It’s Groundhog Day. Again.
What could be more appropriate on Groundhog Day than a repeat of an old essay about the movie, a personal favorite of mine (slightly edited, of course, because in the spirit of the movie we try to get it better each time)?
In discussions of the film “Groundhog Day” on this blog, I’ve noticed a couple of people questioning why the Bill Murray character would find Andie McDowell’s Rita deserving of all those years of his devotion and energy. For example, “…[W]hat, exactly, made the lovely but, let’s face it, vapid Rita worthy of Phil’s centuries of effort?”
My answer is that he discovered love. Yes, Rita was beautiful, and a good human being with many excellent qualities. But of course she was imperfect, and over the years (centuries? millennia?) Phil no doubt had learned just about all of her flaws. Still, it didn’t matter to him because it wasn’t about Rita, exactly—it was about the fact that, somewhere along the long path of his transformation to wisdom, he finally understood that every person in town, including the ones he couldn’t tolerate at the beginning, was worthy of his attention—and of something one might call “love,” in its broadest sense.
And somewhere along the way to that knowledge, Phil’s efforts in “Groundhog Day” stopped being about getting into Rita’s pants or even getting her to love him, although that certainly took up a larger percentage of his time (and the movie’s length) than some of his other pursuits. But he probably spent at least as much time learning to play the piano (a form of love, too), or to carve ice sculptures, or to become skilled at some of the more mindless and meaningless tricks he mastered, or learning details about the life of almost everyone in town.
Was the old derelict, whose life Phil tried to save over and over and over, “worth it” either? Such questions no longer mattered to him, because the gesture and the effort were worth it, and every life was worth something to him.
Rita, of course, had always been physically attractive to Phil. But as the film (and time) wore on—and on—she became the object not just of eros, but of agape as well. By the end of the movie, I think that Phil had come to appreciate the idea of the theme and variations versus the symphony, which I wrote about here:
And, although walking repeatedly in the same place is very different from traveling around the world and walking in a new place every day, is it really so very much less varied? It depends on the eye and mind of the beholder; the expansive imagination can find variety in small differences, and the stunted one can find boredom in vast changes.
And I submit that love is like that, too. Some people spend a lifetime with one love, one spouse; plumbing the depths of that single human being and what it means to be in an intimate relationship with him/her. Others go from relationship to relationship, never alighting with one person for very long, craving the variety.
It would seem on the face of it that the second type of person has the more exciting time in love. But it ain’t necessarily so. Either of these experiences can be boring or fascinating, depending on what we bring to it: the first experience is a universe in depth, and the second a universe in breadth. But both can contain multitudes.
Towards the end of the film (SPOILER ALERT), Phil makes it clear that he has given up the pursuit of Rita entirely, and immersed himself in his love for her instead. Is this what finally frees him?
In this discussion of the movie, there’s what I consider to be an error. The article states, “Of course, this being an American film, he [Phil] not only attains spiritual release but also gets the producer [Rita] into bed.”
Well, that may be literally true; on the final night, Rita and Phil do sleep in the same bed. But what I believe the writer might be implying—which is that they have sex before the morning comes rather than after—is untrue, as far as I can tell. (Note, also, the snide “American film” reference).
[NOTE: Here’s another essay on the film that’s worth reading.]
Lust, love, and reconciliation.
I saw some mention of the groundhog today and your series was the first thing that came to mind. I believe a link to one of your pieces on this at Instapundit several years ago was what first brought me here.
Does the Groundhog ever see the same shadow twice?
From Neo’s past post:
“I’ll let author Milan Kundera take over on the subject now, since he was actually my inspiration in the first place (from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting). Here he is describing his musicologist father who, during the last ten years of his life, had lost the ability to speak:”
I don’t know anything about this website, but it claims to have a free PDF of Kundera’s book.
https://epdf.tips/the-book-of-laughter-and-forgetting.html
David’s comment from that old post seems relevant to the discussion of the film.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2006/06/14/theme-and-variations-vs-symphony-on/#comment-17208
David on June 15, 2006 at 10:37 am at 10:37 am said:
Reminded me of this passage from Chesterton:
“The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences of men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come into existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing that is really narrow is the clique….The men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment like that which exists in hell”
The Bible tells us that we are created in God’s image. God is love. We, being only human, have to learn to love like him. Christ loved his disciples, even as he learned more about them — their weaknesses, their foibles, their tempers. One of the great adventures of life, is learning to love — those near and dear to us, those whom we meet, whom we must accept or try to accept in some fashion; those unlovely and unlovable who are thrust upon us; those in whom familiarity has bred contempt. I am a Christian, and even though I try to live with the help of the Holy Spirit, I fail and fail again in this adventure. God, it’s hard! But if you can see the “greater scheme of things” it’s a wonderful way to make the journey, whether your believe in God or not. Sometimes — in some brush with another person — all you get is pain and disappointment despite your effort, but sometimes you get a glimpse of the power of love. And those glimpses are something to savor.
Bill Murray and Harold Ramis — previously friends — had a hard falling out over this film.
Murray wanted less comedy and more love; Ramis went the other way.
blert:
I actually think they got the balance perfect.
We have pizza and open the dvd box every February 2nd evening. Ground Hog Day withstands the test of time.
It’s a well-made movie from a well-written screenplay, nothing more.
Trying to derive eternal truths from fiction is fraught with hazard. But that’s where we are today and have long been. Hitler recognized the importance of film. As did Gramsci.
But all this stuff is only entertainment!
So be entertained.
I prefer to read.
Bill Murray doesn’t get solemn about it, but he has starred in three movies about personal transformation — “The Razor’s Edge,” “Groundhog Day,” and “Scrooged.” I tend to believe the theme is close to his heart.
For some years now he has leveraged his celebrity into odd, part-Zen, part-Dada interactions with strangers that have been collected into a website, “Bill Murray Stories” and a documentary, “No One Will Ever Believe You.”
https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/10-amazing-bill-murray-stories-that-prove-hes-a-total-legend-4082
https://www.billmurraystory.com
I remember watching the movie when it first came out–I was excited that it was supposed to be set in Western PA and got irritated when it shows the news team heading out of downtown Pittsburgh, bound for Punxatawney, but traveling eastward (instead of going north). Anyway, when it was over I was stunned because it was about the meaning of life! My friends all thought I was a bit screwy for saying so, but fortunately the internet eventually showed me that I am not alone in my opinion.
RigelDog,
Yeah you always have to take a pause when a movie is set in an area you know well. In ‘Sleepless In Seattle’ Tom Hanks goes off in his little kayak on a long and probably dangerous journey from lakes to locks to the Sound and across the major port shipping channel all while somehow Meg Ryan follows him in her car.
Yeah you always have to take a pause when a movie is set in an area you know well.
Griffin: I rather took offense when they filmed a “Howard the Duck” scene in my San Francisco neighborhood, since the film was supposed to be in Cleveland.
huxley,
Another one dealing with Seattle is they often film in Vancouver, BC which is cheaper because of various goodies the BC gov’t gives producers but the show/movie is set in Seattle. Vancouver and Seattle have vastly different skylines and it is very obvious to anybody slightly familiar with either.
In the good ole days Seattle used to have a real inferiority complex (southeast Alaska and all) and this stuff would really tick people off. Now it seems like half the people here have come in the last ten years and have no sense of the history of the area.
RigelDog & Griffin –
Steve Martin’s “Leap of Faith” supposedly takes place in “Rustwater, Kansas” but was filmed entirely in small Texas towns — one of which is my own hometown.
People were not highly impressed by the stars as people, although they fawned on them anyway, as, well, stars.
I was already long gone by then, but heard about it from my folks and friends.
Sedona AZ was the site for many early Western films that supposedly took place in other locations all over the West. Some of the stories in the museums there are quite funny, about how the directors had to mask either too-prominent landmarks, or modern telephone wires and plane contrails.
Cicero:
Well, Shakespeare is fiction, but a lot of people have “derived eternal truths” from it. Actually, I wouldn’t use the word “derive.” I’d say “discern eternal truths” or perhaps “recognize eternal truths.”
Of course, “Groundhog Day” isn’t Shakespeare. But all fiction, if well done, can help us see things that could be considered eternal truths. Fiction is certainly not the only way to get there, but it’s a way that speaks to a lot of people, or can speak to a lot of people. This makes fiction, and “Groundhog Day,” not “only entertainment,” depending on the viewer. To you, it may be mere entertainment. That’s fine. But to an awful lot of people—including a great many clergymen—“Groundhog Day” is a good deal more.
For some examples, I offer this, this, and this:
“a great many clergymen” is an allegation worthy of the NYTimes. Clergymen come in all stripes. And we live in a highly secular society.
And Buddhists- they may be the closest on this film, the Groundhog Day pair achieving some sort of Nirvana. At the least, Murray achieves enlightenment.
“And I submit that love is like that, too. Some people spend a lifetime with one love, one spouse; plumbing the depths of that single human being and what it means to be in an intimate relationship with him/her. Others go from relationship to relationship, never alighting with one person for very long, craving the variety.”
Andre has a really nice speech about that same thing in “My Dinner with Andre.” I couldn’t find the precise language, but basically he says that the “variety” of a succession of relationships is actually the emotionally safer path because it has such a predictable arc: the chase, the submission, the exhilaration of infatuation, the waning of excitement, the breakup.
But actually committing to intimacy and the true exploration of the complexities of another person–that’s the adventure that has no map, no pattern, and no end, full of risk and uncertain reward.
It’s always been my favorite speech in the movie.
Great analysis of a wonderful movie. Thank you for discerning those eternal truths and for articulating them so well.
If you had told me 40 years ago that we would be having this discussion about a film with Bill Murray, I would have laughed at you and called you nuts.