Die Hard With Joy
Die Hard was recently named the best action film by Entertainment Weekly. While I always disagreed with their lists, I can’t really disagree with this statement. In fact, I think I need to go a step further and say that Die Hard is one of the best films of all time. There’s so much meat on this bone that it has really stood up to scrutiny even while also providing the thrills of a boilerplate machismo drama.
And just as every great film has to be great in every way in order to be great (if not, they are demoted to “good”), the music stands up as well. Michael Kamen gave the film a menacing quality by reinforcing the Christmas setting with the use of….sleigh bells. Oh yes, the sound of reindeer coming to town never sounded more bloodshot.
Kamen is also very sophisticated in his use of that other quintessential Christmas-time music, Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 and its Ode to Joy. Now you should be aware that I hate hate hate any use of this music that uses it exploitatively. What Kamen does with the music is so far from exploitative that I venture that even Beethoven himself may have been pleased by its use.
(To get some nomenclature out of the way, Beethoven’s Ninth consists of four movements, of which the last one is a monumental one which features the triumphant Ode to Joy.)
In “Gruber’s Arrival,” we hear those evil sleigh bells. And then a low bass theme, which comes almost straight from the recitative in the opening bars of the last movement. At 1:44, Kamen builds a complex on the Ode to Joy itself, placing it in the low register just as Beethoven introduced it in the symphony. And the track ends with more Ode to Joy with pizzicato strings and trumpet carrying the foreground.
It sounds totally ominous in the film and Germanic, which works because our villain is German. In fact, in a later scene, he hums the Ode to Joy in an elevator, making the connection explicit in the film. And as an added bonus, it is the music that the partiers in Nakatomi are listening to (via a string quartet) while Gruber rudely crashes the party. So the appearance of the Ode to Joy, much like the sleigh bells, is ironic.
Gruber’s Arrival - Michael Kamen, from Die Hard
In “Ode to Joy,” Kamen uses the music to fully realize Gruber’s character. In this scene, they
*SPOILER*
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crack open the vault and Beethoven’s Ode becomes their joy. Again, it begins ominously with the Ode in the bass (like Beethoven). Kamen then interrupts this with a chorale of the Ode to Joy in canon and adds an organ, making it truly a religious experience. In the vault itself the pillaging makes use of Beethoven’s “turkish march” version of the Ode, the one that uses lots of percussion and wind instruments. Then we get nearly the full orchestral version bursting in. After a short pleasant interlude, the music turns dark again and the Ode returns in the bass to undermine their triumph.
Ode to Joy - Michael Kamen, from Die Hard
And to give credit where credit is due, the ending credits feature an abridged version of Beethoven’s actual music. Pretty sober in an age that has now been overtaken with soundtrack tie-ins. The same I believe was done in Die Hard 2 even though I don’t remember it being used so much in the score.
It’s a running theme in latter day Die Hards that still has power though by now it is a vestigial reminder of the greatness of the first film. Check out this use of the Ode to Joy in the trailers for Die Hard With a Vengeance as well as Live Free or Die Hard (in faux Jimi Hendrix guitar).
YouTube - Die Hard with a Vengeance - Rare Beethoven Teaser Trailer
