CRAVE CORNER: Yes Virginia, Bruce Willis really IS Santa Claus
As part of Original-Cin’s promotional partnership with Crave TV, we are highlighting an aspect of the service’s programming monthly. This month, Thom Ernst settles the question of whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie - nay, a perfect Christmas movie.
Stoke the fire and pour a glass of cheer; it’s time to settle in and enjoy one of the most beloved Christmas films of our time. Of course, I’m talking about the perennial holiday favourite, Die Hard. Or as we call it in our family: The Night John McClane Saved Christmas.
And with 2020 on its way out, who better to show it the door than maverick NYPD Detective John McClane?
Some will question the legitimacy of categorizing a movie with a body count of 22 as a Christmas movie. Christmas movies are about peace and goodwill, not about dodging bullets and breaking collar bones.
And a big, Yuletide Yippee-ki-yay to you and yours!
And typically, there’s no running commentary from a hero who cusses like Samuel L. Jackson at a Quentin Tarantino barbeque. But, underlying the bone-crunching and walking over glass shards in bare feet, is a classic Christmas story steeped in holiday tradition.
Let me break it down because I, too, was once a Die Hard-as-Christmas-movie denier. But, as if waking from a Dickensian nightmare, I began to recognize Die Hard as not just a suitable Christmas movie, but as a perfect Christmas movie - not only because it takes place on Christmas Eve, but because it's filled with enough comfort and joy to have you crying in your eggnog.
We can’t credit 20th Century Fox. They were just looking for a summer blockbuster to pull out of a financial slump. And had there been a lone voice piping in to say, “Hey! Why not release this as a Christmas movie?” they’d likely have ended up at Trader Joe’s stocking shelves and swapping Hollywood war stories with Geoffrey Owens.
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For Die Hard, some credit goes to the director, John McTiernan, aided by cinematographer Jan de Bont, who works his camera as if filming through a custom-made Christmas filter. Nearly every scene is framed and shot to project the feel of a winter wonderland.
This is a good trick, considering the film takes place in an unfinished L.A. office tower. McTiernan moves us through rooms of bare white walls and draped canopies. Miniature models depicting the designs of future developments appear like tiny villages nestled within snowcapped hills.
And McTiernan loads the film with Christmas music, sometimes as part of the soundtrack, occasionally organic to a scene, and sometimes arbitrarily whistled by a secondary character. Even the use of Singin’ in the Rain and Ode to Joy, though not traditional Christmas songs, seem festive in this context.
But most credit for Die Hard’s seasonal success goes to screenwriters Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. They knew they wrote a Christmas movie even if studio execs didn’t. Consider the scene between McClane and his overzealous limousine driver, Argyle (De'voreaux White). Argyle pops a cassette into the tape player (this is 1988, folks), and the unmistakable pulse of rap music begins to play.
“Don’t you have any Christmas music?” asks McClane.
“This is Christmas music!” says Argyle as Run-DMC breaks into the first bars of Christmas in Hollis.
So, what does this simple exchange say about the characters? Does it say that McClane, a cynical, somewhat bitter NYPD veteran, has a sentimental streak for Christmas music? That he hates Run-DMC? Or is it that the scene isn’t about McClane, but about the movie? Are Stuart and de Souza letting us know that if our expectations of Christmas music can be subverted, why not our expectations of a Christmas movie?
The source material for Die Hard is a gritty crime novel by Roderick Thorp called Nothing Lasts Forever. Thorp’s book also takes place on Christmas Eve at an office party, but it’s dark stuff and not at all aligned with the holiday spirit. So, Stuart and de Souza play with some of the book's details, adding a few characters, deleting a few others, then switch up the ending to create a timeless classic.
Then there is Bruce Willis as John McClane, or as I like to think of him— Santa.
Okay, this one is a tougher sell, but stay with me: A traditional Santa, McClane is not. But a stern Santa—the one who knows when we’ve been bad or good, the Santa that makes a list and checks it twice—that’s McClane’s Santa.
Not only does McClane see the bad guys being naughty, but he makes a list of their names on his arm. And to top things off, he leaves them with a Christmas message—albeit on a corpse in a Santa hat—that reads, “Now I’ve got a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho”.
McClane is not the jolly Saint Nick we’ve come to know, but he is taking out the naughty to save the nice.
Then there’s the villain, Hans Gruber, played with refined grace by the late, eminent Alan Rickman. Gruber embodies both Grinch and Scrooge, but cultured and well-mannered.
But what truly makes Die Hard a legitimate Christmas offering is its underlying theme of redemption and reuniting with family. Unlike many of the leading action stars of the time—guys with names like Schwarzenegger and Stallone both declined the role and are slyly referenced in the film—Willis’ McClane is vulnerable. He simply wants to spend Christmas with his children and his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia). It just happens that the obstacles in McClane’s way are more lethal than a visit by Christmas ghosts or an angel out to get its wings.
Die Hard may have started as a summer blockbuster, but that was in 1988. The film has since found an unexpected home as a yuletide favourite.
As John McClane might say, Yippee-ki-yay movie lovers—or something along those lines.
Die Hard and Die Hard 2 (also a Christmas movie, by the way) are streamable this month on Crave.