No, Die Hard is not your favourite Christmas movie
OK, maybe I’m being too harsh. It’s possible that Die Hard is your favourite Christmas movie. Fine. I’ll rephrase:
IF Die Hard is your favourite Christmas movie, you do not like Christmas movies.
Because although Die Hard is a very very very good movie, it’s not a good Christmas movie. If you do accept that it’s a Christmas movie at all, that is. Which I believe there is a very strong argument against. But that’s not our concern today. You can claim that it’s a Christmas movie, and I won’t argue. But it’s a terrible Christmas movie, and the only way you can truly consider it your favourite Christmas movie is if you hate Christmas movies as a genre and therefore prefer movies that just happen to be set at Christmastime.
The reason for this is simple: the qualities that make a movie a “Christmas movie” are not simply the setting of the story. Christmas moviedom is a vibe, not a time or place. A movie can be a great movie, but it’s not a great Christmas movie unless that vibe is present, prevalent and permeating the whole exercise. A movie can be a pretty average movie, but still be a great Christmas movie because of the power and intensity of the Christmas vibe.
To put it in a nutshell, a great Christmas movie must be, above all things, CHRISTMASSY.
And so we see that Die Hard, a truly great movie, is not a good Christmas movie, while National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, not a particularly good movie, is nevertheless a wonderful Christmas movie. Because the criteria for judging how good a Christmas movie a movie is are quite different to the criteria for judging how a good a movie it is. Christmas Vacation has many flaws that detract from it as a work of cinema.
To be honest, a great Christmas movie doesn’t even necessarily have to be set at Christmas. Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which is about Thanksgiving rather than Christmas, is one of the best Christmas movies ever made. Because it’s about family and friendship and getting home in time to celebrate with the people you love. It’s a much better Christmas movie than Die Hard, which is set at Christmas but is about a cool guy killing a bunch of evil guys in a skyscraper.
This is a demonstration of what a good Christmas movie must have: Christmas Spirit.
Christmas spirit is not always easy to define, but you’ll know it when you see it. A lot of Christmas movies mention Christmas spirit: it’s the thing that makes misanthropes love humanity, makes harried businessmen and women recognise that what really matters is family, what makes Steve Martin realise John Candy is his best friend. And of course, frequently it’s what makes Santa’s sleigh go.
To be a great Christmas movie, a film must be brimming with Christmas spirit. Oh, it can be cynical, even satirical, about the negative aspects of the holiday, the commercialism, the stress. But at the heart of all great Christmas movies is that powerful spirit and a commitment to uncovering…wait for it…THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS.
This is of course because Christmas movies are part of a tradition begun with Charles Dickens, who basically invented the concept of Christmas spirit when he wrote a story about a bitter money-obsessed old man who discovered that Christmas is a time for opening your heart and extending goodwill to all men. Scrooge recognises the importance of keeping Christmas in one’s heart all the year round, as do the protagonists of every really good Christmas movie, not to mention a few thousand mediocre ones.
All good Christmas movies are spiritual cousins, if not direct descendants, of A Christmas Carol. Die Hard is not. If Die Hard is your favourite Christmas movie, you’re sick of Christmas Spirit and wish it would go hang itself in the barn.
In case I haven’t stressed it enough, this is no criticism of Die Hard. To say Die Hard is not a great Christmas movie is no more a diss of it than to say Raiders of the Lost Ark is not a great Easter movie. Die Hard is a better movie than most Christmas movies. I’d rather watch Die Hard than, say The Year Without A Santa Claus. But if I am looking to get into a Christmas mood, I will always go with the Miser Brothers and Shirley Booth’s god-awful singing. Because what you watch when you need a good Christmas movie is different to what you watch when you just need a good movie. Even if the good movie is, coincidentally, set at Christmastime.
(sidenote: The Year Without A Santa Claus is also really good because it’s the only Santa Claus-themed movie I’ve seen that does not include the gaping plothole of adult characters who don’t believe in Santa, despite the fact that presents mysteriously appear in their house every year. But I digress)
So yes, OK, Die Hard is your favourite Christmas movie. And I feel kind of sorry for you, because that can only mean that Christmas spirit is sorely lacking from your life. Maybe this Christmas you’ll stumble on Fred Claus while channel-surfing and that’ll change. I hope so.
Addendum: In case you were wondering, these are, objectively, the five best Christmas movies.
A Christmas Story
Elf
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Arthur Christmas
It’s A Wonderful Life