The Breakfast Club (1985) Opening Scene - Performance and Movement

The Breakfast club is 1985 coming-of-age-drama directed by John Hughes. It stars 80's film icons Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy. The 5 teens are sentenced to an all day detention on a Saturday, they all believe they have nothing in common but by the end of the 9 hours they realize they have more in common than you could believe and have created an ever lasting bond between them that will last a life time.

The opening scene of this movie begins with a montage of pictures of the school and a voice over of the character 'Brian' played by Hall, reading out the classic 1000 word essay the students produce together at the end of the film. his voice is very monotone and shows little emotion, the producers used this too show the students continuous boredom throughout the whole film and also to give the audience realization that although the characters may appear to change at the end of this film, ultimately they are still the same people, but just letting their true personalities show.

The scene then cuts to 'Claire', Played by Ringwald, sat in the car with her father, in an almost disgusted voice she says "why do i have to be here on a Saturday, its absurd?" She then turns away from hr father before he can answer her, the producers chose this scene as it show her confusion bout the whole situation and also to show the audience, that as a character 'Claire' feels as if she is above the other people there and that she deserves better treatment than them, this portrays her perfectly as 'the princess' she is suppose to be.

Another part of this scene is when all the character are sat at tables is the library, 'John', played by Nelson, walks up to 'Brian' gives him an aggressive look and gestures with his fist to move away, 'Brian' does so quickly. This form of movement used by Nelson is effective as it shows the audience the dominance 'John has over the rest of the characters and that they are all afraid of him, by not even using words he is able to get one of them to move, this amplifies the image of power 'John has over the rest of them.