Andrew John Wood

The conflict of “Roy” and “Bill” at the PoMo construction site

Context: In 2015 I attended a seminar that had a three-pronged focus: Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the Chronotope, narrative mapping, and Los Angeles-set films. It was disparate, wonderful, and fed into my personal fascination with the City of Angels. If memory serves, L.A. was chosen for its unique geographical properties, and for the simple fact that so many films are shot and set there. Though there may have been other parameters, and I may have forgotten. Die Hard was chosen because I really liked Die Hard.

In literature, believing time and space to be intrinsically linked, Bakhtin developed the device of the Chronotope to probe how particular temporal and spatial configurations might dictate genre, narrative, and character. In the context of the seminar, the Chronotope became a jumping-off point to view the motion picture, and to see what new discoveries, if any, could be made through this experimental lens. Despite making a number of diagrams and drafts, nothing fully congealed, though I continued to think about Die Hard in the intervening years. Now in 2020, faced with pandemic lockdown and the gift of time, I've dug up this wholly unnecessary analysis from a hard drive. What follows is my attempt to expand and amend those earlier thoughts. 

“Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history.” 

- M.M. Bakhtin. The Dialogical Imagination, University of Texas Press, 1981.

Loosely based on the Roderick Thorp novel Nothing Lasts Forever (1979), John McTiernan’s seminal Die Hard (1988) not only created an archetype for the action genre, but is a rare example rife with subtext and detail begging for further investigation. Numerous aspects of the film lend themselves to scrutiny, whether it be gender roles, the use of music, or the unlikely cultural transformation into Christmas film. For the action-averse unfamiliar with the films’ premise, it is relatively simple: Tall-tower, East Coast cop, Euro-tinged bad guys. Bruce Willis plays the outnumbered and outgunned cop ‘John McClane’, while Alan Rickman as ‘Hans Gruber’ heads up the Euro-baddies. Protagonist McClane is quickly established as tough, masculine, though a figure with human vulnerabilities. We get a flash of a gun holster, a wisecrack, a smile from an air stewardess, and a fear of flying within the first two minutes of screen time. Villain Gruber by contrast is charming, knowledgeable, a little mysterious. Embodying the quintessential trope of “sophisticated-bad-guy”, he arrives surrounded by henchmen, decked in dark suit and taupe overcoat. The setup is a classic that has since spawned four sequels and many imitators. In the 1990’s they came thick and fast, Under Siege (1992), Passenger 57 (1992), and Speed (1994) to name just a few. Arguably though the original has never been bettered and it continues to exert its influence on the genre, notably on 2011’s The Raid.  

Particularly prominent in the film are the themes of facade, architecture, and identity. When mapped and viewed through a time-space linkage, new details come to the fore and new insights can be gleamed. Attitudes of the era begin to surface in the mise-en-scene, intriguing character-space relationships emerge, and it becomes clear that the film owes much of its success to the architecture in which it is set. From the outset of the film, façades (and their undermining), are established as a key motif. As audience and hero arrive in Los Angeles, we are presented with the city's favoured method of transportation, the automobile. In this specific case, a blacked-out and stretched 1986 Lincoln Town Car, driven by the witty Argyle (De'voreaux White). The tinted glass and seating arrangement of the vehicle, primed for executive arrival, immediately make the blue collar McClane uncomfortable. Rejecting the conventions of limousine travel, McClane opts to sit up front with the driver, and after some chit-chat we cut to the looming mirrored glass of our tall-tower and primary setting: The Nakatomi Plaza. 

“Jesus, fucking California”

- John McClane, Die Hard (00:11:54) 1988.

In real life the Nakatomi was, and still is, Fox Plaza (Johnson, Fain and Pereira Associates), home of the films distributor 20th Century Fox. Even for casual fans, the postmodern tower is iconic, and 30 years later still stands apart amidst the skyline of Century City. Completed in 1987, the building is power architecture at the decades finest, clad in salmon-pink granite and grey glass it casts a striking first impression. The tower's design forgoes the customary, and meagre, 4 corner offices per floor. Instead, utilising the jutting angles vertically arranged on its corners and flanks, Fox Plaza is able to boast a corner office count of 16 per floor! As the towers’ exterior turns to gold in the setting L.A sun, it’s isolated locale gives it the appearance of a gilded obelisk. Perhaps it is not surprising that after filming for Die Hard wrapped, a post-presidency Ronald Reagan would move his offices into the building's 34th floor.

Almost the entirety of the film takes place either within, or immediately outside of, the then still-under-construction Nakatomi/Fox Plaza. Obvious comparison might be made to 1974’s The Towering Inferno (John Guillermin), however unlike that film, which places a memorable ensemble cast in a somewhat forgettable structure, Die Hard’s Nakatomi is as much the star of the picture as leading man Willis. Many posters for the film would be modified to reflect this, splitting the face of Willis in half with the structure itself. (Despite his now iconic portrayal of Hans, Rickman, in his first cinematic role, would feature in none of these). Aside from the larger “party floor” set built on Fox’s sound stage 15, much of Die Hard’s shooting was primarily done in situ and after hours. Through mapping the space we can see that the setting of on screen action is in fact even smaller, with a large portion of the building not being used by any of the characters. While the lower floors are used to gain entry, and later to secure the building against would-be invaders (police, SWAT etc), the majority of action takes place on just the top four floors of the building adding to the isolation of the hostages. In addition, situating the film in Century City away from the skyscrapers of Downtown, (an approximate 13 mile 20 minute drive along “The Ten”), compounds the detachment of the Nakatomi from the rest of L.A.

At this juncture it is imperative to acknowledge the bearing of Japan on Die Hard, though no action is ever set in the country itself, its presence haunts the film at every turn. A conscious decision made during production, and a key departure from source Nothing Lasts Forever. In Thorp’s novel, though the action is also set within a Los Angeles skyscraper, it is in one owned by the (fictional) American “Klaxon Oil Corporation”. Less than a decade later McTiernan’s film would reconfigure this to the Japanese owned Nakatomi.

McClane: “You throw quite a party. I didn’t realize they celebrated Christmas in Japan.”

Takagi: “Hey, we’re flexible. Pearl Harbor didn’t work out so we got you with tape decks.”

(00:13:00)

Though some aspects of the change are benign, others reveal the unsavoury attitudes of the era. The artifacts that dot Takagi’s office do make for nice set dressing, and architecturally the changes made to the buildings lobby help strengthen the films siege mentality. The front desks sloping stonework imitates Japanese Burdock Piling, a defensive fortification method used in the foundation of many castles, and a thoughtful detail. Off-hand comments made by a number of characters however, are not so kind, as is the strangely specific shot revealing Takagi’s password to the vault. The password in question: AKAGI, was the name given to the aircraft carrier that led the strike on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

That the change from the novel took place at all however, mirrors the prevailing anti-Japanese sentiment in America at the time, a prejudice that was economically motivated. Japan’s economy in the late 1980’s, at least on paper, looked unstoppable, and the country had begun to leverage this power by purchasing assets in the United States. The Nakatomi Plaza then, to McClane and to American audiences in 1988, is perceived as an unwelcome foreign entity, despite being on U.S. soil, and under siege. A little over a year after the films release, these fears were realized when in 1989, Midtown Manhattan’s iconic Rockefeller Center was purchased by the Mitsubishi Estate Company of Tokyo.  

Further investigation of the Nakatomi reveals the building to be divided up into zones, places of access, egress, and areas of control which will benefit or hinder the central players. The authorities (LAPD, SWAT, FBI) exist solely outside of the building, primarily on asphalt, and momentarily in the air via helicopter. Though the exterior of the Nakatomi appears a hive of activity, it is in fact impotent. The more imposing the authorities become the more they are subjected to destruction: lights are shot out, they are covered in glass, their vehicles destroyed. Ultimately they remain static, wholly ineffectual at influencing what happens within the tower. The sight of an assaulting SWAT team pricked by a rose succinctly sums up the efficacy of the LAPD (01:10:20). Conversely the presumed terrorists are enabled by the Nakatomi’s architecture. Fortifying themselves within the building, they make the ground floor, party floor, vault floor, and Takagi’s office their areas of control. It is within these zones that our antagonists succeed most in their resistance to the siege.

For lead villain Hans and protagonist McClane, these zones mirror their corresponding identities and character arcs. As part of the films derision of L.A. and perhaps Southern California in general, the Party Floor is depicted as a zone of loose morals and ostentatious design. Here architectural postmodernism is pushed perhaps to its ultimate conclusion. The centrepiece of the zone is an interior fountain/landscape, a bizarre and shrunken mockery of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. Meanwhile the surrounding decor suggests the interior of the real Falling Water has been deconstructed and transplanted to the Nakatomi’s 30th floor. Here a modernist icon has not merely been acquired, or captured, but ironically molested -  rearranged as backdrop to a transnational corporate party (complete with string quartet). Branching from here are offices and anterooms that set the stage for sex, and cocaine. Though lacking in professionalism, this zone, like the luxury of Takagi’s office, lends itself to the articulate, the well dressed, and the well-to-do. Unsurprisingly, Hans appears equally confident in both these spaces. In the elevator that connects the two zones, Hans even takes the time to muse on bespoke suits, an early hint toward his (hidden) financial aspirations. 

McClane: “Think, think”

(00:24:42)

“Think, goddammit think!”

(00:34:16)

It is in Takagi’s office, a zone of architectural models and computers, where our hero is first discovered. The decadence of the Nakatomi's upper floors are at odds with his blue collar values, and straying into this territory occupied by the antagonists, more often than not results in either conflict or retreat for McClane. The spaces in which he operates most successfully, reflect his persona: unpretentious, and unadorned. In the Nakatomi, McClane’s persona-space takes physical form as the guts of the building or areas filled with fundamental materials such as drywall. Nondescript stairwells, ventilation shafts, and adjacent-spaces aid McClane in traversal, evasion, and act as hides for surveillance (00:24:01), while unfinished floors provide pause to concoct plans, and to recuperate.

McClane exploits these unfinished spaces to his advantage, whether it be utilising a power tool as distraction (00:36:48), or triggering fire alarms (00:34:16), turning the infrastructure of the building against his foes. McClane encounters two bathrooms in the film, an office en-suit with gold filigree (00:14:28) and later (01:39:08) a more mundane affair of harsh fluorescents, exposed wiring and white tile. The first highlights McClanes outsider status, a space clearly at odds with our barefoot, white vested cop. The latter meanwhile becomes a space of refuges and rumination, where McClane can attend to his bloodied feet and reflect with patrolman Al (Reginald VelJohnson) via radio. Finally there is the roof, an un-claimable and exposed space where all three sides fight it out, though none can gain the upper hand. The terrorists fail in their hostage distraction, McClane escapes again into a maintenance area, and the authorities helicopter is unable to land. In the end there is no victor and the roof is blown up, removing it as an occupiable zone within the film.

“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today”

- Peter Arnett, Associated Press, February 7th, 1968.

As the Nakatomi’s roof shows, these zones do not remain static and at times undergo significant transformations. The levelling of these spaces and their fragmented materials mirror McClane’s progressively bloodied and distressed attire. For much of the film McClane is set in relief to everything around him, a position reflective of a particular 1980’s patriotism. Our hero cop is a projection of what “real” America is, or should apparently be. This America is a state under siege on all sides. Threats come from sophisticated and amoral Europeans (with allusions to radical politics), the spectre of an economic global competitor (Japan), and from America itself, Southern California, here disparaged as if a decay has begun to take hold. Though at first on the back foot, our hero is unyielding, and McClane becomes a bulwark to this onslaught. Later our protagonist goes on the offensive cleansing the Nakatomi, and in turn, America, through physically destructive actions.

The first encounter with a terrorist is a visceral struggle through space, hero and foe smashing through drywall, steel studs and doors. The tussle then leads into a stairwell, another of McClane’s realms, where subsequently the terrorist's neck is broken. Following this McClane asserts his presence through infrastructural means, sending the body in an elevator to Gruber on the Party Floor. In time this destruction is amplified, with McClane returning to the elevator shaft to deliver an improvised device, designed to detonate many floors below him. By the end of the film McClanes actions whether directly, or indirectly, have reduced much of the Nakatomi to ruins. When McClane finally returns to the 30th floor we see the extent of the destruction: brickwork smashed, surrounding space in flames, the Falling Water-party-floor stripped of its yuppie veneer.

The most significant recurring action in the film is the shattering of glass. Starting with McClane throwing a body out of a window onto Al’s windshield, in an attempt to signal him ①. From here the destruction is amped up leading to the first major explosion ② obliterating the lower floors of the building (01:16:42). During the computer room shootout (01:36:00) Hans calls for the zones glass to be weaponised against McClane ③. Computer screens, internal glass walls and windows are shot out, slashing at McClanes bare feet. In a smaller moment of glass-action (01:38:39) terrorist Karl takes out his frustration on a table topped with cocktail glasses ④. Even Argyle’s limousine does not come out unscathed, itself used in a moment of vehicular violence (01:59:28). Through these conflicts, whether it be mano-a-mano, or man against office furnishings, the structural layers of the Nakatomi Plaza are chipped away, culminating in the explosion on the roof of the building (01:56:25) ⑤. This action not only removes more of the mirrored glass, allowing the outside world to look in, but sets up for McClane’s re-entry to the building (via broken window). 

This re-entry (01:56:56) functions as an important turning point - from this moment McClane no longer operates in a stowaway role, but as a figure here to (re)claim the building. Though the gang of thieves are invaders, I would argue that the (Japanese) Nakatomi is cut from the same cloth, an invasive force not desired in Reagan’s America. The antagonists therefore succumb one by one to the building's transformation, while McClane thrives as the building falls. By the inevitable showdown with Gruber, the Plaza mirroring McClane’s attire, is in tatters. Our protagonist having fully annexed the building through its destruction, into his own realm. With McClane in control, the climax gives us the final instance of breaking glass, as our now topless hero shoots Hans through an upper floor window ⑥. Many European translations picked up on the prominence of this shattered material in the film and subsequently retitled the feature for distribution. In Spain Die Hard was La Jungla de Cristal (The Glass Jungle), in Poland, Szklana Pułapka (The Glass Trap) and in France Piège de Cristal (The Crystal Trap).

Holly Generro: “It’s a japanese company… they figure a married womans gonna - ”  

(00:15:52)

Layered and intertwined with the Nakatomi’s increasingly fragile architecture, are the alternate identities adopted throughout by key players. These masks are raised and lowered dependent upon each character's needs and in order for them to survive their time within the building. Despite McClanes East coast underpinnings he adopts a thoroughly Occidental and mythic persona, that of the Cowboy figure “Roy”. A character of an earlier West, before Nakatomi, though perhaps a West also rife with prejudice. McClane adopts this cowboy identity first to Hans, and then when speaking to patrolman Al. The adoption of “Roy” is not far removed from how either character or audience might situate McClane in screen history. The cowboy trope of white hat turned white vest, the clear hero to Gruber’s black-clad villain. 

McClane’s wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) modifies her identity with the renewed usage of her maiden name “Generro”, apparently in an attempt to better situate herself within a Japanese company. Holly continues its usage to protect her husband hiding inside the Nakatomi until her status as a ‘McClane’ is uncovered by an intrusive television crew. Though at first this reveal is detrimental to John, our hero cop still prevails. Holly after seeing this, and amazed by her husband's prowess, cements her transformation back to ‘McClane’ by quite literally asserting it at the end of the film. Thus restoring the chink in John’s masculinity.

Gruber’s masquerade is a little more complex and when mapped appears as something of a Trojan Horse, inside a Trojan Horse. European in origin, he masks his arrival in a “Pacific Courier” delivery van, before adopting the guise of left-wing terrorist. Albeit curiously a radical with a sartorial sense closer to Savile Row than the commune. Nevertheless Gruber embraces the role utilising all the cliché demands of such a persona, notably during his “revolutionary brothers” radio speech. (01:26:34). In time of course it is revealed that Gruber is a thief with little interest in political demands. To these roles our villain subsequently adds another identity: that of American “Bill Clay”. “Clay” is a convincing amalgam of the party-floor yuppies seen earlier in the film, tactically deployed in an attempt to fool McClane during a face to face confrontation (01:31:00). Even Gruber’s “Pacific Courier” van acts as a double-mask when it is revealed to house an ambulance(!), a final cover under which Hans planned to make his escape.

A nice detail is the use of Gruber’s hair to display his state of control over his adopted persona, disheveled when distressed but quickly corrected when he regains composure. Though all Gruber's identities are ultimately foiled, he does manage to achieve a number of ends through each role. The terrorist act functions as strategic diversion to the gang's real motives, and as a remote sleight of hand, fooling the authorities into cutting the buildings power and unknowingly unlocking it’s vault . While during the adoption of “Bill Clay”, though short lived, Hans is able to penetrate “Roy’s” mystery façade and ascertain the real identity of John McClane. When all of these identities have been penetrated, it is McClane who comes out on top. By bending everything around him to his advantage, John rescues the girl, brings the building under his control and reveals the Nakatomi to the outside world. While Gruber, reduced again to the status of thief, falls from the Nakatomi Plaza alongside the stolen bearer bonds. 

Despite the Nakatomi having only featured in the first of the series films, the building remains one of the most enduring image of the franchise. Its disparate zones become characters in their own right, embodying the era's economic insecurities, while meshing thoughtfully with the overlapping identities of its inhabitants. Tellingly, its floors and elevators are frequently revisited in interactive spin-offs. Top down and in two dimensions for the 1990 ‘Die Hard’ for the Nintendo Entertainment System, in 3D for 1996’s ‘Die Hard Trilogy’ published by Fox Interactive, and into the new millennium for 2002’s ‘Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza’ for Microsoft Windows. Finally in 2019 we even received a tabletop adaptation - ‘Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game’, suitable for 2 to 4 players and featuring eighty “John McClane Action Cards”. As much the leading man as Willis in 1988, it is quite possible the postmodern Nakatomi will continue to outlive everyone in a franchise of diminishing returns. 

A. Wood. 2015 / 2020