron only adds to the beauty of the film.


Written by Anthony Watkins

BELOW is the Museum scene:

27 Comments
boo boo
5/5/2015 11:25:19 am

Ur on crack

Reply
David Bowie
3/1/2016 05:07:08 pm

The only thing beautiful about "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is the end credits, because then I know I don't have to watch any more of that GARBAGE MOVIE

Reply
Jimbob
5/27/2016 04:14:46 am

That's where you're mistaken friend. There's a scene AFTER the end credits. ;-)

Reply
Scott
2/12/2018 08:24:57 am

You are an idiot if you think Ferris Bueller is a garbage movie. You must not like to laugh, I bet your favorite movie is Choclat.

Reply
Michael Jackson
10/18/2018 06:39:12 pm

This guy's name is David Bowie LMAO

Reply
Freddie Mercury
5/6/2020 07:37:25 pm

Damn bro what'd this movie ever do to you

cal
12/16/2020 12:41:03 am

you sir are an Idiot!

Reply
Gangster P
8/28/2021 02:51:23 pm

Don’t out yourself for being a simpleton mate. We get it….you’re an imbecile!

Reply
Johnny Carwash
7/3/2016 09:47:30 am

😄👆OOOOHHHHHYYYEEEAAAAHHHH😂
CHICKACHICKA!

Reply
Johnny Carwash
7/3/2016 09:47:43 am

😄👆OOOOHHHHHYYYEEEAAAAHHHH😂
CHICKACHICKA!

Reply
Johnny Carwash
7/3/2016 09:47:56 am

👆OOOOHHHHHYYYEEEAAAAHHHH😂
CHICKACHICKA!

Reply
Johnny Carwash
7/3/2016 09:48:22 am

👆OOOOHHHHHYYYEEEAAAAHHH-CHICKACHICKA!

Reply
Johnny Carwash
7/3/2016 09:53:16 am

Whoa!😮😁 Haha I kept getting an error message: Having trouble posting your reply. Please try again. Haha 😂
Guess not!

Reply
Joey Rambles link
8/27/2016 10:45:25 pm

My friends and I went to a museum once and recreated the scene. It was so fun. xD

Reply
Some dude link
7/30/2017 08:09:31 pm

Did you make out

Reply
sloane
8/8/2017 10:31:28 pm

he's gonna marry me

Ferris Bueller link
1/17/2020 02:38:31 pm

I Wana win!

Reply
Cameron Frye
1/5/2021 01:28:28 pm

Ferris Bueller you're my hero!

Realize
10/25/2017 11:56:59 pm

Movie is not not garbage and I feel as if there's a lot to Cameron and he's more of a person than he seems he just has not expressed himself for anybody to notice or realize

Reply
furness
11/26/2017 10:12:41 am

i'm trying to identify all the works in Ferris Bueller's Day Off - Art Institute of Chicago scene
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBBOMLURSGA

ones i have got so far

kids ferris sloan cameron in front of
standing sculpture
and painting rain scene paris < at 00:22
Nighthawks Edward Hopper < at 00:26
Improvisation 30 (cannons) left Wassily Kandinsky < at 00:30
Painting with Green Center right Wassily Kandinsky
Nude Under a Pine Tree left Picasso
L’Homme qui marche I right Alberto Giacometti < at 00:34
painting on the left seated figure at table < at 00:37
Old Guitarist Picasso < at 00:37
La Toilette Mary Cassatt < at 00:41
Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz Amedeo Modigliani < at 00:45
Day of the God Gauguin < at 00:45
Greyed Rainbow Jackson Pollack Riverside Poly High < at 00:49
four nudes < at 00:54
reclined sculpture with 4 paintings behind < at 00:57
standing sculpture with 8 paintings behind < at 01:00
ferris sloan cameron with 4 paintings behind < at 1:04
sloan ferris cameron looking at 3 paintings < at 01:08
Matisse’s Bathers by a River
Picasso - The Red Armchair , Portrait of Sylvette David , and Seated Woman
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte Georges Seurat < at 01:12
ferris and sloan in front of stained glass chagall < at 01:17

Reply
Cataloguer
2/17/2018 04:00:33 am

Why not?

>standing sculpture with 8 paintings behind < at 01:00
Rodin, Portrait of Balzac
(with 8 paintings behind)

>ferris sloan cameron with 4 paintings behind < at 1:04
First two are
Gauguin, Woman in front of a Still Life by Cézanne
Toulouse-Lautrec, Equestrienne
Good luck with the one behind Broderick's head

>sloan ferris cameron looking at 3 paintings < at 01:08
Three Picasso,
Red Armchair
Portrait of Sylvette David
Femme assise

Reply
Cataloguer
2/17/2018 04:40:06 am

>ferris sloan cameron with 4 paintings behind < at 1:04

Having said that... the third one for sure is
Cezanne, Plate of Apples
and the other one is
Van Gogh, The Poet's Garden

The three paintings at 1:08 are three of the four at 00:57 behind the Henry Moore reclined sculpture

Reply
E. W. Sigg
12/16/2018 03:27:38 pm

Dear Furness: the painting on the rear wall, left of the statue, from .06 to .24 (as the children cross the scene) is Gustave Caillebotte, "Paris Street; Rainy Day." A masterpiece.

Reply
wat
4/30/2020 11:16:11 pm

Cameron has a mother...

Reply
Dave
11/15/2021 04:48:42 pm

The song choice is especially poignant if you’ve ever heard the lyrics. (Dream Academy - Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want) It really makes this Cameron’s defining scene.

Reply
Michael
3/24/2023 04:01:14 am

The Smith's did that song not Dream Academy.

Reply
Joran Viken
1/14/2023 08:19:58 pm

Aside from being one of the funniest movies of all time, the general storyline and cinematography is incredible. The shots are creative. I don't understand how any human being could ever think this is a garbage movie.

Reply



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