![]() He told the Hollywood Reporter: “ Die Hard is not a Christmas movie! It’s a goddamn Bruce Willis movie!” However, Bruce Willis is firmly in the “No” camp. He pointed out that, unlike White Christmas, his movie took place entirely at Christmas, featured a Christmas party and the “Christ-like sacrifice” of John McClane walking on broken glass. One of the two credited writers of the film, Steven de Souza has publicly declared “ If ‘Die Hard’ is not a Christmas movie, then ‘White Christmas’ is not a Christmas movie”. The script also includes a rather meta reference to whether a song (RUN-DMC’s Christmas in Hollis) is Christmassy enough. The word “Christmas” appears 18 times in the script, which is more than the words “explode” (4), “die” (5),”hard” (11), “shoot” (12), “kill” (13) and “blood” (13), although far fewer times than”gun” (73), “terrorist” (51) and “suddenly” (45). We’ll do this by measuring the Christmas references in the script, on-screen and in the soundtrack.īy going back to the film’s script we are able to see what the screenwriters saw as part of their vision. Let’s start by assessing the artistic work of Die Hard (as opposed to the commercial product or cultural icon). I have gathered data for each of these perspectives to see what we can discover about the essence of Die Hard’s Christmasness (or its Christmaslessness, as remains to be seen). This means considering what a movie means to people, how it is regarded and how it fits in the wider discourse of movies and of culture more broadly. the plot) and focus on the story OF the movie. We could put aside the story within the movie (i.e. We could focus on the film as a commercial product, made to fuel a capitalist industry which is propelled by marketing and responds to customer demands. By seeing the film as an artistic work, we can parse the intent of the filmmakers and limit our enquires to what we see and hear while watching it. I contend that there are three distinct perspectives through which we can consider a movie: We are all aware that we have differing preferences but few people consider that we also have differing perspectives on what a ‘movie’ actually is. Filmmaking is a highly collaborative art without one single ‘creator’ and films are typically designed to be seen by large numbers of people around the world. The reason Die Hard sparks such fierce arguments is that film appreciation is subjective. Some movies are obviously not Christmas movies – Last Action Hero is just a bad movie. ![]() Some Christmas movies are obvious – Jingle All the Way is hands-down a (bad) Christmas movie. In recent years, there has been growing debate as to whether Die Hard should also be included in the pantheon of great Christmas movies and it’s this question which we will settle today. The movie has been a hit with critics and audiences for just over three decades and it often appears high on lists of top action movies. Fortunately for us, he turned it down and our dirty-vested protagonist was instead played by Bruce Willis. There was a 1968 movie adaptation of The Detective starring Frank Sinatra and so, contractually, a then 73-year-old Sinatra had to be first to be offered the role of action hero John McClane. The movie’s plot came from the novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp, which was a follow up to The Detective. The film takes place at Christmas time but Santa is nowhere to be seen (or was deep undercover – the movie doesn’t make that clear). What is Die Hard?ĭie Hard is an action thriller from 1988 in which a grizzled NYPD cop becomes a one-man army to take on a group of German bank robbers who are holding his wife and her unlucky colleagues hostage in a high-rise office block. ![]() Today we’re going to use data to answer the question “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?” Along the way, we’re going to test Die Hard’s Christmas bona fides against all movies in US cinemas for the past thirty years, using a variety of methods. No, it’s not “Why does everyone call Hans Gruber and his gang ‘terrorists’ when they were clearly bank robbers?” After Die Hard), the world is gripped by a constantly nagging question. As we prepare to enter the year 32 ADH (a.k.a. Let’s settle this once and for all in the only way I know how – going into a topic in way too much detail.
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