Dec 3, 2022·edited Dec 3, 2022Liked by Anna Rettberg
There's a decent series on Netflix called ‟The Movies that Made Us” where they'll take an iconic blockbuster and interview cast/crew/producers/directors and talk about how it got greenlit and produced.
Die Hard is featured in the first season and it's worth checking out if you liked the movie! Features McTiernan, the screenwriters, casting director, stunt director, etc. Only ~40min/episode so a pretty easy watch.
I love Die Hard, it's a fantastic film and a nice change of pace from the last two months. McTiernan is a great director, he does not get as much recognition as Kubrick or Lynch because he works within more delineated genre boundaries, but he has an incredible sense of rhythm and shot design.
Like with "The Hunt for Red October", I noticed he does not do a lot of shot/reverse shot. The whole exposition is made of two shots, which is very nice, it gives some breathing space. As you said, the characters are fleshed out and it feels natural. As another example of characterization, I really liked the speech scene of the CEO, just before he starts talking he goes to the musicians to tell them he is about to start his speech. There's no cut and you don't hear him talk to them, but just with the visuals, it's enough to signify that the character has some standing. There's also the exposition in the limo, it could have felt forced but since the driver is young and nosy it feels like a real, natural conversation. The attention to detail is like that throughout the movie, it's very well made.
On the music side, I really liked how they used motifs of Beethoven's ninth symphony for the whole soundtrack. There's humour in the idea of using the Ode to Joy theme in minor for action scenes, they managed to make it suspenseful but it also makes the movie a little bit less heavy. I also love the ending with "Let It Snow", I like it when the end credits are well-thought-out.
There's a youtube video by RocketJump Film School that explains well the editing of a few scenes of the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJF_twhKV0. The cinematography is also very good, it's a movie I would pick to look at every frame for visual composition analysis.
It was fun to rewatch, for an action movie it's hard to beat.
I totally agree about McTiernan as a great, under-appreciated director. I was just thinking about how many film critics/academics seem reluctant to praise genre movies, which was really evident in yesterday's release of the BFI "Greatest Movies of All Time" list.
Dec 2, 2022·edited Dec 2, 2022Liked by Casey Muratori
Yes, I agree with you. I took a look at the list, I haven't seen the majority of the films but from what I see it looks like there's a bias towards slow cinema (Tropical Malady, Yi Yi, Satantango, Andrei Rublev, Jeanne Dielman, etc.) I think it's fun once in a while to watch this kind of films but I wouldn't go through a list like that and watch everything back to back.
For criticism, I like the attitude of Pauline Kael, she favoured eclecticism. I don't like how she writes, it's too long-winded, but she liked genre cinema and her general approach is good I think. Clearly, critics polled for the BFI don't have that attitude. There's not a lot of criticism I like... If you go back there's Baudelaire who was a good critic, he had eclectic tastes too and trusted the reader to make his own opinion.
For academia, I think they favour "harder" texts because they break patterns and do a lot of intertextual references. So with enough time, in a way, it's easier to write about something complex like Joyce rather than an "easier" author. But by doing so they miss a lot of stuff. As an example, my understanding is that comedy was almost not treated as an academic subject for the whole 20th century. There's the same problem for music, there was a gap in the literature about 20th-century tonal harmony, they favoured analysis of atonal music in universities.
That's what I really like about the movie club, your selection of movies based around themes allows interesting comparisons and some details pop more than if we watched movies by decades or by directors. Also you both analyze structure and do thorough readings which is not what critics do nowadays. I think BFI's list would be different if critics were closely watching like this (Vertigo would not be number 2!)
1) When listening to the episode, it's going to sound like I was aware (but didn't mention) that Hunt for Red October and Die Hard were directed by the same director. I wasn't! For whatever reason, I never remember which films John McTiernan did, I always have to look it up. So I must just have been picking up on the fact that the "many characters" construction was done so cleanly in both films, and thus compared them.
2) I forgot to mention this during the podcast: there's a nice little thing they do in Die Hard that you may miss the first time around. At the beginning of the movie, John McClane's wife Holly has received a Rolex watch as a gift, a status symbol that exemplifies the tension in their marriage. At the end of the movie, when Hans Gruber is holding on to Holly's arm, it is specifically the watch he is clinging to. John unclasps the watch from Holly's wrist, which causes it to fall (and Hans with it). A nice little symbolic turn at the end, for folks who like that sort of thing :)
I have actually never seen Predator! I would like to see it, especially since McTiernan is now 2 for 2. I am guessing "The Last Action Hero" is perhaps not in the same pantheon? :)
As per the Movie Club Rules (see the about page if you missed them), please edit this comment to remove the part where it discusses political trends external to the movie!
There's a decent series on Netflix called ‟The Movies that Made Us” where they'll take an iconic blockbuster and interview cast/crew/producers/directors and talk about how it got greenlit and produced.
Die Hard is featured in the first season and it's worth checking out if you liked the movie! Features McTiernan, the screenwriters, casting director, stunt director, etc. Only ~40min/episode so a pretty easy watch.
I love Die Hard, it's a fantastic film and a nice change of pace from the last two months. McTiernan is a great director, he does not get as much recognition as Kubrick or Lynch because he works within more delineated genre boundaries, but he has an incredible sense of rhythm and shot design.
Like with "The Hunt for Red October", I noticed he does not do a lot of shot/reverse shot. The whole exposition is made of two shots, which is very nice, it gives some breathing space. As you said, the characters are fleshed out and it feels natural. As another example of characterization, I really liked the speech scene of the CEO, just before he starts talking he goes to the musicians to tell them he is about to start his speech. There's no cut and you don't hear him talk to them, but just with the visuals, it's enough to signify that the character has some standing. There's also the exposition in the limo, it could have felt forced but since the driver is young and nosy it feels like a real, natural conversation. The attention to detail is like that throughout the movie, it's very well made.
On the music side, I really liked how they used motifs of Beethoven's ninth symphony for the whole soundtrack. There's humour in the idea of using the Ode to Joy theme in minor for action scenes, they managed to make it suspenseful but it also makes the movie a little bit less heavy. I also love the ending with "Let It Snow", I like it when the end credits are well-thought-out.
There's a youtube video by RocketJump Film School that explains well the editing of a few scenes of the movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNJF_twhKV0. The cinematography is also very good, it's a movie I would pick to look at every frame for visual composition analysis.
It was fun to rewatch, for an action movie it's hard to beat.
I totally agree about McTiernan as a great, under-appreciated director. I was just thinking about how many film critics/academics seem reluctant to praise genre movies, which was really evident in yesterday's release of the BFI "Greatest Movies of All Time" list.
Yes, I agree with you. I took a look at the list, I haven't seen the majority of the films but from what I see it looks like there's a bias towards slow cinema (Tropical Malady, Yi Yi, Satantango, Andrei Rublev, Jeanne Dielman, etc.) I think it's fun once in a while to watch this kind of films but I wouldn't go through a list like that and watch everything back to back.
For criticism, I like the attitude of Pauline Kael, she favoured eclecticism. I don't like how she writes, it's too long-winded, but she liked genre cinema and her general approach is good I think. Clearly, critics polled for the BFI don't have that attitude. There's not a lot of criticism I like... If you go back there's Baudelaire who was a good critic, he had eclectic tastes too and trusted the reader to make his own opinion.
For academia, I think they favour "harder" texts because they break patterns and do a lot of intertextual references. So with enough time, in a way, it's easier to write about something complex like Joyce rather than an "easier" author. But by doing so they miss a lot of stuff. As an example, my understanding is that comedy was almost not treated as an academic subject for the whole 20th century. There's the same problem for music, there was a gap in the literature about 20th-century tonal harmony, they favoured analysis of atonal music in universities.
That's what I really like about the movie club, your selection of movies based around themes allows interesting comparisons and some details pop more than if we watched movies by decades or by directors. Also you both analyze structure and do thorough readings which is not what critics do nowadays. I think BFI's list would be different if critics were closely watching like this (Vertigo would not be number 2!)
A director voted for Die Hard in 2012, he had an interesting list: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/847
This one is also very good, the director wrote a comment on the historical importance of every movie on his list: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/sightandsoundpoll2012/voter/1060
And Weerasethakul voted for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Mad Max: Fury Road this year: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fi_hPrqWABQVGy0?format=jpg&name=small
There are some interesting top tens, especially from directors.
A couple notes from me on this one:
1) When listening to the episode, it's going to sound like I was aware (but didn't mention) that Hunt for Red October and Die Hard were directed by the same director. I wasn't! For whatever reason, I never remember which films John McTiernan did, I always have to look it up. So I must just have been picking up on the fact that the "many characters" construction was done so cleanly in both films, and thus compared them.
2) I forgot to mention this during the podcast: there's a nice little thing they do in Die Hard that you may miss the first time around. At the beginning of the movie, John McClane's wife Holly has received a Rolex watch as a gift, a status symbol that exemplifies the tension in their marriage. At the end of the movie, when Hans Gruber is holding on to Holly's arm, it is specifically the watch he is clinging to. John unclasps the watch from Holly's wrist, which causes it to fall (and Hans with it). A nice little symbolic turn at the end, for folks who like that sort of thing :)
I have actually never seen Predator! I would like to see it, especially since McTiernan is now 2 for 2. I am guessing "The Last Action Hero" is perhaps not in the same pantheon? :)
Thank you for your cooperation!
As per the Movie Club Rules (see the about page if you missed them), please edit this comment to remove the part where it discusses political trends external to the movie!