Mark.Kermode's.Secrets.Of.Cinema.S01e06.[Mark.Kermode's.Christmas.Cinema.Secrets]
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00It's the most wonderful time of the year, an excuse for the movies to revel in moments
00:18of good cheer and goodwill, with plenty of Christmas magic, perhaps a touch of seasonal
00:27excess and let's not forget serial killers, explosions, nightmares and utter mayhem.
00:41As with every popular genre, festive films share common themes and traits which can be
00:46combined, jumbled and reconfigured in myriad different ways.
00:50Like snowflakes, each one's different, yet somehow the same.
00:56And because Christmas is so deeply embedded in our lives and culture, it's a rich scene
01:01for filmmakers to mine, and tonight I'm going to show you how they turn our shared experience
01:06into the stuff of cinema gold.
01:09Whether it's our childhood belief in Santa Claus, our grown-up stress over the Christmas
01:14shopping list, or the challenges of the family get-together, with characters who have a little
01:19bit of all of us in them, for better or worse.
01:22These are just some of the ingredients that go into making the perfect Christmas film.
01:27Would you like it gift-wrapped?
01:52For me, nothing says Christmas better than It's A Wonderful Life, Frank Capra's magical
02:111946 melodrama in which struggling businessman George Bailey learns the true value of his
02:17existence against a backdrop of yuletide renewal.
02:21The film is a festive favourite, but this wasn't always the case.
02:26Writing in the New York Times, Bosley Crowther captured the general critical mood.
02:31The weakness of the picture, he concluded, is the sentimentality of it all.
02:36The idea that It's A Wonderful Life is just sentimental schmaltz remains a popular cliche
02:41to this day, yet when you consider how dark and disturbing key sections of the film managed
02:46to be, it's remarkable that anyone ever thought of it as mere heartwarming fluff.
02:52Look at the narrative.
02:53As a child, George suffers irreparable damage to one ear after saving his younger brother
02:58Harry from drowning.
03:00Then he's savagely beaten by the drugstore owner, overcome with grief about the death
03:05of his own son.
03:10As a young man, George's plans to go to college and travel the world are scuppered when his
03:14father dies, forcing him to stay and look after the family business.
03:38Finally, after his foolish Uncle Billy loses a stash of money, George becomes so desperate
03:44that he goes to a bar, gets drunk, and thinks about killing himself.
03:49Hardly a feel-good Christmas favourite, with very little to ho-ho-ho about.
03:55Director Frank Capra himself said, I didn't even think of it as a Christmas story, I just
03:59liked the idea.
04:01Show me the way.
04:03I'm at the end of my rope, right?
04:07Show me the way, oh God.
04:11Indeed there are times when It's a Wonderful Life is lit and shot more like a film noir
04:15chiller than a classic Christmas tale.
04:17Okay, just step on it, just get me home.
04:23Although it's based on a story by Philip Van Doren Stern, It's a Wonderful Life owes a
04:27weighty debt to what is, after the Nativity, the most famous Christmas story of all.
04:33Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
04:36Both Dickens' story and Capra's film feature supernatural visitors coming to Earth to rebalance
04:41the central character's compass.
04:44Both show dystopian visions of the world as it could be if something doesn't change, leading
04:49to reform and redemption built around family and friends.
04:53And both have the perfectly judged mix of sentimentality and darkness that a truly great
04:58Christmas story requires.
05:00Help!
05:01Help!
05:02Help!
05:03There's a theory, most recently dramatised in The Man Who Invented Christmas, that we
05:09have Dickens to thank for pretty much everything that we now consider to be a Yuletide tradition.
05:15And although A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, long before the invention of cinema,
05:21in his own way, Dickens is also the godfather of Christmas films.
05:25Now that's not just because there have been numerous screen versions of A Christmas Carol,
05:29it's because even when filmmakers haven't directly adapted Dickens' story, they've continued
05:34to draw inspiration from it, to the point where it's now part of the DNA of pretty much
05:38every Christmas movie, in their themes, their stories and, perhaps most importantly, their characters.
05:51Oh, there goes Mr. Humbug, there goes Mr. Grimm.
05:56If they gave a prize for being mean, the winner would be him.
06:01Ebenezer Scrooge is the kind of vividly drawn figure who leaps effortlessly from page to
06:06screen.
06:07A miser whose sour life experiences have turned him into a Christmas-hating cynic, he changes,
06:13grows and reforms when three ghostly spirits show him his own life and death, and the wider
06:18world from which he's cut himself off.
06:20Tell me that this will change my future.
06:24Tell me that this is not my end.
06:28Please.
06:30Please.
06:32Which cinematic incarnation you personally consider definitive may be down to your age,
06:38but many film fans favour Brian Desmond Hearst's 1951 Scrooge, which boasts a splendid
06:44Humbug from Alastair Simm.
06:47Humbug!
06:49Though you can take your pick of other Ebenezers, including Sir Seymour Hicks.
06:53The case of this unhappy man might be my own.
06:57My life tends that way now.
07:01Reginald Owen.
07:02Lead on, spirit!
07:04Albert Finney.
07:06George C. Scott.
07:08Patrick Stewart.
07:12Michael Caine.
07:13What do you want?
07:16Penny for this song, Governor?
07:24Or a CGI Jim Carrey.
07:28But Scrooge has also inspired a whole host of substitutes, characters who aren't technically
07:33Scrooge himself, but who deny or just don't get Christmas.
07:37Think of Henry Winkler in an American Christmas Carol.
07:42Or Vanessa Williams in a diva's Christmas Carol.
07:45The remarkable life and tragic death of a diva.
07:49What?
07:52These are all the lady tears that have been shed for you in your life.
07:57Or, if you really, really must, and since it's Christmas we'll just accept you for who you are,
08:02Matthew McConaughey in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
08:06And these are all the condoms you used.
08:09No.
08:10No! No! No!
08:12No, no, no, no, no!
08:14No, no, no, no, no, no!
08:22Perhaps the best of these loose adaptations is Richard Donner's 1988 Scrooged,
08:27in which Bill Murray's cynical TV executive, is there any other kind,
08:32is ultimately persuaded to embrace the true spirit of the season.
08:36Grace, what in the hell is this?
08:38Well, that's a painting one of my kids did.
08:41There's Santa Claus and there's Mrs Claus.
08:44Honey, how many fingers does Mrs Santa Claus have here?
08:47Eleven.
08:48Eleven. Right. It's crap. Lose it. I don't want it on the walls.
08:52Murray's Frank Cross is a particularly malicious Scrooge figure,
08:56because unlike some of his screen cousins, he doesn't deny or avoid Christmas at all.
09:01Instead, he cynically exploits it.
09:04Like I said, typical TV executive.
09:07You don't like Christmas much, do you?
09:09Like it? I love it.
09:11It's cold and people stay home and watch television.
09:13Ad revenues go up 30%.
09:15All these idiots are going to be home watching a boob tube for me tonight.
09:18I am the biggest fan that Christmas ever had.
09:20So, any chance you may be making Christmas dinner this year?
09:23None.
09:26You're the, the, the, the...
09:28The, the, the...
09:29The Grinch!
09:31Help! Help!
09:33Well, that worked out nicely.
09:37But as Dr Seuss understood when he created The Grinch,
09:40a Christmas carol has a dark secret.
09:48We offer you...
09:50There's something about Scrooge's sheer refusal to play nice at Christmas
09:55that makes him a refreshing character who is easy to relate to,
09:58especially after you've spent three days wiring up the Christmas tree lights
10:02and then you need to have a single bulb go out
10:04and plunge the whole house into darkness.
10:11Humbug.
10:18Humbug indeed.
10:20For every incarnation of Ebenezer Scrooge,
10:22Christmas movies also require their version of his long-suffering clock,
10:26Bob Cratchit,
10:28an everyman, or woman, or frog,
10:31whose pain and torment the audience can identify and sympathise.
10:34And sometimes they even step up from a supporting to a central role.
10:42Excuse me, Mr Scrooge, but it appears to be closing time.
10:47Very well.
10:49I'll see you at eight tomorrow morning.
10:54Tomorrow's Christmas.
10:56Eight-thirty, then.
10:58But a great Christmas character can also be a combination of both Scrooge and Cratchit,
11:03mixing grumpiness with underdog charm.
11:06That's right. I think we should be realistic and completely truthful with our children,
11:10and not have them growing up believing in a lot of legends and myths,
11:14like Santa Claus, for example.
11:16In Miracle on 34th Street, Maureen O'Hara is a single mum who doesn't believe in Christmas,
11:21but who is still essentially sympathetic.
11:24Thanks. Please don't feel that you have to keep pretending for Susan's benefit.
11:28She's a very intelligent child and always wants to know the absolute truth.
11:32Good, because I always tell the absolute truth.
11:37And while Billy Bob Thornton's bad Santa may be a cynical exploiter of Christmas cheer,
11:42like Bill Murray in Scrooged, he's still a comic underdog,
11:45albeit one that could bite you at any time.
11:48Next!
11:50Next!
11:52Oh, good. What do you want?
11:56What do you want? What are you doing?
12:00God damn it!
12:01Nintendo Gear Hunter 3.
12:03Shit, what you want?
12:05Blowing snot all over everybody and fucking whatever.
12:08Next. Come on.
12:12What do you want?
12:14Meanwhile, Martin Freeman in Nativity,
12:16the first in a series of critic-proof Brit pics from Debbie Isset,
12:20hates Christmas for personal reasons,
12:22but he's also a devoted teacher in an under-resourced primary school.
12:26His way of saying bar humbug
12:28is to have the one house in the street without any decorations,
12:31but as all these Scrooge variations learn,
12:34Christmas can't be avoided that easily.
12:36In fact, it can present an almost insurmountable challenge.
12:41Good morning, Mrs Needle.
12:43What's good about him?
12:51Like A Christmas Carol,
12:53a large number of festive films play out in the run-up to Christmas,
12:57featuring characters who have to complete a particular task
13:00before the special day.
13:02But thanks to the cruel inventiveness of screenwriters,
13:05these simple tasks can become Herculean labours.
13:09Thank you very much. That was lovely.
13:11Anything else you'd like to show us?
13:13A, B, Z.
13:15That's good.
13:16For creativity, Martin Freeman has to stage the school Christmas play.
13:20When are you going to start the casting?
13:22These children are literally useless.
13:25I am literally useless. Please don't make me do this.
13:29He then compounds his problems by making an entirely unfounded boast.
13:34Hollywood are coming to St Bernadette's?
13:37Yes.
13:38To see your show?
13:39Yes.
13:40To film your show?
13:41Yeah.
13:42Make a film out of it?
13:43Yeah.
13:45And a book.
13:48The result?
13:49Freeman finds himself forced to achieve the seemingly impossible.
13:52Otherwise, he'll be committing the ultimate Christmas crime,
13:55letting down the kids.
13:57Time and again, the countdown to Christmas
13:59becomes more like a ticking time bomb,
14:01descending ever deeper into absurdity.
14:06In planes, trains and automobiles,
14:08Steve Martin's Neil Page is trying to make it home
14:10to be with his family at Christmas.
14:12Well, actually, it's Thanksgiving, but you know what I mean.
14:15Train don't run out of Wichita.
14:18Unless you're a hog or a cattle.
14:25Neil finds himself landed with co-traveller Dale,
14:28played by John Candy,
14:29trapped in a series of delays and mishaps
14:32compounded by the merry seasonal weather.
14:35Here we go.
14:36Reverse!
14:43Aw.
14:45I want the Turbo Man action figure
14:47with the arms and legs that move
14:49and the boomerang suit
14:51and the rock and roller jet pack
14:53and the realistic voice activator
14:55that says five different phrases,
14:57including, it's Turbo Time!
15:00Accessories sold separately, batteries not included.
15:03They're all gone!
15:04No, no, there's got to be another one here somewhere.
15:06In Jingle All The Way, Arnold Schwarzenegger has promised his son
15:10must have action figure, a Turbo Man doll,
15:13but he's left it way too late.
15:15Where have you guys been?
15:17Turbo Man's only the hottest-selling Christmas toy ever!
15:21Arnie ends up on an increasingly frantic quest
15:24to get his hands on the last action figure
15:26as the hours and minutes to sea day tick away.
15:30Turbo Man, help!
15:32When Jingle All The Way was first released,
15:35I dismissed it as a crassly commercialised Christmas film
15:38about the crass commercialisation of Christmas.
15:40And yet it struck a chord with audiences in 1996,
15:44the year after the first Toy Story was released,
15:46perhaps because many of them remembered
15:48their own frenzied experiences
15:50trying to snap up Buzz Lightyear dolls.
15:54It's Turbo Time!
15:57And this is the Buzz Lightyear aisle.
16:00Back in 1995, short-sighted retailers
16:02did not order enough dolls to meet demand.
16:05Hey, Buzz!
16:06Halt! Who goes there?
16:08Quit climbing around and get in the car!
16:10But in Hollywood movies, the commercialisation of Christmas
16:13is just as often celebrated as satirised.
16:16The Christmas store only looks like a fake Santa's grotto
16:19if, like Will Ferrell in Elf,
16:21you've grown up in the real one.
16:23Wow!
16:25What's this?
16:26This is the North Pole.
16:28No, it's not.
16:29Yes, it is.
16:30No, it's not.
16:31Yes, it is.
16:32No, it isn't.
16:33Yes, it is.
16:34No, it isn't.
16:35Where's the snow?
16:37Why are you smiling like that?
16:39I just like to smile. Smiling's my favourite.
16:42Well, young lady, what's your name?
16:44Susan Walker. What's yours?
16:46Mine? Chris Kringle.
16:48I'm Santa Claus.
16:50Oh, you don't believe that, do you?
16:53Mm-mm.
16:54In Miracle on 34th Street,
16:56we're invited to entertain the possibility
16:58that the real Santa has installed himself
17:00in the toy department of Macy's New York,
17:02albeit putting customer service before profit.
17:05Now, we've got skates, and they're very good too,
17:07but they're not quite good enough.
17:09You go to Gimbal's.
17:10They'll have exactly what you're looking for, I'm sure.
17:12There you are.
17:13Yeah.
17:14There, that's for you.
17:15Merry Christmas.
17:16Bye.
17:17The counter to all this commerce is, of course,
17:20the hardship that's so often acute at Christmas.
17:23And one of the challenges facing filmmakers
17:25can be to ensure that poverty
17:27doesn't just become mere conscience-tugging
17:29with Dickensian set dressing.
17:32In Hector, for example,
17:34Peter Mullen plays a homeless man
17:36travelling across the country
17:38who encounters kindness, aggression,
17:40bereavement and bewilderment,
17:42experiences that we share
17:44thanks to the intimate direction of Jake Gavin.
17:51Across the Atlantic, Sean Baker used Christmas
17:54as a backdrop for another tale of outsiders,
17:57transgender sex workers.
17:59Shot entirely on modified iPhones,
18:01Tangerine uses prototype lens adapters
18:04to capture gorgeous widescreen vistas
18:06while filming on the fly on the streets of LA.
18:09The result is convincing
18:11and often unexpectedly beautiful.
18:16Jesus, Mother Mary and Joseph,
18:18will you piss yourself?
18:21But if you can't join them, why not beat them?
18:24Christmas is as good a time of year as any
18:26for a robbery or a heist.
18:28And filmmakers can't resist the idea
18:30that the season of giving
18:32might also be a good time for some taking as well.
18:38In Bad Santa, Billy Bob Thornton is a thief
18:41whose MO is to take a job as a department store Father Christmas
18:44and rob a different shopping mall each year.
18:48Got it.
18:53Bad Santa echoes a much darker
18:551978 Canadian oddity, The Silent Partner,
18:58in which bank teller Elliot Gould
19:00falls foul of Christopher Plummer's Larsoner Santa.
19:04Give me the money, you fucker.
19:13Hey, you!
19:20But for sheer ambition and audacity,
19:22no-one can beat criminal mastermind Hans Gruber
19:25and his spectacular Christmas Eve raid
19:27on the Nakatomi Tower in Die Hard.
19:31Gruber is, of course,
19:33one of the most enjoyably hissable villains in cinema.
19:36When asked about his flair for playing bad guys,
19:38Rickman said,
19:40''Thank God for panto training in rep.''
19:42After all your posturing,
19:44all your little speeches,
19:46you're nothing but a common thief.
19:48I am an exceptional thief, Mrs MacLean,
19:50and since I'm moving up to kidnapping,
19:52you should be more polite.
19:55The unforeseen flaw in Gruber's plan
19:57is Bruce Willis' cop John MacLean,
19:59who announces his presence
20:01with a suitably festive offering.
20:03Now I have a machine gun.
20:07Ho, ho, ho.
20:12Now, no less than Willis himself
20:14has insisted on the use of a machine gun
20:16Now, no less than Willis himself
20:18has insisted that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.
20:23But Bruce, if you're watching,
20:25it is. Get over it.
20:27We'll prove it.
20:29Hey, Merry Christmas.
20:34For now, let's remind ourselves
20:36that like so many Hollywood blockbusters,
20:38Die Hard taps deeply into primal fairy tales and myths.
20:42In this case, the hero trying to rescue the princess
20:45trapped in the tower by the forces of evil.
20:54In fact, no matter how down-to-earth they may seem,
20:57wherever you look in Christmas movies,
20:59you'll find magic lurking around every corner.
21:02Never more so than when darkness falls on Christmas Eve.
21:16What would a Christmas carol be without its ghosts?
21:19We may enjoy seeing some of our finest thespians bar humbugging,
21:23but the moment we're really waiting for
21:26is when the mysterious spirits appear.
21:36British director Walter R Booth knew this as far back as 1901
21:40when he made Scrooge or Marley's Ghost.
21:43Booth was a former stage magician
21:45and used trick photography to remarkable effect,
21:48conjuring his phantom with superimposed images.
21:52Ever since, filmmakers have deployed the finest effects and make-up available
21:56to give their audiences good ghosts.
22:00And although the ghosts of a Christmas carol
22:02impart some ultimately redeeming, life-enhancing truths,
22:05in Dickens' original story,
22:07they range from the strange to the downright scary.
22:11The first ghost we meet in a Christmas carol
22:13isn't one of the three spirits of Christmas,
22:15but the chain-rattling, woeful spectre of Scrooge's partner, Jacob Marley,
22:20the epitome of the traditional ghost.
22:23He's scary, but also pathetic.
22:26It's a letter from...
22:36Yes, everything is done!
22:38Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?
22:41I am.
22:45Who and what are you?
22:48I am the ghost of Christmas past.
22:51The spirits of Christmas past and Christmas present are different.
22:54They're more like Father Christmas or the angel from It's A Wonderful Life,
22:58supernatural beings who embody aspects of the season.
23:05Oh, look, it's Ebenezer Scrooge,
23:08looking older and more wicked than ever.
23:15These spirits nudge the Scrooge character along,
23:18sometimes using tough love,
23:20like Carol Kane's violent pantomime fairy, Ghost of Christmas Present.
23:24Why did you do that?
23:27Sometimes you have to slap them in the face just to get their attention.
23:31But scariest of all is the ghost of Christmas yet to come,
23:34the threat that comes after the promise,
23:37the Christmas nightmare awaiting Scrooge if he doesn't reform.
23:42May I?
23:46In It's A Wonderful Life,
23:48Dickens' ghosts are replaced by Clarence the angel,
23:51an altogether more amiable character.
23:54I don't know whether I like it very much,
23:56being seen around with an angel without any wing.
23:58Oh, I've got to earn them, and you'll help me, won't you?
24:02Sure, sure.
24:04The romantic comedy The Bishop's Wife, made just a year later,
24:08also features an angel in the form of debonair Cary Grant,
24:11a role taken in the 1996 remake The Preacher's Wife by Denzel Washington.
24:16I see a beautiful woman with a good heart
24:19who only has to open her eyes to realise
24:22that everything she ever wanted, she already has.
24:31But, of course, there's one religiously inspired figure
24:34who visits us all at Christmas.
24:39A figure rooted in the 4th century Greek bishop known as St Nicholas.
24:47They said you wanted to see me, Mrs Walker. Come right in.
24:50On film, the definitive twinkly Santa Claus
24:53is Edmund Gwen's Chris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street,
24:56so twinkly, in fact, that only Richard Attenborough
24:59could possibly play him in the 1994 remake.
25:02Mine? Well, I have lots of names.
25:06But the truth is, once you've seen one sweet Santa, you've seen them all.
25:10So, just as there are variations on Scrooge figures,
25:13filmmakers have also rung the changes on Father Christmas.
25:17Sometimes, Santa's given a gruffer edge,
25:20as with Ed Asner's portrayal in Elf.
25:22Santa!
25:24Back off, slick.
25:26This guy's a deer.
25:28And for such a beloved figure,
25:30he's also been subjected to rather a lot of abuse.
25:33He's been thrown in jail, kidnapped by monsters and Martians...
25:37Stay still.
25:39..and accidentally killed off in The Santa Clause
25:41by Tim Allen's divorcee dad.
25:43You got him! Charlie, stay where you are.
25:45Charlie, would you listen to me? Stay up there.
25:47It is Santa.
25:49You killed him.
25:51I did not.
25:53But perhaps the most irresistible approach
25:55is to bring out Santa's dark side.
25:57Does your daddy have a safe?
26:06Santa Claus!
26:08Looks like you get to see him tonight after all, Billy.
26:10No, Daddy, I don't want to see him.
26:12Keep going, don't stop.
26:15The notion of a scary Santa permeates cinema,
26:18acknowledging the fact that children can just as easily be terrified
26:21as delighted by the prospect of an old man with a stalker-style list
26:25who's been watching you all year
26:27and who climbs into your house in the middle of the night
26:29when everyone is fast asleep.
26:33Fun fact, although it turns home invasion into a knockabout comedy
26:37with an emphasis on slapstick humour,
26:39the family-friendly festive favourite Home Alone
26:42owes an unacknowledged debt to a 1989 French horror-thriller,
26:46René Manzot's Transis Cannes Côte Père Noël.
26:53Also known as Game Over, Deadly Games and Hide and Freak,
26:57Manzot's film features a resourceful home-alone kid
27:00who defends his house not against bungling robbers,
27:03but a homicidal maniac who dresses up as Santa Claus.
27:10BELL RINGS
27:17Halloween may be thought of as the season to be scary,
27:20but John Carpenter's 1978 horror hit
27:23inherited many of its slasher riffs
27:25from that big daddy of Yuletide frighteners,
27:28Bob Clark's 1974 Black Christmas.
27:31Claude?
27:33Who is it?
27:36Who is it?
27:39Oh!
27:44Girls, it's really beautiful.
27:49And Black Christmas was predated
27:51by the British portmanteau horror film Tales From The Crypt,
27:54the most memorable section of which is a festive treat
27:57called All Through The House,
27:59in which a maniacal Santa stalks Joan Collins.
28:03BELL RINGS
28:09Security, we've got trouble at the North Pole.
28:13In fact, if you were an alien arriving from space
28:16who tried to figure out what Christmas was all about
28:18by channel-hopping a selection of seasonal movies,
28:21you could be forgiven for thinking
28:23that it's the scariest time of the year.
28:27Merry Christmas, Frank.
28:30SCREAMS
28:36What's wrong with Murray?
28:40He's a trancer.
28:51The scary Santa tradition is particularly strong
28:54in European movies, many of which tap into
28:57the pagan folkloric origins of Yuletide.
29:00Look at this sequence from Marc Caron-Jean-Pierre Jeunet's
29:03eerie fantasy City Of Lost Children,
29:06which sees the Christmas spirit turn from good cheer
29:09to bitter poison before the end of the opening credits.
29:21Perhaps the most intriguing take
29:23on the creepy possibilities of Christmas
29:25came in the Finnish film Rare Exports,
29:27in which Santa turns out to be a monster
29:30who was buried in a frozen mountain 1,000 years ago.
29:33Now his evil elves are running amok once more
29:36and it falls to a resourceful schoolboy and his dad
29:39to help rein in the mayhem.
29:42Mr Queen, is Santa ready to fly?
29:52In Gremlins, Joe Dante's big-budget 1984 comedy-horror hybrid,
29:57it's not Santa causing the trouble,
29:59but an initially cuddly Christmas present
30:02which spawns a horde of destructive monsters.
30:05The resulting Christmas Eve chaos overwhelms
30:08the entire wholesome small town of Kingston Falls.
30:12But the most grimly memorable scene features Phoebe Cates
30:16recounting the story of her father's tragic festive demise,
30:20in which old Saint Nick becomes poor dead dad.
30:24He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit.
30:28He'd been climbing down the chimney on Christmas Eve,
30:31his arms loaded with presents.
30:34He was going to surprise us.
30:38He slipped and broke his neck.
30:40Died instantly.
30:46And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.
30:52Meanwhile, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas,
30:55directed by Henry Selig, sees the world thrown into upheaval
30:58when pumpkin king Jack Skellington hijacks Santa's duties.
31:08If you've managed to survive The Nightmare Before Christmas
31:11with all its psycho Santas and supernatural entities,
31:14perhaps the biggest seasonal challenge still lies ahead.
31:19Don, come see what Santa brought you.
31:22Oh, Christ, I'm coming.
31:31It seems significant that the stresses and strains
31:34of the family Christmas time
31:36come from a meet-and-drink for trashmeister John Waters,
31:39who spent much of his cinematic life
31:41pushing the boundaries of taste and decency.
31:44I told you, cha-cha heels, black ones.
31:46Nice girls don't wear cha-cha heels.
31:48Give me those presents.
31:50The murderous depravities of female trouble, for example,
31:53begin with Divine toppling a Christmas tree onto her mother
31:56after this wayward daughter doesn't get the present she wanted.
32:00You devil! Come here, you'll pay for this!
32:03You devil! Goddammit, Pop, look at your mother!
32:09In Home Alone, squabbling kids set off a chain of events
32:12that result in Macaulay Culkin being left behind for Christmas,
32:16his mother's worst nightmare.
32:19Kevin!
32:20The dysfunctional Christmas is a well-worn comedy situation.
32:24You can see versions of it in films ranging from Four Christmases,
32:27in which couple Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon
32:30revisit all their divorced parents on Christmas Day,
32:33to the current release, Surviving Christmas With The Relatives,
32:36which is being sold as a Christmas movie
32:38from the writer of Fatal Attraction.
32:41God, I hate Christmas.
32:43But family Christmases don't have to be played for laughs.
32:46In fact, their routines and rituals give filmmakers
32:49a dramatic structure that has stood the test of time.
32:53Let's take a look at two films made more than 50 years apart.
32:57In The Holly and the Ivy, a 1952 British picture,
33:00various members of the Gregory family
33:02head to Norfolk for a Christmas reunion.
33:05In the 2008 French film Un Compte de Noël, A Christmas Tale,
33:09it's the Vuillard family who are gathering.
33:15Now, the tone and setting of these films could hardly be more different.
33:19The Holly and the Ivy takes place in a village
33:21straight out of a Christmas card,
33:23whereas the Vuillard family are in a rainy northern French industrial town.
33:31The head of the Gregory family is a gentle country parson
33:34played by Ralph Richardson.
33:36I don't know what they'll make of it all, I'm sure,
33:38but I'm going to tell them something about the ancient origins
33:41of their Christian customs.
33:43How very interesting.
33:45For the Vuillards, it's Catherine Deneuve's intimidating matriarch,
33:49cigarette rarely far from her lips.
33:58The Gregory's are all clipped accents and buttoned-up emotions.
34:02Why must you always crackle like ice?
34:05What's happened to make you seem all frozen over inside?
34:08I was pregnant.
34:13I couldn't very well tell anyone.
34:17While the Vuillards can't wait to let rip...
34:21Oui, je sais, mais toi tu comptes pas.
34:31But look at how the films echo each other.
34:33There are frank conversations while decorating the tree.
34:36But this isn't a conflict, this is what I feel for someone I love.
34:40You not love me too?
34:43Well, then it's suicidal.
34:46Look, you're 31 now, it'll be another five years
34:48before I come back from South America.
34:50You'll be 36 then, that's middle-aged.
35:05There's tension round the dinner table.
35:07Here you are now, my dear.
35:08No, thank you, Father.
35:09Come now, Margaret, it won't do you any harm.
35:11Drink it up, it'll do you good.
35:12Didn't you hear me say no, thank you?
35:18Marrié.
35:23And an intoxicated collapse.
35:33So, basically, a typical Christmas, right?
35:36But there's another classic Christmas image
35:38that we see in both these films,
35:40and it stands in striking contrast to all the domestic disharmony.
35:44It's a model family, literally,
35:47and it takes us right back to where Christmas started.
35:56The original nativity story has been told many times in movies,
36:00most recently by Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke.
36:05A young woman, played here by Keisha Castle-Hughes,
36:08is visited by an angel who tells her that she's going to have a baby
36:11who will be the son of God.
36:13The Lord is with you.
36:15Do not be afraid, Mary,
36:18for you have found favour with God.
36:24With her partner Joseph, played by Oscar Isaac,
36:27Mary endures a ruggedly exhausting journey to Bethlehem,
36:30which it's a miracle that she survives.
36:35Arriving in Bethlehem, the pair find no room at the inn
36:38but take sanctuary in a stable,
36:40where heavenly shafts of light and gently lowing cattle
36:44welcome the birth of the Messiah.
36:47In recent years, it's become hard for any director
36:50to stage this scene without accidentally invoking
36:53the spectre of Monty Python.
36:55We were led by a star!
36:57Led by a bottle of all I got out!
36:59We must see him, we have brought presents!
37:01Gold, frankincense, myrrh!
37:04Well, why didn't you say he's over there?
37:07Sorry the place is a bit of a mess.
37:09But plenty of filmmakers have revisited the nativity
37:12in later terms with surprisingly effective results.
37:16Debbie Tucker Green's Second Coming
37:18may not be a Christmas movie as such,
37:20but in it, Nadine Marshall's middle-aged mum Jackie
37:23comes to believe that her pregnancy is a heavenly visitation,
37:26a rerun of the original nativity.
37:29The fact that she hasn't been intimate with her husband,
37:32played by Idris Elba, for some time,
37:34raises the prospect of a miraculous conception,
37:37or perhaps deception.
37:39How does it feel?
37:42Scenes of dinner-table domesticity
37:44sit alongside surreal episodes
37:46in which holy water falls upon the mother-to-be
37:49in what may be a dream, a fantasy or a vision.
37:53Only when the water starts to sweep horizontally across the screen
37:56do we appreciate that something otherworldly may be at hand,
38:00although whether it's all in the head or heart of a tormented soul
38:03is left for us to decide.
38:06Some films feature performances of the nativity story
38:10at the centre of a wider narrative.
38:12And pretty soon, the hardness in your heart will melt
38:16and you will be able to love even your enemies.
38:21In 2013, Cassie Lemmons wrote and directed Black Nativity,
38:25an ambitious Christmas movie
38:27inspired by Langston Hughes' 1960s gospel song play.
38:30The result is a sentimental yet still streetwise Christmas movie
38:34which blends a well-worn religious narrative
38:36with more down-to-earth social awareness.
38:39It's also, crucially, a film in which a disparate family come together.
38:45Reverend, I got something to ask you.
38:48I got my mother and my father in front of you
38:51and I want to know what happened.
38:57This theme resonates throughout Christmas movies,
39:00regardless of their culture or religion.
39:03In Palestinian, writer-director Amri Jassir's Wajib,
39:06an estranged father and son
39:08are forced to spend days together going house to house in Nazareth
39:11in the run-up to Christmas.
39:13They bicker about problems, both personal and political,
39:16proving Jassir's maxim that families make you crazy.
39:20But they also find some form of resolution,
39:23a way of living with their differences.
39:26Time and again in Christmas movies,
39:28family is the very heart of the matter.
39:31Miracle on 34th Street has a romantic subplot
39:34in which Maureen O'Hara's divorced single mum, Doris,
39:37is courted by her neighbour Fred, played by John Payne.
39:40He's already befriended her daughter Susan, played by Natalie Wood,
39:43in a shameless bid to get to meet Doris.
39:47But in an era when the risks of passive smoking on children
39:50don't seem to have been a concern,
39:52Fred proves to be a more than worthy father figure for Susan,
39:55partly through his loyalty to Chris Kringle,
39:58who is himself a kind of grandparent substitute.
40:01Stop, Uncle Fred, stop!
40:03The film ends on Christmas Day
40:05with the new family unit provided a home courtesy of Chris Kringle's magic,
40:09the home we know that Susan has always dreamt of.
40:14Susie, where are you going?
40:16What is she doing?
40:18In Elf, Will Ferrell discovers and is finally united
40:21with the family of his birth father, played by James Caan.
40:26What the hell's that?
40:28A Christmas tree.
40:29A Christmas tree?
40:31Buddy dropped it down in the park.
40:33Before starting a family of his own with Zooey Deschanel.
40:39The film's last scene sees them happily at the North Pole
40:42with Ferrell's adoptive elf dad.
40:46Hiya, kiddo.
40:47Daddy!
40:49More simply, in Planes, Trains and Automobiles,
40:51in which Christmas, as we noted earlier, is played by Thanksgiving,
40:54John Candy is welcomed into Steve Martin's family home.
40:58And sometimes, in the absence of an actual family,
41:01it's a kind of alternative family form,
41:03often from very disparate elements.
41:06What about Mummy?
41:07She lives in God's house with Jesus and Mary and the ghost
41:10and the long-eared donkey and Joseph and the talking walnut.
41:14Well, who the fuck takes care of you, then?
41:16Grandma.
41:17Huh? What's her name?
41:19Grandma.
41:21Is Granny Spry?
41:22In Bad Santa, overweight and underloved Thurman Merman
41:26acquires unlikely parental figures
41:28like Billy Bob Thornton and Lauren Graham's Santa Claus fetishist.
41:32Hello, little boy.
41:34Hello, Santa.
41:36I know that Christmas Eve is in a couple of days
41:38and you have to fly around the whole world and give presents to everyone
41:41and you won't be around any more.
41:44Yeah?
41:47And cut!
41:49And in White Christmas, we see that Army veterans Bing Crosby
41:52and Danny Kaye's true family will always be the 151st Division.
41:56The film climaxes when they reunite the veterans of the division
41:59with their beloved former commanding officer.
42:06Which brings us to a particularly resonant set of Christmas films.
42:17As we just saw, the very first Christmas was spent in a distant land,
42:21with Joseph and Mary being forced to travel to Bethlehem,
42:24several days' ride from Nazareth.
42:26That idea of being displaced from your home
42:29runs through a stream of Christmas movies,
42:31particularly those made or set during wartime.
42:46Irving Berlin's song White Christmas was first heard by the American public
42:50when Bing Crosby performed it on the radio on December 25th, 1941,
42:55just a few weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.
43:04The next year, it topped the hit parade
43:06after featuring in the movie Holiday Inn,
43:08striking a chord with audiences separated from their loved ones by war.
43:21In the 50s, White Christmas earned its very own movie,
43:25a drama which begins in wartime 1944,
43:28in which, as we just saw, a group of army pals get together
43:32to ensure that their old CO has a perfect Christmas.
43:37And may all your Christmases be white
43:48The power of a song to bind together people who've been torn apart
43:52is one that runs through the pantheon of Christmas movies.
43:55Take Vincent Minnelli's Meet Me In St Louis.
43:57Although it's set at the turn of the century,
44:00the movie was released in 1944
44:03and features Judy Garland singing Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine's
44:06heartbreaking ballad...
44:08Have yourself a merry little Christmas
44:15Let your heart be light
44:21Garland's Esther Smith sings this plaintive song on a snowy Christmas Eve.
44:25She's attempting to cheer up young Tootie, played by Margaret O'Brien,
44:29who, like everyone else, is distressed about a family move to New York.
44:35The song became a wartime Christmas favourite,
44:38epitomising the bittersweet nature of Yuletide celebrations
44:41for many whose loved ones wouldn't be coming home this or any year.
44:48Some day soon
44:52We all will be together
44:57If the fates allow
45:04Have yourself a merry little Christmas even makes an appearance
45:07in the grim World War II film The Victors,
45:10where Frank Sinatra's rendition of the song provides a horrifically poignant
45:14accompaniment to this shocking scene of execution.
45:27Fire!
45:31Have yourself a merry little Christmas
45:36More recently, it turned up in George Clooney's wartime drama The Monuments Men,
45:40still striking a Christmas chord after all these years.
45:49The collision of Christmas, war, songs and an aching sense of distance
45:54recurs throughout movies as diverse as Oh, What a Lovely War,
45:58A Midnight Clear and Joyeux Noël,
46:01the very titles of which riff on musical tunes and Christmas carols.
46:10Sing it loud
46:14From here and there
46:19If there ever is love
46:26As we saw in our Secrets of Cinema programme about coming-of-age films,
46:30songs in movies can forge a powerful emotional connection
46:34to evoke feelings of longing and nostalgia,
46:37but also of love and romance.
46:41I ought to say no, no, no
46:44Mind if I move in
46:46At least I'm gonna say that I try
46:49What's the sense of hurting my pride
46:51I really can't stay
46:54Baby, it's cold outside
47:00In Elf, Buddy hearing Jovi singing Baby, It's Cold Outside
47:04triggers something new and magical in our hero.
47:07Get out! Don't look at me!
47:09A feeling of romantic love.
47:17APPLAUSE
47:27Right. Some of our favourite Christmas movies
47:30have a love story at their heart,
47:32and those stories are inflected by the conventions of Christmas.
47:36Sleep in heavenly peace
47:45Christmas makes the perfect setting for a rom-com
47:48because the stakes are higher and everything's amplified by the season.
47:52You think about it, rom-coms are often about lonely or unfulfilled people,
47:56and during the festive season, they're likely to be that bit lonelier.
48:00Christmas, after all, is all about being with the ones you love.
48:03Shepherd waits at the sight
48:13Plus, there are plenty of opportunities for heart-warming scenes
48:16of couples ice-skating or taking horse-drawn carriage rides
48:19and standing around under mistletoe.
48:21Way down upon the Swanee River
48:27I'm far away
48:32Christmas is frequently portrayed as a catalyst for change
48:35in protagonists and lovers, a return to core values,
48:39a sense of coming back to what's essential and truly important.
48:43Why, you dog!
48:45In the 1946 picture Remember the Night,
48:48free-wheeling shoplifter Lee, played by Barbara Stanwyck,
48:51is forced to confront her past when she takes a trip back home
48:54with District Attorney John Sargent, played by Fred McMurray.
48:58Glad? Why should I be glad?
49:01Good riddance to bad rubbish, I said the day she left.
49:04When she is rejected by her own mother,
49:06Lee is welcomed by John's oddball family
49:09and they give her the second chance she needs.
49:11Oh, boy, that's magic!
49:14Returning to New York, rather than avoid a jail sentence,
49:17Lee decides to change, to take her punishment
49:20and make the future her own.
49:22If you still wanted me afterwards, I'd be all square
49:28and you would have had plenty of time to think things over.
49:32This is a theme that we can trace back to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night,
49:36which, with its transgressive plot lines and magical atmosphere,
49:39serves as an inspiration for so many Christmas romances.
49:43You are now out of your text.
49:45But we will draw the curtain and show you the picture.
49:53Looky, sir.
49:55It's not well done.
49:57Excellently done.
50:00Todd Haynes' elegiac 1950s set drama Carol
50:04may not be entirely a Christmas film in spite of its name,
50:07but the opening and a critical part of the movie
50:10are set during the festive season.
50:12The lovers meet in that most quintessentially American location,
50:16the department store.
50:18Based on Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt,
50:21this tale of gay love in an era of intolerance
50:24is gorgeously shot on 16mm film,
50:27infusing it with nostalgic tones
50:29that slyly reference the Christmas art of Norman Rockwell.
50:32Miss. Miss.
50:34Where's the ladies' room, honey?
50:36If you go back to the elevator and make a right, you can't miss it.
50:44The reds and greens in the colour palette are powerful signifiers,
50:48casting the pair in a magical light.
50:51When Therese photographs Carol buying a Christmas tree in a subsequent scene,
50:55we see an intimate moment
50:57framed in a very traditional, rich and romantic Christmas setting.
51:02Congratulations.
51:22It's going to be a very good Christmas.
51:26CHEERING
51:31In Richard Curtis's 2003 rom-com Love Actually,
51:35a series of romantic plots play out over the weeks running up to Christmas.
51:39And here we see the frequent arc of the Christmas romance,
51:43that it leads not just to the couple, but to the family group.
51:47DOORBELL RINGS
51:49Hello.
51:51Ah, hello.
51:53Since when did you start using Miss Gennaro?
51:56SIGHS
51:58The Christmas romance also focuses on relationships
52:01that are failing or under strain,
52:03and uses the spirit of the season
52:05to enable characters to rediscover their love.
52:08In Die Hard, the Christmas Eve hostage siege
52:11is a catalyst for John and Holly to repair their marriage.
52:14As marital therapy goes, it's admittedly a bit extreme,
52:17but it does force John to acknowledge his failings as a husband.
52:21It took me a while to figure out
52:24what a jerk I'd been.
52:26In It's A Wonderful Life, George Bailey is shown a world
52:29in which he doesn't exist by the angel Clarence
52:32as a way to transform his feelings.
52:34The scene in which George confronts his wife Mary,
52:37in this other reality an unhappy spinster, is his darkest hour.
52:41Without Mary's love, George is lost and afraid.
52:45Mary! Mary! Mary, it's George!
52:48Don't you know me? What's happened to us?
52:50I don't know you. Let me go! Mary, please!
52:52Oh, don't do this to me! Please, Mary!
52:54Help me! Where are our kids? I need you, Mary!
52:56SHE SCREAMS
53:09We can see these themes echoed in The Bishop's Wife from 1947
53:14and in its 1996 remake The Preacher's Wife,
53:18starring Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington.
53:21SHE COUGHS
53:26Wow. Huh?
53:28Where did you come from? Uh-oh.
53:31Troubled Pastor Henry and his wife Julia
53:33are struggling with their marriage.
53:35Here, the angel Dudley begins to fall in love with Julia
53:39and the jealousy that causes in Henry
53:41becomes the force that will bring the two of them back together.
53:45SHE SINGS
53:51What all these films show is that characters sometimes need to be
53:54pushed to their limits to learn life's most important lessons.
54:04Help me to sponge away the writing on the stone if I repent.
54:08And I do repent, I do repent...
54:10The climax of A Christmas Carol
54:12is a moment of character change and redemption,
54:15someone finally taking responsibility for their mistakes
54:18and committing to try better in the future.
54:26I'm not the man I was.
54:29I'm not the man I was.
54:31But what's really going on here?
54:33Are the ghosts forcing Scrooge to change his character
54:37or are they reconnecting him with his earlier true self?
54:41In Scrooge, the ghost takes us and Frank Cross
54:44back to his meet-cute moment with Karen Allen's Claire,
54:47the woman he briefly fell in love with.
54:50Scrooge's arrow right between the eyes.
54:53The young Frank we see here is warm and sympathetic.
54:57Like Scrooge himself, he wasn't always the mean-spirited man he later became.
55:02Yes. Here.
55:04Oh, oh!
55:08It happens to the best of us.
55:10Our very decent George Bailey has somehow drifted away from his rightful self.
55:17Dad, how do you spell Hallelujah?
55:19How should I know? What do you think I am, a dictionary?
55:21Tommy, stop that! Stop it!
55:23Janie, haven't you learned that silly tune yet?
55:25You play it over and over again. Now, stop it! Stop it!
55:28By the end of the story, George, like Scrooge and Frank Cross,
55:32isn't so much changed as mended.
55:35George, darling! Where are you?
55:38George! George!
55:40Oh, don't touch me. Don't touch me.
55:43Are you real?
55:45And so it's time I laid my Christmas cards on the table,
55:48because for me, the essence of a great Christmas film,
55:52the most important secret of this genre of cinema,
55:56is the possibility of healing.
56:00And it's not just the healing of an individual.
56:03As we've suggested earlier, it could be a relationship.
56:06The healing of John and Holly's marriage in Die Hard
56:09isn't just a tacked-on subplot,
56:11it's woven into the fabric of the story from start to finish.
56:15A story about healing, set on Christmas Eve,
56:19with a woman called Holly.
56:22It's a Christmas movie, Bruce.
56:33Merry Christmas, sweetheart.
56:35We see those fractious families being healed too.
56:38In Home Alone, Kevin's mother finally succeeds in getting back to him
56:42to be reconciled and forgiven.
56:44Oh, Kevin, I'm so sorry.
56:56We may not all go on such dramatic emotional journeys ourselves this season,
57:00I don't know about you, but my idea of a good Christmas
57:03doesn't involve ghosts or a hostage siege.
57:06But we can identify with those big moments of healing and change
57:10because, at this time of year,
57:12we all feel a bit of it happening to us too.
57:15It's Christmas Eve, it's the one night of the year
57:18when we all act a little nicer,
57:20we smile a little easier,
57:23we cheer a little more.
57:26For a couple of hours out of the whole year,
57:29we are the people that we always hoped we would be.
57:32And speaking of miracles,
57:34how better to mark healing and reconciliation
57:37than with a sign of heavenly blessing
57:39like ticker tape or confetti from the sky?
57:42It's the most magical Christmas movie moment of all,
57:45when the snow falls and your heart sings.
57:49Merry Christmas, and let it snow.
57:52No, no, no.
57:58Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
58:01but the fire is so delightful.
58:05And since we've no place to go,
58:09let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
58:13It doesn't show signs of stopping,
58:16and I brought some corn for popping.
58:20The lights are turned way down low.
58:24Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
58:28When we finally kiss goodnight.
58:32Oh, I hate going out in the storm,
58:36but if you really hold me tight,
58:40all the way home I'll be warm.
58:44The fire is slowly dying,
58:47and my dear, we're still goodbying.
58:50But as long as you love me so,
58:54let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.