Attachments “Die Hard” at Nakatomi Tower

It’s a Christmas movie, some say, and in the end the holiday classic “Let it Snow” plays over the credits. But what counts as snow in the final scenes is a confetti of smoke, debris, and millions of dollars of bearer bonds, not to mention the Euro-villain who tried to steal them. These descend from the blasted-out upper floor of a skyscraper onto a scene of total destruction. Worse, it all happens in Los Angeles. Is “Die Hard” actually a Christmas movie? And what is a Christmas movie, anyway? Wes & Erin try to figure out if there’s anything like a yuletide miracle in this story about the violent defense of marriage and family against materialism, globalism, status, and other forces of social dissolution. Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters can learn more about their online courses at tischpro.smashcut.com/subtext. Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Thanks to Nick Ketter for the audio editing on this episode. Transcript 0:13 Wes: It's a Christmas movie, some say. And in the end, the holiday classic Let It Snow plays over the credits. But what counts as snow in the final scenes is a confetti of smoke, debris and millions of dollars of bearer bonds. Not to mention the Eurovillain who tried to steal them. These descend from the blasted out upper floor of a skyscraper onto a scene of total destruction. Worse, it all happens in Los Angeles. Is Die Hard actually a Christmas movie? And what is a Christmas movie anyway? On today's episode, we try to figure out if there's anything like a yuletide miracle in this story about the violent defense of marriage and family against materialism, globalism, status and other forces of social dissolution. This is Wes Alwan. 1:02 Erin: And this is Erin O'Luanaigh. 1:03 Wes: And you're listening to Subtext. So, Erin, I think we should resolve this question once and for all. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? 1:17 Erin: Okay. Well, I have this long standing discussion with family members over what constitutes a Christmas movie. Because they get very upset when I say that the Fellowship of the Ring is a Christmas movie. 1:28 Wes: That's upsetting to me as well. 1:30 Erin: Yeah. So I have two standards for this. There has to be an epic struggle between good and evil, and there must be snow. Now, LA doesn't have any snow. However, it does end with the song Let It Snow. So technically the word snow is in the film. So I would call this a Christmas movie. 1:50 Wes: Well, okay, good wins on a technicality. So, yeah, there is kind of stuff raining down from the sky. There's like shredded bearer bonds. So those are the bonds that Hans Gruber and his friends were after. And that one of the climactic moments of the movie. They're celebrating after getting into the vault and handling all those bonds to, well, Ode to Joy, which has been the theme of the movie all along. But it reaches its climactic moment. That's what's coming down. That's the snow is the destroyed dreams of a classically educated young German men. You know, also at the end, just the scene of all the wreckage and people cleaning up as John McClane and Holly ride off into the. Not the sunset, but whatever you want to call it. Right off into the night to the 2:42 Erin: back of Argyle's limo. He's like kind of the best character. 2:45 Wes: Maybe there's a lot of good ones. He is a great one. 2:48 Erin: I forgot about him. So I have a terrible confession, which is, until last night, I don't think I have ever seen this movie from beginning to End uninterrupted. It's the kind of thing that like plays at my parents house every Christmas to varying levels of interest from me where I'll go in and out. I hate the part where they kill Mr. Takagi. So I would never watch that. This time I had to watch it. I still kind of walked away. So I guess I've still never really seen the full film. But yeah, so it was interesting to finally see it from beginning to end and to sort of tweeze out like, oh, the plane thing must be Die Hard too, because I'm remembering them as like one big film. 3:26 Wes: Yeah. That's unfortunate. 3:28 Erin: Where's Samuel L. Jackson? 3:30 Wes: The fact that they turned this into a franchise is. Yeah. Unfortunate. And that there's any confusion between the movies. Yeah, this is a work of art. And the rest of it is just an attempt to exploit that for money. 3:41 Erin: Yeah. So you really think that this is the best Christmas movie of all time? 3:45 Wes: I do. 3:46 Erin: Okay, interesting. 3:50 Wes: So I originally saw this when I was 17, on my birthday, right after it had come out on vhs. This is like one of the few memories from my high school years that is not completely repressed. 4:02 Erin: Oh, my God. 4:02 Wes: Being in my sister's apartment watching Die Hard and thinking and really enjoying it. But I really thought nothing of the movie until I watched it a few years ago. I mean, I had to have seen it again since I was 17, but I have no memory. That might have been the first time I'd seen it since I was a kid. And I thought, wow, this is really actually a very good movie. Which I had never thought of it that way. I just thought it was a great action film. But I thought it was, you know, the script was good and thematically it was really interesting and a lot of great acting. Including especially Alan Rickman. Yes, especially Alan Rickman. I'm just assuming what he did with that character right after being plucked off the stage. Right. I don't even think he had film career aspirations. He went straight from doing Shakespeare. Right. To being a great villain in this 4:46 Erin: movie, though not his best villain performance, I think. What is his best that would be when he cheated on Emma Thompson in Love, actually. That really broke my heart. But anyway, this is a close second. 4:57 Wes: Which movie did we watch together? Not love, actually, but Notting Hill. Yeah, Notting Hill. 5:02 Erin: Okay. 5:02 Wes: I was trying to think, was he in there? Was he in Notting Hill? No. I was impressed. I became excited about the movie. Maybe it was a couple years ago when I saw it again and I don't know That I can defend the idea that it's the greatest Christmas movie ever. So your criteria are life and death, struggle and snow. Those were the two. 5:22 Erin: An epic battle or struggle between good and evil. 5:26 Wes: Oh, sorry. I put down life and death. That's weird. Epic battle between good and evil. Good and evil. 5:31 Erin: Oh, and good has to win. But that goes without saying for a Hollywood movie. 5:35 Wes: Yeah. In your opinion, what are the best Christmas movies? 5:39 Erin: So I should say that I came up with these two criteria many years ago. When pressed, I just said them. And my family has been quoting that back at me for many years now. So I don't know how serious it is. It's sort of solidified. But I would say that the best Christmas. There's only one It's a Wonderful Life. 5:58 Wes: I knew you were going to say that. Yeah. 6:00 Erin: You can't. It's the law. You can't acknowledge any other film. 6:05 Wes: An angel gets their wings. Every time someone says, that's the best Christmas movie. 6:09 Erin: That's right. Every time someone says, die Hard is the best Christmas movie, Bruce Willis sends them a free wife beater. I gotta say that I thought the script was really good. But the funniest parts of the film, for me, the unintentionally hilarious parts, were when Bruce Willis was saying to himself, think, think. 6:27 Wes: What scene is that where he says that? 6:29 Erin: It happens a couple times when he's sort of. Right before he goes into the elevator shaft. The third or fourth time. He's always in the elevator shaft. Poor guy. 6:38 Wes: Yeah. He has the unfortunate. He's in the. And he said, this was hard. Bruce Williston. But he's in the unfortunate position of having to act by himself. Very few interactions between himself and others. So it is really interesting to. Cause he does a lot of talking to himself, right? 6:52 Erin: Yeah. 6:52 Wes: Think, shit, Everything's gonna be fine. Stay calm. 6:55 Erin: Well, I think for the most part, it's pretty believable. But I was thinking about the function of Reginald VelJohnson's character. I don't know. It gave some interesting ideas about maybe what's at work in the film. Reginald VelJohnson is like a favorite for me. Love Family Matters and him in Family Matters. So this was fun to see again. He's great. 7:15 Wes: Yeah. I think it's interesting because the relationship between John McClane and Powell. That relationship is really important. What McClane represents is not just sort of the individualistic cowboy against. There are so many antagonists in this film, it would take a long time to list them. A lot of them involve oppressive social and cultural Forces oppressive in the sense that they work to the detriment of marital fidelity or marital cohesion or the social fabric. All those good old fashioned values that sort of get associated in this movie with Christmas. And so that's the sense in which it can be said to be a Christmas movie and not just set, you know, during Christmas. Right. During this weirdly contradictory idea of Christmas in la, as opposed to Christmas in New York. Right. In New York, Christmas is Christmas in la. What is it? Something very bastardized. Yeah, Very unnatural. 8:07 Erin: Something that becomes a Christmas movie on a technicality rather than real snow. 8:11 Wes: Yeah, exactly. Not just because California is warm and western, but because it's. And snowless, but because as it's made out in the movie, it represents kind of oddness or a set of values and conflict with like New York grittiness and practicality. So that's where I think the relationship with, you know, as you point out with Officer Powell is really important because it highlights the fact that what he represents is more of a family man kind of person who has heart and bonds with other males. You might see him as a representative of just machismo and masculine violence and all that stuff vindicating itself against the forces of civilization. I don't know what you would say, 8:55 Erin: but for Bruce Willis character. 8:56 Wes: Yeah, yeah. But he himself will say, you know, at a certain point, you macho bastards, as they're trying to. They're trying to send the armored vehicle up the steps. Right. So he's more than the representative of individuality and being a cowboy and vigilantism and things like that that Hans Gruber would want to make him out to be. He has something to do with these very large set of associated values that involve class and Christmas and family and, you know, like working class, I mean, and so on and so forth. 9:26 Erin: For me, this movie became a movie about partnership. You know, when the image of the cowboy is invoked. Hans Gruber, who says, like, you're not gonna ride off with Grace Kelly into the sunset or something like that, or walk off into the sunset with Grace Kelly. And then they have that thing about. That was Gary Cooper. It's not the lone cowboy, even in Hans Gruber's estimation. And I was thinking about that and how everyone. There's just a tremendous amount of duality in the. Seems to have a pair. So obviously, like there's the broken partnership of the marriage at the center of the film. There's the idea of partnership in police work, you know, where you typically have a partner. There's the idea of Those two brothers, the two German brothers that, you know, the Germans seem to come in pairs, except for Hans Gruber. And gosh, like, there were just so many instances of it. I mean, he has. So he has two kids, right? A girl and a boy. The two FBI officers that come in, Agent Johnson and Special Agent Johnson. And I love how they're like, one's black, one's white, and they have to explain to people that they're not related. 10:31 Wes: Yeah. 10:31 Erin: The intrusion of the film crew is really interesting because I think that is also making, obviously, commentary on la. And I don't know that it fully works because I don't think it's really fleshed out all the way, the media intrusion, the TV coverage. But I do really love that moment where they have that expert on TV who has written a book called Hostage Terrorist, Terrorist Hostage or something like that. 10:55 Wes: Yeah. Helsinki Syndrome instead of Stockholm Syndrome. 10:58 Erin: Right. But that duality, you know, Hostage, Terrorist. I think that scene is followed by. I think it's between. Or maybe it's followed by these two things in quick succession. When Johnson and Johnson show up and when Hans Gruber pretends to be a hostage. So he's like his own sort of dual figure, maybe of criminal and cultured. Aesthete. I don't have anything to say about that, except that I found it interesting. And it must be making some sort of commentary on the necessity of relationships, the way of healing the broken marriage at the center of this or something. So I didn't see it so much as John McClane's rugged individualism. Even though he is fighting a lot of bad guys and a lot of incompetent people. That he does have this relationship of dependence. And the partnership that he's in in his marriage also can't be found out, which is another angle on that. 11:54 Wes: Yeah, I think it's all about the importance of relationships. In the beginning. It's about. It could be a mundane story about a couple who's having problems because of certain social changes, women in the workforce. And now there's dual careers and there's geographic dislocation. So you take that very fundamental story, which could have just been told straight, right. And you graft an action movie onto that. That's thematically really powerful, actually. You get the strong connection between the danger of the loss of his relationship with his wife and lots of other dangers. Spiritual, psychological, physical, societal, individual. Like I said, there's a long list of antagonists in the movie, like network. Our last discussion. You know, the film is not shy about adding Those up throwing more on the bonfire. So it even starts out like Sexual Temptation is one of those antagonists or it's one of the villains in the film. And it's, I think, artfully done. Right. So one of the very first things that happens in the movie when he's getting off the plane and he's at the baggage section is he sees a young girl jump into her boyfriend's arms. And he basically looks at her ass and there's the pinup girl. Later on, he gets distracted by this topless pinup girl in the building. And there's kind of a flirtat. Actually, there's kind of a flirtation between him and a stewardess on the plane. And so this is one of many threats to marital fidelity. And then I've mentioned things like the dual careers. But you also get materialism with the Rolex watch. You get Ellis, the finance brogue. Multinational corporations, globalization, technology, right. As soon as he shows up to. Well, even his fear of flying is kind of works into that. But he shows up for the office party initially, and he's trying to find Holly by her last name, his last name, McClane. And there's the disappointment in finding out that she's gone back to her maiden name. There's also a banter with the security guard about the threat of technology. Right? McClane goes, Cute toy. When he's talking about the electronic interface that he can use to look through the building directory, which looked fancy in its time, right now. Looks primitive compared to iPads and things like that. Looked fancy in its time. And he goes, cute toy. And the guard goes, yeah, you have to take a leak. It'll even help you find your zipper. And then the list goes on. Bureaucracy, like the, you know, the FBI, or as Hans Gruber puts it, the FBI, they're one of the antagonists. The police are one of the antagonists. And apart from these pseudo terrorists represented by Gruber, apart from these sort of white collar criminals on steroids, you have all these other opponents which could get messy or maybe could make the movie feel like it's overloaded, but in this case, it doesn't. It all works very, very well together. I think I was just getting at the sense in which, you know, you mentioned the importance of this relationship with Powell and relationships in general, the way that is expanded out into the movie as a whole. 15:01 Erin: Is it Ellis, the smarmy guy? 15:04 Wes: Yeah, the guy is calling a finance bro. Yeah, shmarmy. 15:06 Erin: Right. He also represents sexual temptation for Holly, right? Like he hits on her and that's obviously subverted very quickly because being a hostage isn't conducive to sexy time. But he, I think, and the he and Mr. Takagi. I was thinking about this too, that they're both. Since they're both sort of killed in the same way or in similar ways. Obviously Mr. Takagi has a lot of dignity as a character, but I'm wondering about those two being detached from other people. Takagi at the top of this company, you know, use the term white collar criminals, I assume to refer to Gruber and co. 15:43 Wes: I did. It's right. I called it on steroids. Right. Yeah. They're not technically white collar criminals, but they, I think, in a way, are meant to represent. You know, Ellis says, I use a pen, you use a gun. That's what's the difference. Or something like that. 15:55 Erin: That's right. 15:56 Wes: But yeah. 15:57 Erin: Right. Yeah. So I think there's. I mean, definitely Ellis is kind of a villain. And the way in which business is done even, you know, legally in this corporation seems to be something that is not entirely savory. I don't know how literally we're supposed to take that. Like I say, like, Mr. Takagi seems like he's a good guy and certainly has an interesting history. When Gruber reads his biography aloud. 16:23 Wes: Yeah. His resume is very, very impressive. Fancy. 16:27 Erin: Well, and it's also heroic. And it has an incredible arc to it. I mean, he was interred in a Japanese internment camp in California and rose from. From nothing, it sounds like. So. But at the same time, he is. He is not partnered up with anybody. You know, he's. It's. It's lonely at the top for him, and he ends up getting killed. And then Ellis, of course, is not partnered with anyone, though he tries to be, and he ends up getting bumped off, too. I wonder what you think about that. And this invocation, too, of. I don't know what the movie is trying to say about this, that when the villains are Germans and America has made some sort of unholy alliance with Japan in this capitalist enterprise. I don't know what the movie is getting at in that gesture. I mean, Pearl harbor is mentioned. We have this shadow of this internment camp. 17:14 Wes: Yeah. You could say there are jingoistic tendencies in the film. And they do reflect working class anxieties. Right. Which a lot of this film does. 17:23 Erin: Oh, sure. 17:23 Wes: The worry about globalization and multinational corporations. These sort of cross political lines to some extent. And, you know, at the time, the media environment was focused on Japan as an economic threat, especially Japanese technology. 17:38 Erin: Ah. That makes Sense, I think people are 17:40 Wes: less aware of how much of that was part of the zeitgeist at the time. I mean, I remember it as a 17 year old, but the idea, you know, there's a lot of jokes about Japan and technology and the impending economic hegemony that was gonna result from that. 17:54 Erin: Yeah. And doesn't Takagi say, we didn't win at Pearl harbor, so we got them with electronics, something like that. 17:59 Wes: VCRs. 18:00 Erin: VCRs. Oh, that's good. Yeah. 18:02 Wes: The prompt for that is he's asked about someone, says, you throw quite a party. I didn't realize they celebrated Christmas in Japan. I think that might be McClane. And he says, we're flexible. Pearl harbor didn't work out, so we got you with tape decks. 18:16 Erin: Well, it's interesting, the line there, I hadn't realized. I mean, I hadn't realized that because it is a troubling element of the film as much as sad when Takagi dies and everything, you know, personally seems fine. But there's this idea of what Holly is engaging in and what the whole company is engaging in as a kind of, I'll call it cowboy capitalism or something, which is like also part of John McClane's identity, of course, as like a cowboy and the rugged individualist. But then there's also this idea of it's not far from what Hans Gruber is trying to do, which is basically pick their pockets. I mean, at a general gigantic scale. It's interesting because it's not like the difference between some sort of epic struggle between communism and free America. It's more like the difference between 1980s High finance business deals, which I know from Wall street is not entirely savory, and people who are slightly more unsavory. 19:13 Wes: Yeah, I think the book on which this is based is more obvious about this. And it's consciously softened in the films. The novel is Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. 19:24 Erin: I had no idea this was based on a novel. 19:26 Wes: Yeah. And the rights to the novel were purchased even before its development because they made a film with Frank Sinatra based on a previous novel that this guy had written. 19:37 Erin: What movie? 19:38 Wes: The Detective, 1968. 19:40 Erin: Oh, sure, I've seen that. 19:41 Wes: So based on a novel by the same guy. And in fact, they had to offer 70 year old Frank Sinatra the part played by Bruce Willis. 19:50 Erin: Oh my gosh. 19:51 Wes: Contractually they had to offer it to him before. And that, you know, course he said that's okay. 19:57 Erin: What I wouldn't give for a screen test of that. That's Hilarious. 20:00 Wes: There's a great making of documentary out there which I can't remember the name of, but I'm sure people can find it. But there's so much interesting trivia about how this film was made, and a lot of it actually has made its way into the Wikipedia article for the film. In the novel, it's terrorists. They have clear political motivations. And in the film, this was consciously softened because they wanted the villains to be not so mean. Well, mean is the word used by the director of the film, John McTiernan. He didn't want it to be so mean. I think he thought maybe it would make it too serious and heavy and he was looking for something light, you know, he had the film, the original screenplay, extensively rewritten to introduce a lot of comedy into it. They allowed a lot of improvisation from Bruce Willis and from others to introduce comedy into it. Including these great scenes, right, where the. Where the henchman looks down at the candy bar. 20:52 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 20:53 Wes: And can't resist taking it. Or the. The SWAT team guy injures himself on a rose thorn and goes, ow. As he's running into the. Lots of great little comic touches like that. So that's all part of this kind of softening project. They had to make it not like a typical action film, but it also makes it, the role of the villains more ambiguous. Which works, right? Because you can do this thing where you can say, as Hans Gruber will claim, are the villains all that much different than the corporate people or the other bureaucrats or other oppressive social forces in society? Which, again, are also the antagonists in this film. And it is ambiguous, right, because they're not really terrorists. They don't really have political goals. Even though Hans Gruber was part of a. Of a terrorist organization, he's been expelled from it, and he's decided he just wants the money and go live on the beach. And when he makes an early speech in the film about how this corporation has been doing something terrible and that's why he's here, it's completely a lie. So there's an interesting parallel between the terrorists and the corporate types and even Takagi, right? Takagi and Hans Gruber have a lot in common. Hans Gruber says in the elevator scene when they're taking Takagi to the place where they're ultimately going to kill him, you know, nice suit. And then he names the designer of the suit and says he has a few of them himself. And rumor has it Arafat has one as well. Terrorism has turned into something cynical and associated with corporate Greed and things like that. And Takagi himself, right. Very cultured, very educated. One of the things that Gruber says when he walks into the portion of the office with all the models where they're taking, Takagi says, and when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. And then he makes that remark. Benefits of a classical education. 22:44 Erin: Yeah. 22:45 Wes: Which I love. You know, benefits of a classical education, which you could also call an antagonist in the film. Right. The elites and their education. You know, speaking of pairings and relationships, Takagi and Hans Gruber have a lot in common, and it's part of what makes the scene where he's willing to off him so quickly and cavalierly so shocking. Right. Because you would think Gruber would have some admiration and interest in that sort of resume and someone who also probably has a classical education and somewhat accomplished and interested in money and if he is and things like that. 23:21 Erin: Sure. Yeah. Well, I love that remark about the suits and even Alexander's Domain, because it does imply that the ruling class, whether they be corporate or actual leaders of countries or something like that, are all kind of a monoculture. They all have the same type suits. And they, you know, I think this is easily more easily imagined for men than for women, especially because of the term suits. But this idea that everybody is all, you know, those at the top are all part of the same breed, whether they be good guys or bad guys or some combination of both. But I like, too, the idea that Gruber sort of is and isn't an ideologue, or that somehow believing in classical education makes him a bad guy but not a mean guy or something like that, you know, by the director's standard. And I think you're right that when we get more terroristic, more sinister motivations, I think that's when you end up with like a Jason Bourne movie rather than a Die Hard. The Jason Bourne stuff I was thinking of. I love that trilogy. 24:24 Wes: Me, too. 24:24 Erin: And I was thinking of that when John McClane starts getting shot at by the FBI because he's waving his machine gun around and trying to get people back downstairs and away from the bomb. But. Yeah, but the idea of the government as being an antagonist, too, it puts them also aligned with the FBI. Aligned with Gruber in a way as well. 24:46 Wes: Yeah. Even Vietnam, even the Vietnam War comes in for a bit of a bashing, Right? 24:50 Erin: Sure. 24:51 Wes: Elder Johnson of the FBI is whipping it up in the helicopter and saying it's just like Saigon or something like that. 24:59 Erin: Right. 24:59 Wes: And the response from the younger Johnson is like, I was in middle school, asshole, or something like that. 25:03 Erin: Well, that's a great moment. So the motivation of the FBI is to enact. It's like a kind of play acting. I think there's some play acting that goes on with Gruber and McClane, obviously, when Gruber pretends to be a hostage and when he sort of casts McClane in the role of the cowboy. But then I like the fact, too, that the FBI seem to be working from this script. So they don't have a sense that everyone's seen the same movie, I guess, and that the. You know, that Gruber and his associates know everything that the FBI is going to do ahead of time. Someone says, I think the nerdy guy who's hacking into the mainframe or whatever to get out the bonds. 25:44 Wes: Or is it Theo? 25:45 Erin: Theo, okay, yeah. He's like, oh, it's right out of the FBI playbook or something like that. And I think Powell makes a similar comment about how it's stupid to go in or they're going to be expecting that. I know McClane has the same intuition about. 25:59 Wes: I think it's Gruber, right, who says, you know, you wanted a Christmas miracle, I give you the FBI. Which is always the way he says it. Right. With those pauses. 26:09 Erin: Right. So let's pause here for a minute to talk about something really exciting for all the established creatives out there and for aspiring filmmakers and screenwriters, too. NYU Tisch School of the Arts is offering a slate of online courses this spring on screenwriting and documentary filmmaking. And, guys, I've got to tell you that these courses look pretty impressive. There's one course called Writing for the Screen, in which you'll complete a film treatment and a step outline of your own feature film or TV episode. And there's another course called Documentary Workshop, which features participation from the New York Times Op-Docs. The courses use a remote learning platform with some pretty incredible features. These are not just your basic classroom video meetings. NYU Tisch Pro designed these courses specifically to be digital, and the interface looks great. It's intuitive, inherently collaborative and interactive. You can watch video lectures delivered by Tisch faculty at your own pace. But then you can also join live video meetings and schedule one on one sessions with professors. And you can work with other students around the world as a virtual crew. There are built in collaboration features like a live chat to discuss your creative work. And you can seamlessly share, download, annotate, review, and comment on video content, all without leaving the platform. There's even a particularly Cool feature which allows your professor or virtual crewmate to leave a comment at a specific timestamp on your video so you can zero in to exactly what they're talking about. So if you've been wanting to try screenwriting or documentary filmmaking, or you have a specific story that you've always wanted to put on screen, 2022 is just around the corner. Maybe make it a New Year's resolution to bring your ideas to life. The deadline for spring courses is January 7th. You can learn more at tishpro.smashcut.com subtext that's TishPro T I S C H pro.smashcut.com subText and now back to the show. Yeah, so there's an expectation of how things are going to go down, maybe based on movies or, you know, how some idea that the FBI follows the same kind of script every single time. And so the FBI is trying to take off on some sort of. Or at least this one guy in the FBI on some sort of Vietnam fantasy, which is very reminiscent of, like, you know, what we were talking about in Apocalypse now and all that sort of thing, which maybe this guy could have been in the Vietnam War or he could just like Vietnam War movies. So there's this idea of the sort of shared culture and the shared script that everybody seems to know and seems to be working from. And only by stepping outside of that script can you achieve success in defending yourself or in defeating the evil people. 28:51 Wes: Yeah, I think that's interesting because this is caricature and this movie is a satire. These aren't even realistic. Right. For all the bad things the FBI and bureaucrats and the police and all the rest of the antagonists do, they're not bad in precisely this way. It's more complicated. One of the Johnson and Johnson guys says to the police chief, Dwayne T. Robinson, another name that I love. 29:20 Erin: Oh, yeah, Dwayne, Dwayne. He says. Bruce Willis says a really funny way. 29:26 Wes: Played by Paul Gleason of the Breakfast Club, right? 29:30 Erin: Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. 29:32 Wes: School teacherly kind of vibe. 29:35 Erin: Yeah. 29:36 Wes: So representative of authority of the bad, hypocritical sort. We could talk about how that's represented. So one of the FBI guys says to him, we'll try to let you know if we commandeer your police force. Or he's like, if we have to commandeer your men, we'll try to let you know. So exaggerations for comic effect, but also pure caricature with the Saigon thing and the helicopter and running up the armored vehicle up the steps, throwing caution to the wind, all of that stuff. But it works, right? It doesn't ever seem unnatural because the movie is not. It doesn't need to be. It's a satire. And even Hans Gruber is over the top. There's not meant to be a realism really here. There's a parable like or dreamlike quality to this movie. So the strength of the movie lies in its, like I said before, its thematic antagonists. The oppressive social forces that the threaten family and marriage. Those feel real and they are real. And even if for fun, you have to make your villain charming and classically educated and all that stuff, and you have to make the police totally inept and the FBI totally gung ho. Doesn't change the fact that those caricatures may more honestly represent the forces at work. 30:57 Erin: I really like what you say at the beginning about how place. I mean, this isn't real. It's la, right? Like the cliches are movie cliches. And that's, I think, part of the reason why it works so well is because it is in fantasy land, La la land. It's also like the over the top element, I think is also exploited by the TV journalist thread too, which again, like, I don't know, I just. I wish that was a little bit more prominent in the film because I think that that really dovetails nicely with the movie's satire. You know, I kind of knew the moment when Holly slaps the TV journalist guy that he would hope that they caught that on camera, you know, and so I was satisfied rather than being disappointed or say, oh, of course, you know, I was satisfied that he turned and said, you know, did you get that? You know, the kids being interviewed saying, you know, mommy and daddy come home. You know, it's just like so delicious and exploitative and gross. You know, it's kind of amazing to think that this is also like pre OJ la, but it sort of. It's part of that continuum. Or maybe it started that continuum, I don't know. But the idea of the intrusion of the press into the pressworthy moment seems like a particularly LA kind of problem. 32:13 Wes: Yeah. Your use of this word, exploitation, because that's a word that connects some of these different villains from the corporate to the criminal or terroristic to the media and so on. 32:25 Erin: Yeah. 32:26 Wes: In thinking about whether this is a Christmas movie, I thought about the fact that when I was trying to make my list of which I've been talking about, of protagonists and antagonists, and then I thought there's kind of A duality within Christmas itself. And I was remembering our very first episode about the apartment and the scenes of licentiousness going on at an office Christmas party. 32:53 Erin: Yep, yep. 32:54 Wes: People making out everywhere when McClane is interestingly thrust into this office environment. So there's a strong class element here too. Right. So he's way over his head, class wise. He's right off the. Just gotten off the plane in LA cop from New York walks into this party, is offered champagne. I think he still is the teddy bear in the car. I guess he leaves the teddy bear in the car around a bunch of very well educated, cultured people, one of whom is his wife and is wearing a Rolex now, which will become very significant because at the end of the movie, that's the thing that has to be undone in order to send Hans Gruber to his death. He's holding onto that Rolex. So he is really out of place when it comes to status in this environment. But we also get the association with sexual temptation and looser values and not just a people overly focusing on advancement and becoming powerful and rich, but the opportunities that an office environment offers for infidelity, but especially during a Christmas party. So what interested me was this way in which the celebratory, jolly aspect of Christmas, it's meant to be about family. And the movie makes this very clear. That's one version of Christmas being at home with your spouse and your kids. But the other side of that is drinking a lot and partying. So there's an internal split within Christmas. And I think it makes for a good Christmas movie to highlight them. 34:33 Erin: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I also noticed that especially with that couple, like sort of getting caught in the middle of a tryst or something like that. Yeah, it was very, you know, it's sort of more of the rated R version of what I actually love about. There are a lot of office Christmas parties in movies in the 50s and 60s, interestingly, because I think so many people like, especially with women entering the workforce and sort of this like, new licentiousness in movies too. It sort of comes in through the office in a weird way. So my favorite is in this is a wholesome version of this, which is in the movie desk, set from 1957 with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, where they just get drunk and they have a really merry old time. And there's a joyousness to that and a jolly, merry kind of Christmas vibe. Right. It's about, you know, celebrations are kind of about this indulgence and having fun in that way and eating too much, drinking too much. But then. Yeah, but you're right. Like, the intrusion of the sensual, I think, also serves to kind of undermine those structures that are, I think, also being subverted by the office, which is you have these. Even in, like, the Santa Clause, it's like the single dad who works too much and isn't home. So there's already something sort of broken about an office culture and obviously, like the tropes about secretaries and. Yeah, like you say, the ability of the office to break up a family, whether that be because you're having an affair with someone you're working with or because you're working long hours away from the home and you're away from the home for long periods of time or 36:15 Wes: you have to move for your new job. 36:17 Erin: Right. I think there's also a duality, you know, not just the sort of sexual licentiousness, but I think that there's an inherent duality in Christmas for people who are. I mean, it's an extremely lonely holiday if you don't have a family and that it brings all of these things to the fore. Right. Like, if you've. I think I'm. I'm sure people have experienced holidays where it's like, right after a loved one has died and the holiday takes on this really painful aspect where everything is sort of magnified. So I think, like, the holiday office party is a really interesting sort of demonstration of that, where you have everyone's sort of like, good and bad qualities really get magnified in that kind of dissociative environment. 36:57 Wes: You're making me think about what is it that Christmas is celebrating exactly? Other than the competing. What would you call them? There's Christianity, there's the Christian celebration on the one hand, and then there's the pagan thing with the tree, and they got fused together somehow. And we've been talking about family and the association between Christmas and family. Is there anything else to say about what it is that Christmas celebrates? 37:25 Erin: Well, there's all that in there. I mean, there's Christ's two natures, right, as God and man. There's this idea of there's obviously the family at the heart of the Christmas story, but at the same time, you know, Mary is an unwed mother. Even though she has a husband, she's kind of like a single mom at the same time. Right. 37:42 Wes: Like there's knocked up at the office party. 37:45 Erin: Hey, hey. 37:45 Wes: Now the one with God. Sorry. 37:51 Erin: She has, you know, the man helping take care of her. And all that. But she also has. There's the class element there, too, frankly. Like, they can't even get. She can't even give birth indoors. Right. They have to go to the. They're isolated from the. Whatever party maybe is going on at the inn. I don't know. They don't have anything to celebrate yet because it's. They don't know what's happening. But there's an isolating element of that and of being, you know, very shortly. Being on the run and. Anyway. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of inherent conflict in the whole nature of Christmas. 38:24 Wes: And like John McClane, they were probably barefoot. 38:27 Erin: Exactly. 38:28 Wes: I mean, they were wearing sandals, probably. But sure, there's a lot of barefoot stuff going on. But what do we. You know, that's. That's. 38:34 Erin: Well, I'm sure Jesus was born barefoot, so that's obviously the symbolism. 38:37 Wes: Yeah. But that's one of the things I love about this movie. This oft noted thing is that McClane does all of his action stuff while he's barefoot and gets his feet cut up on glass so that there's a kind of stigmata element. Right. Going on. And the suggestion of a Christ figure. And all of this is set up at the very beginning of the movie where it's his fear of flying that leads to all of this, because it's, you know, another passenger says, oh, if you. I'll tell you what helps. Just ball your feet up like fists on the carpet. And for some reason that'll alleviate your fear of flying. 39:17 Erin: Yeah, I did not get that. 39:18 Wes: It's a weird idea, but that's what he's trying to do, and somehow it's working. Maybe it's just a de stressing thing in general, but that's what McClane is doing, and that's why he's caught with his shoes off, so to speak. There's something here that's being made of his suffering, obviously. And this is one of the interesting things about the casting of Bruce Willis in this role and the vulnerability involved in it, and him tearing up and almost crying and giving his last words via Powell to his wife, you know, telling her he apologizes. He's not like one of the typical action heroes of the time, just all muscled up and out to do everything like a Rambo, kill everything in sight. He's vulnerable and he's wisecracking and he's reluctant. You know, he probably wouldn't even be engaged in this fight if he didn't absolutely have to be. He's not A hero, necessarily, who's gonna run into the burning building to. To save people or anything like that. There's a fair amount of cynicism. So I'm trying to draw some kind of connection between those things and the suffering that he does in the movie. I guess I associate it with working class suffering and people who just get down to work and do the hard things that have to be done in a society. The real physical things. Construction or. Or being a cop or something like that, as opposed to being part of a corporation. I don't know. I haven't thought through this whole. The role of the bear, the bloody bare feet and his suffering in this. You know, apart from saying, oh, that's very Christ. Like. I'm not sure how you connect it thematically. 40:55 Erin: Yeah, well, I really like that he's. This is a working class symbol, that he's, you know, part of this infrastructure of the country that gets the hard work done. You know, this sort of silent people who make everything run for the corporate types. 41:09 Wes: Yeah. I love the fact that so much is made of Californian this. In fact, I was thinking about Annie hall and how Woody Allen just gets physically ill when he's in California. Or not Woody Allen, but Alvy Singer, 41:23 Erin: as do we all. 41:24 Wes: And I almost misremembered that. That. I mean, I did kind of misremember before rewatching it that McClane had some kind of physical reaction to California as well. But yeah, what we get from him is a few comments about California. What is it about California that's so objectionable to a New Yorker? Part of it is just the level 41:43 Erin: of don't get me started. 41:45 Wes: Or he says fucking California is what he says. One of his comments he makes after he is. I think it's when the couple is actually making out at the party before they go off into the room. The couple is going to get punished for their sexuality. Later he'll make one of his California remarks. So loose values, maybe. Weirdness, flakiness, less grit, less practicality. It's the same thing in Ghostbusters. It kind of represents the heart and soul of the nation and the working class. But its vices as well as its virtues, gruffness, lack of friendliness, lack of refinement, maybe, but also gets things done. And ultimately heart of gold type of thing. 42:29 Erin: Well, I think that California has its own lack of refinement. But I definitely, yeah, I associate New York with real life and real people. Not that California is full of automatons or something. I mean, my experience of being there is like, not being able to believe that people actually lived there all year round and that that was the weather all year round. Like, it seems like the kind of place that is a vacation spot that no one should be living in because there's a lack of grit required to live there. And, like, you should suffer for at least part of the year as. 43:00 Wes: Yeah. 43:01 Erin: Just as a human being, you should. You should have to contend with something. Right, Right. 43:04 Wes: And so people lose their connection to reality and I think is the implication. I mean, this is, of course, we're talking about gross generalizations and stereotypes and associations that are. That are unfair, of course, to the complexity of places, obviously. But that. Yeah, this is like what these places, I think, signify at some level. 43:23 Erin: Yeah. 43:23 Wes: I was going to say that's. It's the semiotics of these places, but that's a very California thing to say. No, it's not even a classical education thing to say, is it? To use the word semiotics in a. 43:33 Erin: Sure, it is. Well, it depends on how recently you've stopped. 43:36 Wes: No postmodern education. We were talking about McClane being a jerk and that being his arc. To apologize for. What is it he says specifically about what he's apologizing for? 43:48 Erin: For not being supportive of her, I think. 43:50 Wes: Yeah. 43:50 Erin: Are happy for her. There is one thing she should apologize for, which is the fact that her perm registers at, like, a 9.2 on the Richter scale. It's just devastating. 44:01 Wes: It makes her look older than she is, which I just don't. Do not get 80s fashion or the hair especially. It ages people. 44:09 Erin: Yeah. I mean, she looks better now than she did in that movie as, like, an older woman. Like, she's a very beautiful older woman. And in that movie, it's. 44:19 Wes: She's beautiful in the movie, except that the halo, the hair obscures. 44:24 Erin: It's so traumatizing. It just. Yeah. It ruins everything. 44:28 Wes: Yeah. Okay. So she has to apologize for that. Is there anything else? She has to apologize. She is wearing a Rolex. 44:36 Erin: That's true. And an ugly outfit. 44:39 Wes: She is hanging out with an enormous douchebag in Ellis. 44:42 Erin: Yeah, but she's keeping him. She's fine. 44:45 Wes: She is. She's keeping him in his place. You can't really have a movie in which a woman is the. 44:50 Erin: Is the. What? 44:51 Wes: What is it? I'm thinking of the sitcom parody of the guy, you know, the family guy who. Who is kind of an idiot. Right. And the wife is always smarter and puts up with him and has to be his better half and all that. Stuff. Are there other movies in which the guy is the better half? 45:07 Erin: Yeah, there are, but I don't think that's the dynamic here. Like, I think that. I think that Bruce Willis is just being selfish. He's not like an idiot or an oaf or whatever. He just is being insecure and. 45:18 Wes: But it's working class, you know, despite his criticism of machismo, there's that you kind of suspect that that's part of what's going on with him as his masculine pride, which. There's the wife beater. There's a connection between this and status. So being an idiot is not the most precise term, but it is, you know, being obtuse in this particular way, which is connected to lack of refinement and class stereotypes and things. One of the interesting ways in which class is used in this movie is just with the use of classical music and its association with the villains. And it's associated with both the corporate types and with the pseudo terrorists, as I like to call them. But, you know, when McClane first arrives at the party, there's a quartet, I think, playing. 46:05 Erin: Oh, right, right. 46:06 Wes: Or there's some musicians there playing classical music. And I think we get a reaction of McClane to that and various other things that I think he sees as pretentious happening at the party. And then there's the wonderful use of Beethoven's Ode to Joy throughout the whole movie, which I think from what I read, the composer of the score was actually reluctant to do and had to be persuaded to do by the director. But I mean, it is really fabulous because it's used for the entire score. So even, you know, early on when the Gruber's gang is arriving in there, or there's a shot of them moving in their van and you hear the low notes, maybe it's a cello or something of part of Ode to Joy as a. Made to sound sinister. Right. Made to sound foreboding. And so it makes use of it for any different emotion you want to get out of the film. And it climaxes, like I said, with them luxuriating in their bearer bonds, where you get the climactic moment of that piece of music. 47:10 Erin: Yeah, it's another over the top German in the movie. I guess if they wanted to make a statement about Nazis, it would have to be Wagner. But these aren't ideologues, they're just Germans. 47:21 Wes: But yeah, there's no Nazi stereotype here. It's interesting, I mean, that Germanness is used, is exploited for villainy here. But it's A very different type of Germanness. 47:32 Erin: Right. I like to the. I don't know if you would call the interior of the plaza beautiful. It's not my taste. I mean, certainly it's like an impressive building and the waterfall and the sort of water element that then Bruce Willis will, like, hide in. 47:49 Wes: I think it's a replication of something Frank Lloyd Wright did, actually. 47:53 Erin: Well, there are a lot of elements of water. The waterfall house inside. The biggest fan of Frank Lloyd Wright, I mean, I respect it, but I wouldn't want to live there. I wouldn't want to live in Nakatomi Plaza. But also because, you know, the foundation is probably a little off now. But the element of that architectural model that's in Takagi's office. 48:15 Wes: You're talking about one of those actual models? 48:19 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 48:20 Wes: You know, I honestly don't know. 48:21 Erin: Well, there's a beautiful. Just beautiful look to that. And this idea of which, you know, Hans Gruber admires so the sort of like, visual art or the architecture of the Nakatomi Plaza interiors, anyway. And this model in the office and, you know, the expensive suits and the score are all this kind of nice. These high culture elements that this corporate world, even though it's corporate, is participating in. They're not just putting up, you know, tract houses or even putting up big radio towers or putting satellites and other, you know, celestial debris up into the atmosphere. Like, they're actually making things that look beautiful. And Hans Gruber also, like. Even though he's a. I like pseudo terrorist, that's a really good term for him. He also, of course, appreciates, like, the beautiful. And so it's fitting that he should have Ode to Joy as his theme music. It's funny. 49:19 Wes: Yeah. You know, you can accuse the movie of being unfair to, like, you know, again, to a lot of these different antagonists, including classical education and culture, if you take it too literally. But on the other hand, it's part of what makes Hans Gruber such an interesting villain and I think probably changed the way villains were done in movies. Right. I think this is kind of an innovative thing they did. I'm not certain. The well educated, charming, genuinely very smart and clever, formidable villain. That's something that works really well. 49:50 Erin: That's actually a trope of Nazi villainy. The highly educated villain, the reasonable cultured villain. That's what makes the whole Nazi trope in movies so chilling. And also in real life, I think the stereotype of the person who's been too cultured. And I mean, Heart of Darkness, what we've Learned our persistent theme for months now has been this kind of villain. And like, I think of the Third man, which is a movie, I hope we do at some point, or anything in which James Mason is a villain. Right. I think this is all part of that continuum. 50:30 Wes: Yeah. I don't know how long American movies had, if they had. Or if so, how long they had kind of gone without doing that. Honestly don't know. I think there's a trend of trying to emulate this. Right. Once the whole Hans Gruber approach to a villain. I think they tried to. Once people saw how well that worked, trying to replicate it. 50:48 Erin: Didn't they replicate it within this film series? Because didn't they use Jeremy Irons. 50:53 Wes: Yes. 50:53 Erin: For something. Is he supposed to be his brother? 50:56 Wes: I think so. Yes. 50:58 Erin: That works really well. They could be brothers in real life, don't you think? Like, they have a very similar. 51:04 Wes: Absolutely. Yeah. 51:05 Erin: Not only because they're two Englishmen pretending to be Germans, but that's kind of a niche. That's a family trait. But yeah. 51:14 Wes: Something that Rickman does very well, I think, too, with the English accent with a slight undertone. It's a weird Mutt accent. Right? 51:24 Erin: Right. 51:24 Wes: It's gotta be really hard to pull off. 51:27 Erin: I love when he's like Clay. Bill Clay or whatever he gives his name as when he plays the fake hostage. And he does like a. Pretty good. 51:38 Wes: Does it. Great. Yeah. 51:39 Erin: American. Is it Southern? Is it California? I don't know. It works really well. 51:45 Wes: Yeah. From what I understand, they were trying to figure out how to have McClane and Gruber meet one on one at some point. And they were having trouble figuring that out until someone overheard Rickman doing his American accent while socializing with people on the set. 52:02 Erin: That's great. 52:02 Wes: And they thought, yeah, that's it. He can pretend to be one of the hostages. 52:07 Erin: That's awesome. 52:08 Wes: Yeah. Okay, cool. Shall we break here and we can talk about a few more things during post script? I think I will ask you about whether and to the extent to which you enjoy the action part of this movie and maybe we will get through to a few other things that we've left out of this discussion. 52:28 Erin: Sure. Ranking movie perms. Yeah. 52:30 Wes: Movie perms. We need to explore that issue for 52:32 Erin: a. Yeah, I think that's. That's really the heart of the film. So. 52:36 Wes: All right. Thank you. 52:38 Erin: Thank you. 52:46 Wes: Postscript. [email protected] subtext Also, this podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. airwavemedia.com Com.