Die Hard
A Faculty of Pessimistic Imagination
The transcendent horror of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001 colors everything it touches; taints every surface with the colors of pure evil. It is extraordinarily difficult to think of even the most prosaic things without making reference to the tragedy and the loss of life, and our prayers for renewal, healing and vengeance.
The most common initial reaction to the coverage of the planes falling from the sky into the Twin Towers has been, “It looked like something out of a movie.” (So much so that two Hollywood productions slated for this weekend, Big Trouble and Collateral Damage, were shelved, perhaps indefinitely.) The explosions and the falling glass and the massive gouts of flame and smoke looked startlingly like the special effects we’ve come to take for granted. It looked, for all the world, like a scene out of the next Die Hard sequel.
Unfortunately, John McTiernan’s imaginative presentation of a terrorist attack on a Los Angeles skyscraper turned out to be all too prescient, if unevenly so. Like John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate, Die Hard is a great movie that will be forever haunted by its own visions. In his sterling novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon speaks of the “faculty of pessimistic imagination, of anticipating the worst, that is often all but indistinguishable from clairvoyance.” If Die Hard is in any way clairvoyant, it is not because of sheer chance but because of the dreadful magnitude of its imagination.
There are several threads that will tie Die Hard forever to the events - excuse me, the callous murder plot carried out by savage killers - of September 11, 2001. The first is the movie’s accuracy in its prediction of the location and the weapon of the terrorist attack. Terrorism is almost by definition savage and nihilistic, and the destruction of a tall and beautiful building by explosives speaks to something raw and primitive in the heart; it’s no wonder why both Hollywood and the terrorists chose this image to shock and frighten us. The explosions in the real New York outweigh the fictional Los Angeles explosions only in degree. (And, in fact, the terrorists in Die Hard II would deliberately crash airplanes to achieve their ends, although not nearly so spectacularly.)
Die Hard also accurately forecasts the skill, temperament and ferocity of the terrorists. The terrorist group that captures Nakatomi Plaza is of course a pure Hollywood creation, as we might expect. The team of terrorists is something out of the United Colors of Benetton, there’s enough diversity and ethnic differences amongst the terrorists to gladden even the most flinty-hearted Ivy League admissions officer. The terrorist leader, brilliantly and ably played by the brilliant and able Alan Rickman, is a suave, charismatic sophisticate, classically educated and immaculately dressed. (What’s more, Jeb Stuart’s outstanding script gives the terrorists half the good lines.) However, the fictional terrorists prove to be as bloodthirsty as the real-life ones. What’s more, they accomplish the same kind of misdirection. Die Hard features high-tech bank robbers posing as terrorists, while the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were likely only possible because the terrorists were able to convince the pilots that they were hijackers instead of suicide bombers. (What’s more, MSNBC reports that the real-life terrorists may have had a financial motive as well, with bin Laden associates suspected of selling short the stock of reinsurance companies on the European market. If this is true, one hopes that the SEC will be given the authority to terminate these inside traders with extreme prejudice.)
Fortunately, in at least two instances, the pessimistic imagination of Die Hard overreaches. The first is the portrayal of the media, who come off as pompous, arrogant jackals in the movie. Not so in real life; even the most stringent critic of the media could not help but appreciate the steadiness and steadfastness of CNN’s Aaron Brown, the professionalism of Fox’s Brit Hume, and the good efforts of the legions of reporters who worked hard to give us the most (if not perfectly) accurate information possible. (Not to forget, of course, the talented and brave Barbara Olson, who God will surely watch over.) The movie’s other main target is the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, who bear the brunt of the movie’s comic relief. Die Hard portrays them as Twinkie-guzzling slobs at best, and dangerous incompetents at worst. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth in real life. I encourage and implore you to read the outstanding Wall Street Journal piece by Peggy Noonan, who wrote, “On a local TV show last night the reporter Dick Oliver was asked how it was that so many firemen died, couldn’t they have escaped, and he said, with a rough voice that had love in it, ‘Firemen don’t run out of buildings. Firemen run into buildings.’” Dulce et decorum est.
Of course, all of this discussion misses the point of Die Hard entirely. Die Hard succeeds in being one of the most entertaining films of the 1980’s not because of its unfailingly realistic and chilling special effects but because of a gritty, career-making performance by Bruce Willis. (Up to then, Willis was best known for his role as a smart-mouthed private investigator on ABC’s Moonlighting; I remember avidly snickering at the time at the thought that Willis could play a tough-guy action hero.) Willis is nothing short of splendid as heroic New York City cop John McClane. It is Willis’s role to discover the awful secret of the terrorist’s plans, to call for help, to stand up to the terrorists, to put his life on the line, to do something brave while knowing he is also doing something terribly risky.
That is the animating spirit of the movie. It was a spirit that animated those aboard a United flight over Pennsylvania, that inspired ordinary people to take a chance and make a stand against terrorism. From what we know, a decision was made by Thomas Burnett, Jeremy Glick and Mark Bingham to subdue those that would turn their plane into a weapon of mass destruction pointed against yet another landmark, even though doing so would result in their fiery deaths. Even the most telegenic Hollywood hero must take a back seat to this kind of bravery. Honor to their names, peace to their ashes, and strength and resolution to their avengers.