Here are nine Christmas motifs I detected (there are no doubt more): And it’s this category to which Die Hard belongs. The most common understanding of a Christmas film – as outlined by Mark Connelly in the introduction to Christmas at the Movies – is that the Christmas theme and motif are central to the film, such as It’s a Wonderful Life and the many versions of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.īut there’s another category, of films that just happen to be set around Christmas, a group that includes films such as the murder mystery The Thin Man and the mercenaries-in-Africa violence-fest The Wild Geese. So proximity to Christmas is not necessarily a criterion for a Christmas film. Even the remake, White Christmas, was released in mid-October 1954. That perennial seasonal favourite Holiday Inn, in which Bing Crosby warbles Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, was also a summer release (4 August 1942), and no one argues that isn’t a Christmas movie. However, this argument that a summer release can’t be a christmas movie does not hold up to even the most cursory examination. However, Die Hard was a summer release (15 July 1988) in the United States and very obviously for adults. The commercial argument is that Christmas movies are released at Christmas and are generally intended for family audiences. As both director John McTiernan and writer Steven De Souza have confirmed that Die Hard is a Christmas movie, then the creative case would seem very much in favour. The creative argument is based on the intentions of those involved in making the film. The arguments around the “Christmassiness” of the 1988 movie revolve around three themes: creative, commercial and cultural. It’s even important enough to warrant a poll from YouGov, which concluded that Die Hard is not a Christmas film. This debate has now become, in some film history circles, as big a question as to the meaning of “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane or whether Han Solo or Greedo shot first in Star Wars. It’s that time of year for hunkering down to watch a Christmas film with the family – and to hold the annual debate over whether or not Die Hard actually counts as one.
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