Groundhog Day is a 1993 comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was written by Ramis and Danny Rubin, and based on a story by Rubin. In the film, Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event (February 2) in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. After indulging in all manner of hedonistic pursuits, then going through a suicidal streak, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities. In 2006, Groundhog Day was added to the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Plot
Self-centered and sour TV meteorologist Phil Connors (Bill Murray), his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell), and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) from the fictional Pittsburgh television station WPBH-TV9 travel to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the annual Groundhog Day festivities with Punxsutawney Phil. Having grown tired of this assignment, the small town and his crew members, Phil grudgingly gives his report and attempts to return back to Pittsburgh when a blizzard (which he predicted would miss the area) shuts down the main roads. Phil and his team are forced to stay in town an extra day.
Phil wakes up to find that he is reliving February 2 again. The day plays out exactly as it did previously, with everyone else seemingly unaware of the time loop, though Phil remains aware of the events of the previous day. At first he is confused, but, when he continues to wake up every day at the start of February 2, he starts to try to take advantage of the situation without fear of long-term consequences and with his prior knowledge of what is going to happen: he learns secrets from the town's residents, seduces women, steals money and drives drunk. However, his attempts to get closer to Rita are repeatedly shut down. Eventually, Phil becomes despondent and tries more and more drastically to end the time loop; he gives ridiculous and offensive reports on the festival, abuses residents and eventually, during one "day", he kidnaps Punxsutawney Phil and after a long police chase, drives over a cliff, appearing to kill both himself and the groundhog. However, Phil wakes up in the next loop and finds that nothing has changed; further attempts at suicide are just as fruitless as he continues to find himself back at the start of February 2.
When Phil explains the situation to Rita, she suggests that he should take advantage of it to improve himself. Inspired, Phil endeavors to try to learn more about Rita, building upon his knowledge of her and the town each day. He begins to use his by now vast experience of the day to help as many people around town as possible. He also uses the time to better himself, learning to play jazz piano, ice sculpting, and French, among other things. Eventually, Phil is able to befriend almost everyone he meets during the day, using his experiences to save lives, help all manner of townspeople and to get closer to Rita. He crafts a report on the Groundhog Day celebration so eloquent that all the other stations turn their microphones to him. After the evening dance, Rita and Phil retire together to Phil's room. Phil has had the perfect day.
Phil wakes up the next morning and finds the time loop is broken; it is now February 3 and Rita is still in bed with him. Phil is a completely different person from who he was on February 1, and after going outside Phil and Rita talk about living in Punxsutawney together.
Cast
Production
"Ned's Corner" commemorative plaque, Woodstock, Illinois
Tip Top Cafe - now Bella's Gelateria, Woodstock, Illinois
According to the director's commentaries from the DVD, there are several differences between the original script for Groundhog Day, as written by Danny Rubin, and the film as it was actually released, because of changes made by the film's director, Harold Ramis. In the original script the film began in the middle of the narrative, without explaining how or why Phil was repeating Groundhog Day. However, the filmmakers became concerned that the audience would feel cheated without seeing Phil's growing realization of the nature of the time loop. Rubin had also originally envisioned Andie MacDowell's Rita reliving Groundhog Day with Phil and wished to portray the pair as being stuck in the time loop for far longer than in the final film, possibly for thousands of years (Phil tracked time by reading a page of a book each day and had managed to read through the entire public library). Ramis states on the DVD, that he believes 10 years passes, and the website Wolf Gnards tracked the time spent as 8 years, 8 months, and 16 days.[1] Consequently, the love story was less developed in the original script than in the final movie. There was also a second draft script, which gave an explicit reason for the time loop — a voodoo spell cast by a woman who worked at the television station and was involved with Phil before he rejected her — that did not appear in the final film.
The location for most of the shooting of the film was not actually Punxsutawney but rather Woodstock, Illinois (only a short drive from Murray's hometown of Wilmette). The inhabitants of Woodstock helped in the film's production by bringing out heaters to warm the cast and crew in cold weather. In Punxsutawney, the actual Gobbler's Knob is located in a rural area about 2 miles (3 km) east of town. However, the location used in Woodstock gives the impression that the Knob is inside the town. The Tip Top Cafe in Woodstock, where much of the film takes place, was originally a set created for the film, but local demand led to its opening as a real cafe. It eventually closed down, but a "Tip Top Bistro" had taken its place. This, too, eventually closed, and the location is now home to Bella's Gelateria which serves coffee and Italian ice cream.[2] Some of the film was also shot in Indiana, Pennsylvania, with aerial shots also being filmed in Pittsburgh. An aerial view of the WPBH van shows the buildings for the Pittsburgh Press and Post-Gazette newspapers, as well as Gateway Center, the home of KDKA-TV and KDKA Radio.[citation needed] During the filming, Ramis and Murray, despite their longtime collaboration, had a personal and professional falling out which remained unresolved for more than 10 years .[3][4]
Reception
Groundhog Day was a solid performer in its initial release, grossing $70.9M in North America and ranking 13th among films released in 1993,[5] but did not achieve blockbuster status. It found a second life on home video and cable. The film is number thirty-four on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies, and was named the number eight Fantasy film in AFI's 10 Top 10. Roger Ebert has revisited it in his "Great Movies" series. After giving it a three-star rating in his original review, Ebert acknowledged in his "Great Movies" essay that, like many viewers, he had initially underestimated the film's many virtues and only came to truly appreciate it through repeated viewings. In 2009, the American literary theorist and legal scholar Stanley Fish named the film as among the ten best American films ever.[6]
The film is number 32 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies". In Total Film's 1990s special issue, Groundhog Day was deemed the best film of 1993 (the year that saw the release of Schindler's List, The Piano and The Fugitive). In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the seventh greatest comedy film of all time. The Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #27 on their list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.[7] It currently garners a 96% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, the movie has a score of 72 (Generally favourable reviews) out of 100. It was also nominated for a Hugo Award in 1994 for Best Dramatic Presentation, but lost to Jurassic Park.
Awards
In June 2008, AFI revealed its "Ten top Ten"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. Groundhog Day was acknowledged as the eighth best film in the fantasy genre.[8][9]
American Film Institute recognition
Legacy
The phrase "Groundhog Day" has entered common use as a reference to an unpleasant situation that continually repeats, or seems to.[10] It is also used in this sense in the UK,[citation needed] perhaps more commonly than in its original meaning since the Groundhog Day tradition does not exist there. (Similar holidays, Candlemas and Imbolc, have been celebrated on this date in many parts of Europe, though without the references to groundhogs.) At least one British-English dictionary marks the Groundhog Day holiday as a North American usage, with no such annotation for the repetitious meaning.[11]
In the military, referring to unpleasant, unchanging, repetitive situations as “Groundhog Day” was widespread throughout the U.S. military very soon after the movie’s release in February 1993. A magazine article about the aircraft carrier USS America mentions its use by sailors in September 1993.[12] The film was a favorite one among the Rangers deployed for Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia in 1993, because they saw the film as a metaphor of their own situation, waiting long periods between raids and monotonous long days.[13] In February 1994, the crew of the USS Saratoga referred to its deployment in the Adriatic Sea, in support of Bosnia operations, as Groundhog Station. A speech by President Clinton in January 1996 specifically referred to the movie and the use of the phrase by military personnel in Bosnia.[14] Even today in the Iraq War, "Groundhog Day" is American military slang for any day of a tour of duty in Iraq.[15]
In politics, the term is also entering the real world lexicon as witnessed by the following comments from R. Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, on talks on the Israel/Lebanon conflict in August 2006. "We’d go home at 10 or 11 at night and say, ‘Tomorrow will be a better day.’ But the next day was Groundhog Day all over again."[16] Member of Parliament Dennis Skinner likened British Prime Minister Tony Blair's treatment following the 2004 Hutton Inquiry to Groundhog Day. "[The affair] was, he said, like Groundhog Day, with the prime minister's critics demanding one inquiry, then another inquiry, then another inquiry." Blair responded approvingly, "I could not have put it better myself. Indeed I did not put it better myself."[17]
In sports, Toronto Blue Jays' pitcher Roy Halladay recently compared his team's losing ways to the movie 'Groundhog Day'. This is his statement: "That’s the hardest thing. We sit down every spring training and we talk about the same things and it's almost like a little bit of 'Groundhog Day.' That definitely gets frustrating, you want to talk about why we're succeeding, what we've done to help us get to the point of where we're at, and we just haven't done that." In golf, England's Gordon J Brand said his victory over Scottish namesake Gordon Brand Jnr in the European Seniors tour PGA Championship was like "Groundhog Day" after a mammoth six hole playoff.
In philosophy, Groundhog Day has been considered a tale of self-improvement, to look inside oneself and realize that the only satisfaction in life comes from turning outward and concerning oneself with others rather than concentrating solely on one's own wants and desires. The phrase also has become a shorthand illustration for the concept of spiritual transcendence.[18][19]As such, the film has become a favorite of Buddhists[20][21] because they see its themes of selflessness and rebirth as a reflection of their own spiritual messages. It has also, in the Catholic tradition, been seen as a representation of Purgatory. It has even been dubbed by some religious leaders as the "most spiritual film of our time."[22]
In economics, the movie has been used by economists to illustrate the theory of "perfectly competitive equilibrium based on perfect information", and its associated theoretical shortcomings (for example,[23] The Economics of Groundhog Day).
In music, Rock band The Dismemberment Plan derived its name from dialogue spoken by the Tobolowsky character Ned Ryerson. The Welsh rock band, the Manic Street Preachers, recorded a song in 2001 entitled "Groundhog Days" which begins with the lyrics, "Waking up again/To the same old thing/To the same old songs/To the same old pain..." In August 2003, Stephen Sondheim responded to a question about his next project that he was interested in something like a theme and variations - possibly a musical adaptation of Groundhog Day.[24][25] Heavy Metal Band Mastodon make a reference to 'Groundhog Day' in their DVD 'The Making of Blood Mountain' when they describe the recording process as reliving the same day over and over again. The song "Ticket outta Loserville" (2005) by British band Son of Dork starts with "When I go to sleep I pray / I'm waking up to 'I got you babe' / Like the guy from Groundhog Day / Just wanna live forever this way". The Ryan Adams song "City Rain, City Streets", from 2004's Love Is Hell, features the lyric, "Is it snowing in space?", a line from the film.
See also
- Time loop (as plot device)
- "Doubled and Redoubled", a 1941 short story by Malcolm Jameson about an office worker repeating what he initially thought was a perfect day (as opposed to repeating a bad day until making it become a perfect day)
- End Day a BBC docu-drama in which a time loop runs through different scenarios where the human race suffers great calamity. The series makes direct references to Groundhog Day, going so far as to show it on a lineup for a cinema in the background.
- 12:01 PM, a 1973 short story by Richard A. Lupoff with two official film adaptations:
- Run Lola Run, a 1998 German movie with ideas similar to Groundhog Day
References
- ^ "How Long Does Bill Murray Spend in Groundhog Day?". Wolfgnards.com. 2009-06-16. http://www.wolfgnards.com/index.php/2009/06/16/how-long-does-billy-murray-spend-in-grou. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
- ^ ""Woodstock, Illinois - Groundhog Day Movie Town"". http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/getAttraction.php3?tip_AttractionNo==1868. Retrieved 2007-04-08.
- ^ Friend, Tad (2009-01-07). "Annals of Hollywood: Comedy First". The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/04/19/040419fa_fact3?currentPage=7. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
- ^ Heisler, Steve. "Harold Ramis | Film". A.V. Club. http://www.avclub.com/articles/harold-ramis,29410/. Retrieved 2009-08-31.
- ^ "1993 Domestic Grosses". http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1993&p=.htm.
- ^ Stanley Fish (2009-01-04). "The 10 Best American Movies". New York Times. http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/the-10-best-american-movies. Retrieved 2009-01-06.
- ^ ""The 101 Greatest Screenplays"". Writers Guild of America. http://www.wga.org/subpage_newsevents.aspx?id=1807. Retrieved 2007-03-13.
- ^ American Film Institute (2008-06-17). "AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 10 Classic Genres". ComingSoon.net. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=46072. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
- ^ "Top 10 Fantasy". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/10top10/fantasy.html. Retrieved 2008-06-18.
- ^ "Hurricane Fatigue". USA Today. 9/26/2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2004-09-26-hurricane-fatigue_x.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-10.
- ^ Collins Main Dictionary Definitions""Groundhog Day"". http://www.collins.co.uk/wordexchange/Sections/DicSrchRsult.aspx?word=groundhog%20day. Retrieved 2006-12-21.
- ^ "Diplomacy's Gunboat,"U.S. News and World Report, February 22, 1994 http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/940228/archive_012486_4.htm
- ^ Bowden, Black Hawk Down, Corgi edition, 2000 p.534.
- ^ Remarks to American Troops at Tuzla Airfield, Bosnia-Herzegovina, January 13, 1996
- ^ ""Back From Iraq at the Great American Diner"". http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/opinion/08sun4.html. Retrieved 2007-04-08.
- ^ Hoge, Warren. The New York Times, August 14 2006. ""U.S. policy shift spurred UN drive for truce."". http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/14/news/diplo.php. Retrieved 2006-09-01.
- ^ Nick Assinder (2004-02-04). "Politics: Prime Minister's Questions". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3458431.stm. Retrieved 2008-05-22.
- ^ "The spiritual power of repetitive form: Steps toward transcendence in Groundhog Day." Suzanne Daughton, Critical Studies in Mass Communication. Annandale: Jun 1996. Vol. 13, Iss. 2; pg. 138, 17 pgs
- ^ Kuczynski, Alex (December 7, 2003). "Groundhog Almighty". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 7, 2003. http://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Misc/GroundhogDay.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-10. "Angela Zito, a co-director of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University, screens the film for students in her Buddhism class. She said that "Groundhog Day" perfectly illustrates the Buddhist notion of samsara, the continuing cycle of rebirth that Buddhists regard as suffering that humans must try to escape (a belief, Dr. Zito noted, that was missed by executives at Guerlain, who, searching for an exotic name, introduced a perfume called Samsara in the 1980's, overlooking the negative connotations). "Groundhog Day," Dr. Zito said, is a cinematic version of the teachings in Mahayana Buddhism, known as "the greater vehicle." "In Mahayana," she said, "nobody ever imagines they are going to escape samsara until everybody else does. That is why you have bodhisattvas, who reach the brink of nirvana, and stop and come back and save the rest of us. Bill Murray is the bodhisattva. He is not going to abandon the world. On the contrary, he is released back into the world to save it.""
- ^ Schindler, Paul. ""Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me"". http://www.schindler.org/psacot/20010813_ghd.shtml. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
- ^ Shambhala Sun. ""And If He Sees His Shadow..."". http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=3379.
- ^ Buncombe, Andrew. The Independent (London, England), February 2 2004. ""Is this the greatest story ever told?"". http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/features/article67132.ece. Retrieved 2007-01-07.
- ^ "Austrian Economics in Action: The economics of Groundhog Day." D W MacKenzie. Review - Institute of Public Affairs. Melbourne: Mar 2007. Vol. 59, Iss. 1; pg. 20
- ^ ""A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Broadway"". Institute for Studies In American Music. 2003. http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/isam/F03Newshtml/sondheim/sondheim.htm. Retrieved October 10 2006.
- ^ ""Sondheim plans changes to Bounce"". The Stephen Sondheim Society. 2003. http://www.sondheim.org/php/news.php?id=1232. Retrieved October 10 2006.
Further reading
External links
