"If I am not for myself, who is
for me? And when I am for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?" (Hillel)
“There is no truth more thoroughly
established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an
indissoluble union between virtue and happiness” (George Washington, First Inaugural,
1789)
I first saw Groundhog Day – directed by the late Harold Ramis, and starring
Bill Murray - during its initial theatrical release in 1993 and have seen it
multiple times since but until last week had probably not watched it in fifteen
years. This is despite my, only somewhat
jocular, frequent reference to it as the greatest film of my lifetime. I am spurred to write this by that viewing –
and given my pace with such endeavors – in anticipation of 2018 marking its
silver anniversary.
Now, much ink must have been
spilled already regarding this film. As
far as I can remember, I have not read any of it and have at this writing
purposefully avoided searching the internet for reviews, interviews, essays,
analyses, etc. I will perhaps post an
addendum after initially posting this if I do search out the views of
others. My point is only that I intend this as my
stab at interpretation, relatively uninfluenced.
Lastly, by means of introduction,
this is an analysis, not a review. One of
the great achievements of Groundhog Day
resides in its restraint, in not telling us what it is doing, but in showing
us. In doing so, it can be enjoyed on
several levels, like the best works of fictional literature, be they epic
poetry, novels, plays, films, etc.
Herein, I exercise no such restraint, so spoiler alert for an old
movie: please watch it first if you
haven’t already!
How to describe Groundhog Day? It is a
comedy, albeit a contemplative one, with a romance. Is it a version, then, of that cinematic
staple, the Romantic Comedy? In a
limited way, some aspects of both the contrasts and developing rapport between Phil
and Rita are reminiscent of the interplay we see with classic couples in movie
history such as Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert’s characters in It Happened One Night. However well Murray pulls off this element of
comedy, we shouldn’t stretch the comparisons.
Groundhog Day is certainly not
a conventional romantic comedy, or at least it is much more than that. It, however, is undoubtedly a comedy - and my
serious tone shouldn’t allow one to lose sight of the fact that it is quite
simply side-splittingly funny. Since,
historically, dramatic comedy can tackle also serious themes, we might think of
Groundhog Day as being
temperamentally somewhere between Aristophanes and Shakespearean comedy; and,
of course, we may also rightly conclude that fitting into a genre is unimportant.
The film begins in the studio of a
local television newsroom in Pittsburgh.
There we are introduced to the central characters. Other than this initial scene, and the brief
scene that follows of our characters driving to Punxsutawney to cover Groundhog
Day, the remainder of the film is set in this small town, home to the
festival. The lively festival itself -
which elevates an earthy superstition about the weeks of winter weather that
remain based on whether or not the groundhog “sees his shadow” on the day in
question – is that typical county fair type of fun: simple, unassuming, and a bit of
tongue-in-cheek silliness. This is small
town America, and while plenty of fairly good-natured comedic jabs are placed
at its inhabitants’ expense, and there are certainly some stock comic
characters, by the end of the movie, we largely see Punxsutawney on a natural,
human scale, from its own point of view.
That is, in the end, the film manages to neither condescend nor
romanticize. The town’s characters, to the extent they are
developed, are taken in full. Overall,
they cease being an “other” to our urban visitors and are simply human beings
in their own setting, with all of their virtues, vices, dreams, and
disappointments.
It is perhaps important to note a
quarter century later that this is small town America prior to the dramatic
increase in social pathology that we witness now - which is itself quite
another story. The film does not seem
otherwise remarkably dated, or at least to me does not seem as distant as say
1968 cinema (Oliver!, The Lion in Winter,
The Odd Couple, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Funny Girl) was to 1993. The most obvious difference to today is the
absence of the internet and the smartphone.
The mechanical/electrical clock radio was already a bit dated, but might
easily have been found in a bed and breakfast not updating its electronics
every few years. The other difference
worth pointing out is the relative cultural importance of local
weathermen. Nowadays, of course, one has
weather apps on phones, weather sites on the internet, etc. There was a time, however, when one relied on
newspapers for forecasts, and then radio and television. Cable outlets such as CNN, CNN’s Headline
News, and even The Weather Channel were around by ’93 but to see the local
forecast prior to the morning paper, the most reliable source was often the
local newscast, even if cable had chipped away at this monopoly somewhat by
then. Plainly stated, the average
citizen had a much greater likelihood of knowing who his local station TV
weathermen were then than now.
The central character of our story
is this particular Pittsburgh station weatherman, the miserable Phil Connors,
played by Murray. His character when we
are introduced to him is a cynical misanthrope, a self-centered snob possessing
an acidic wit, a snarky sense of humor.
The story of Groundhog Day is
the story of his transformation. A bit
like with Dickens’ Scrooge in A Christmas
Carol, this is a story of moral redemption.
It is his (not necessarily religious, but see below) Road to
Damascus. To stretch this last metaphor,
if the repeating day is him becoming blinded by the light, it is through Rita
that we see the scales fall from his eyes.
The opening scene shows Connors in
studio giving his last weather report before heading out to Punxsutawney. The opening line: “Somebody asked me today,
‘Phil, if you could be anywhere in the world, where would you like to
be?’” (Remember this line, dear
readers). He goes on to name the locale
with the nation’s winter high temperature for the day. In addition to some other jokes, he here
predicts that the upcoming storm will likely bypass Pittsburgh. Once the camera cuts, he’s all elbows and
barbs with his fellow newsroom anchors and crew. Here we meet briefly Larry the cameraman
(Chris Elliott) and Phil’s new producer Rita (Andie MacDowell).
The next scene shows the three in
the station’s van heading to location.
In these first two scenes we are introduced to Connors’ aforementioned misanthropy
in general and disdain for Punxsutawney and its festival specifically. Rita’s response: “I think it’s a nice story…people like
it.” Phil: “People like blood sausage too. People are morons.” On arrival at the hotel, Phil notes that he
cannot stay at the “fleabag” where he’s been miserable on prior trips to cover
the groundhog and she notes that she’s already arranged for him to stay at a
different location, a bed and breakfast. Phil, pleasantly surprised, replies: “I think this is one of the traits of a
really good producer. Keep the talent happy.”
The next morning is Groundhog
Day. A cock crows and the clock-radio
alarm in Phil’s room flips from 5:59 to 6:00.
Cue the Sonny & Cher song “I Got You Babe.” As Phil prepares for the day, we hear the
local radio DJ’s raucous banter, there is a brief scene of him interacting with
a fellow guest at the top of the stairwell, and with the Inn’s proprietress,
then he’s off to cover the groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. (Surely the sharing of a name is not a
coincidence). On his route, he passes a
single elderly beggar and then runs into Ned Ryerson, the obnoxious insurance
salesman who recognizes him from high school.
After stepping in an icy pothole to escape Ned, he’s at Gobbler’s Knob,
the site of the festival. He does a
sarcastic minimum for the broadcast and then the three are back in the van
headed home to Pittsburgh. Except Phil’s
forecast was wrong, the blizzard hits.
The road is blocked off, and a frigid Phil in shirtsleeves exits the van
to confront the state trooper in disbelief of reality: “I make the weather,” he
bellows through chattering teeth. We see
him using a pay phone, speaking to the operator about the long distance lines
being down: “Don’t you have some kind of
a line that you keep open for emergencies, or for celebrities? I’m both.
I’m a celebrity in an emergency.”
Next we cut to the three back in Punxsutawney at a hotel bar. More snide Phil in general, including
responding to a gracious Rita, culminating in: “I think I’m going to go back to
my room, take a hot shower, and maybe read…some Hustler or something.” Naturally at the end of this miserable day
there is no hot water in the shower.
It’s 6:00 a.m. again on the clock
radio alarm. The radio comes on – again
to “I Got You Babe,” and the DJ’s. Phil
assumes they are mistakenly playing yesterday’s tape. He looks out the window to see no fresh
snow. A series of these déjà vu moments
occur over two days as Groundhog Day continues to repeat itself. He insists Rita meet him at the diner. Explaining his situation, he demands she do
something about it. “What do you want me
to do,” she asks. Phil snarls “I don’t
know. You’re a producer. Come up
with something.” Rita responds “You
want my advice? I think you should get
your head examined if you want me to believe a stupid story like that,
Phil.” He goes to see a local neurologist
played by Ramis who suggests he see a psychiatrist, who in turn - overwhelmed -
suggests he come back “tomorrow.”
“The Ring of Gyges” is a mythical
ancient artifact best known from Plato’s Republic
where it serves a role as a thought experiment in a discussion about justice or
morality. The ring renders one
invisible. Would the owner of such a ring
really act justly if there were no possibility of being caught in
injustice? If there are no possible
consequences is there any reason not to cheat, steal, etc.?
We next see Phil drinking late at
night with two locals at a bowling alley bar.
First, a glimpse into Phil’s lightly worn, thoroughly modern, default hedonism:
“I was in the Virgin Islands
once. I met a girl. We ate lobster; drank piña coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That
was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I
get that day, over and over, and over?”
Next Phil and his drinking companions leave to drive
home. The other two are far too drunk to
stand, let alone drive, so Phil drives.
Here he realizes that with the repeating day there may be no
consequences for his actions - it’s his ring of Gyges, so to speak. Why follow all of life’s rules, anyway? He rams into a mailbox for no reason, leads
the pursuing police on a chase down railroad tracks, narrowly avoids a head on
collision with a train, and ultimately, after crashing into a giant cutout of
the groundhog, proceeds to place an order with the arresting officer for
cheeseburgers. He’s thrown in jail but
still wakes up at 6:00 a.m. to “I Got You Babe.”
At first, he is elated with what
he has just gotten away with. He is a free
man. There are no officers looking for
him. We proceed to see him punch Ned Ryerson in the nose, stuff himself with
food, smoke cigarettes, and learn to time the theft of a bag of cash from an armored
truck due to the inattention of the two dimwitted elderly drivers. Rita, at the disgust of seeing his gluttony
quotes lines from Walter Scott’s “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” about “the
wretch concentred all in self…”
Phil next proceeds to seduce local
women through trickery and deceit. He
asks the first of these women questions about herself and comes back the next
day to pretend to know her from high school.
His success with this line of conquest leads him ultimately to focus his
attentions on Rita, who has become, or perhaps always was, the true object of
his desire. He learns all about her, her
favorite drink, the toast she drinks to, her undergraduate major in 19th
century French poetry, her taste in food, her career aspirations, what she
thinks she’s looking for in a man,1 her desire for a family. He slowly plans everything, day after
day. He memorizes some verse en francais. He comes close - but he fails. She ultimately sees through his ruse. Her rejection line “You love me? You don’t
even know me” echoes the Ray Charles song they had danced to earlier in the
gazebo as the snow fell (“You Don’t Know Me”).
Now each day of repeated attempts finds him failing earlier and earlier
in his attempt to seduce Rita. He,
indeed, fails completely.
Like an addict, Phil has hit rock
bottom. Despondent, he sits around
drinking, depressed, memorizing Jeopardy answers on the parlor’s
television. Ultimately, he attempts to
end the repeating day by ending his life, at first also along with the
groundhog’s. He steals a truck containing Phil the Groundhog and the two Phils - the two weather predictors - drive off a cliff while Rita, Larry,
Punxsutawney police officers, and town officials look on. He tries eventually every method of suicide
imaginable, but he keeps waking up at 6:00 am on Groundhog Day to “I Got You
Babe.”
In the pivotal scene, or really
three scenes, Phil is first in the diner again with Rita. Rita:
“I’m sorry, what was that again?”
Phil: “I am a god.” Rita:
“You’re god?” Phil: “I’m a
god, I’m not the God. I don’t think.” He explains that, no he just didn’t survive a
car wreck but a long list of every possible means of dying – and every morning he
wakes up alive and without injury. “I am
an immortal.” She asks “Why are you
telling me this?” He replies “Because I want you to believe in me.” She doesn’t, of course: “You’re not a
god. You can take my word for it. This is twelve years of Catholic school
talking.” “How do you know?” he
rejoins. He then proceeds to demonstrate
his omniscience. He walks throughout the
diner and introduces all of the employees and patrons to Rita, giving details
of their lives, childhoods, and aspirations.
They, of course, do not know him.
“Is this some kind of trick?” she asks.
Phil: “Well maybe the real God
uses tricks. You know, maybe he’s not
omnipotent he’s just been around so long he knows everything.” Phil then predicts the future – a waiter
dropping a tray of dishes. In hushed
tones she sits down and asks if he knows all about her. He does, of course. He knows her childhood, her cherished
memories, her dreams, her genuine goodness, and that when she stands in the
snow she “looks like an angel.” “How are
you doing this” she asks. He again tells
her about his repeating day. For a last demonstration, he writes down the
precise words that Larry will say when he enters the diner to get them back in
the van and on the road to beat the storm.
In contrast to his much earlier demand that she, as his producer, “come up with something,” he now is imploring
her: “Please believe me. You’ve got to believe me.”
Next, they’re walking outside down
the sidewalk. Rita: “Maybe it really is happening. I mean, how else could you know so
much?” Phil replies “Well there is no
way, I’m not that smart.” Rita: “Maybe I should spend the rest of the day
with you. As an objective witness, just
to see what happens.”
In the last of these pivotal scenes
Phil and Rita are now sitting on top of his made bed flipping playing cards
into a top hat. “Be the hat” he
encourages her, in a reference to a well-known line from an earlier
Ramis-Murray comic hit. He has had hours
of practice with this trick, he explains.
He then tells Rita that the worst part is that “Tomorrow you will have
forgotten all about this and you’ll treat me like a jerk again.” “No!” she objects. Phil:
“That’s alright, I am a jerk.” Whether
simply to cheer him up - or not, she seems sincere - she tells him “Sometimes I
wish I had a thousand lifetimes. I don’t
know Phil, maybe it’s not a curse. It just
depends how you look at it.” Later, while trying to wait for the morning with
him, she struggles not to drift off to sleep and murmurs “what were you saying?” Phil, reading from an old poetry anthology,
says “I think the last thing you heard was ‘Only God Can Make a Tree’” (from a
poem about the superiority of nature to human art). Phil now gazing at the sleeping Rita:
“What I wanted
to say was I think you’re the kindest, sweetest, prettiest person I’ve ever met
in my life. I’ve never seen anyone
that’s nicer to people than you are. And
the first time I saw you something happened to me I never told you about. I knew that I wanted to hold you as hard as I
could. I don’t deserve someone like
you. But if I ever could, I swear that I
would love you for the rest of my life.”
It’s 6:00 a.m. again on the clock
radio. “I Got You Babe” again. Henceforth, we witness the transformation of
Phil. First, he stops to give the
elderly panhandler a little cash. He
brings coffee and pastries to Rita and Larry for the Groundhog shoot – knowing
their orders, naturally. He helps Larry
with the equipment.
He begins to appreciate art and
music. We see him sitting alone at the
diner’s lunch counter reading books as Mozart plays. He decides to take piano lessons, which recur
over the repeated days. He’s friendly to
the man in the Inn on the staircase who greets him each morning and quotes
poetry in his reply.2 He learns to ice sculpt. He is no longer only spending his hours
getting good at flipping cards into a hat.
Whereas before he had memorized 19th century French poetry as
a means to an end – seducing Rita – he now is doing these things for their own
sake. We might say that we get a glimpse
here of not just the good but also of the beautiful, the noble.
Phil next attempts to save the
elderly beggar. He takes him to the
hospital where he dies. Phil, disturbed,
asks “what did he die of?” The nurse:
“sometimes people just die.” Phil: “not
today.” The next day he tries to nurse
the man to health himself by feeding him at the diner. Phil fails repeatedly, confirming in his
failure both the limits of life and that he is not, in fact, divine. The last time we see him with the man, Phil
calls him “Dad” and attempts CPR as the man lies lifeless in a dark alley. As the old man lies dead, and Phil ceases his
efforts, the scene ends as Phil fixes his gaze upwards on the dark night sky.
Phil Connors has become a kind and
good-hearted man, a man of integrity and character, a contemplative man, and a
man, as well, of some genuine talent.
His humor remains but it is now a good humor. This transformation culminates in one last
day which starts with his on-air speech at the festival, worth quoting in its
entirety:
“When Chekhov saw the long winter,
he saw a winter bleak, and dark, and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step
in the cycle of life. But standing here
among the people of Punxsutawney, and basking in the warmth of their hearths
and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous
winter. From Punxsutawney, it’s Phil
Connors, so long.”
Surprised, impressed, and intrigued by this Phil, Rita asks
if he’d like to get a cup of coffee. He
asks for a “raincheck” as he has errands he needs to run. “Errands, what errands?” asks a perplexed
Rita.
After
leaving Gobbler’s Knob Phil runs to catch a boy falling from a tree. The boy runs off. “You little brat, you have never thanked me!”
he shouts (while remaining still an imperfect human being, we might note). No one sees him save the boy, and the boy indeed
does not thank him (recall the ring of Gyges, and consider its mirror image). Phil next appears with jack and tire to
change a flat tire for a carload of elderly women – instantly after the flat
occurs. In a restaurant he then performs
the Heimlich maneuver on a choking Buster, the emcee of the Groundhog Day
festivities.
That
night, at the Groundhog Day party at the hotel, Rita and Larry walk in to find
Phil featured on the piano with the jazz band on stage. Everyone there knows him and seems to love
him. As Rita dances with him briefly, he
is thanked by many of the locals for his various deeds. Then, in a scene of Girardian mimesis, there
is a “bachelor auction” for charity where several townswomen bid up Phil (who
doesn’t volunteer, but goes along with the fun). Rita, now attracted to this new Phil, empties
her wallet to win her prize. Outside, he
sculpts a bust of her in frozen snow.
She’s moved, flattered, and astonished by his skill. His reply:
“No matter what happens tomorrow or for the rest of my life I’m happy
now, because I love you.” Rita: “I think I’m happy too.”
She
wakes up next to him in his room, both of them clothed, and she notes that he
had fallen fast asleep the night before (i.e. without sex). The same song – “I Got You Babe” - comes on
the radio – but it’s actually a new day, the cycle is over. They go outside to see the fresh snow. Phil:
“It’s so beautiful. Let’s live here…
[pregnant pause]…we’ll rent to start.”
The film ends as they walk alone down the street while in the background
we hear the old standard “Almost Like Being in Love.”
* * *
What to
make of this quirky and contemplative comedy that packs so much, so tightly,
into 101 minutes? As I state above, it
is principally the story of the moral redemption of Phil Connors. It is worth looking at this more closely and
beginning with the obvious features.
In the beginning Phil was a
miserable “jerk” but not a sociopath.
Even when he begins to break society’s rules he is not really a violent
criminal. What he does to seduce the
women is clearly and unequivocally wrong, but not physically violent.
Unlike what has been the case for
many humans throughout history, in Punxsutawney 1993 it goes without saying
that Phil is in no physical danger. He’s
a free man who does not lack for a roof over his head and for whom his next
meal is not in doubt. These basic conditions
of safety and comfort are necessary, of course, but, as we are shown, not
sufficient for a good life. Phil has
some ambition – he doesn’t want to stay at the station in Pittsburgh forever,
for example – but what are his goals, his deepest dreams, and what informs
them? Does he know? Is it just the unreflective hedonism he pines
for in remembering his time in the Virgin Islands? We might conclude that his unhappiness and
shallowness are fully unmasked by the recurring day. When he abandons all restraint we realize
that he doesn’t gain any real freedom – he crashes into a mailbox, drives on
the railroad tracks, eats 10,000 calories per meal, etc. – he just loses
self-control. The brief thrill of unpunished
immoderate behavior cannot sustain him during the recurring day. It certainly cannot be the basis for true
happiness; rather, it serves to illustrate the difference between liberty and
license.
Unlike many films, action movies
for example, Groundhog Day is not a
story about physical or moral courage.
Phil is not saving the world from tyranny or putting himself in peril to
fight corruption, etc. The film is about what we might call regular,
day-to-day morality, about human character, goodness, kindness, self-control,
as well as about art, poetry and contemplating the human condition. Whether fully intentionally or not, Groundhog Day in its treatment of
morality and character presents what we might call a Classical view of human
nature, and of the relation between virtue and happiness. In the mouth of the Platonic Socrates, and
most fully articulated in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, we find the argument
that happiness (eudaimonia) comes from virtue (arete). Virtue here can also mean excellence, or
perhaps developed talent. There are many
virtues: justice, courage, wisdom, self-control, generosity, etc. Eudaimonia is also translated as flourishing
or well-being. Happiness, then - human
flourishing - comes from the virtues, which in turn are reflective of human
nature, including our nature as political animals (or social beings), while
allowing that circumstances change with place and time. One can clearly see such a view of human
virtue and happiness in the life of Phil before and after his transformation. The original Phil, the jerk, the man filled
with arrogant disdain for his fellow man, is forced to confront his own
character day after day and is deeply unhappy, to the point of utter
despair. Even when he attempts to
imitate the virtuous traits Rita tells him she is looking for in a man, he
fails. However, the Phil transformed
through his love for Rita, and through her example, begins to genuinely act
well, which is its own reward. He not
only treats others selflessly, with authentic kindness, empathy, and
generosity, he also is drawn to poetry and art for their own sake. By the end he has become truly happy - by
becoming virtuous. Here we should also
contrast the first and last lines of the film:
"Phil, If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you like
to be?...It's so beautiful. Let's live
here." Through his love for Rita,
and because of whom he has become through Rita, the place he most wants to be
is in fact where he is, wintry western Pennsylvania, the place where he least
wanted to be.
By showing us this account of
virtue and happiness, Groundhog Day
makes a claim about the nature of Man.3 While this film certainly presents an
American, egalitarian type of good man, the presentation of morality, of virtue
and happiness, seems broader – i.e. it seems natural and universal rather than
artificial or wholly contingent. We
might note also that Groundhog Day presents this view while avoiding “politics”
in the sense of the controversial and partisan.
While a claim about human nature, about morality and human happiness,
may imply something about politics, ultimately, any such implication is wisely
left out. There are no leaden speeches
about the issues of the day.
If the central feature of Groundhog Day is the moral
transformation of Phil Connors, the driving force behind that transformation is
his love for Rita - Eros, in its general
and specific sense (if one will excuse again the Greek). I will admit that when I first saw this film
on its release in the theater I walked away thinking that it was trying to show
here something like Freud’s concept of sublimation, namely that Phil’s lust for
Rita becomes channeled into something higher – essentially the high reducible
to the low. Now, not only do I disagree
that that theory adequately describes the human phenomenon in question, I also
do not think this is what is happening in Groundhog
Day. Phil clearly falls in love with
the three dimensional Rita, the entire woman, body and soul. This replaces what might have been an initial
cruder attraction, but is not reducible to it.
We are presented with a full vision of romantic love, of Eros, as a longing, as a driving force,
but also as a beautiful and noble thing taken on its own. In addition, while Groundhog Day’s main theme may be Phil’s transformation revealing
to us human nature, virtue, and happiness, it is important to note that we
first see these things in Rita. Phil
sees in her an example of human virtue.
She becomes the object of his affection, his beloved, due to her
physical and moral loveliness. The
reverse occurs, as well, by the end of the film when his love for her is
reciprocated due to his being the man he has become.
Since Phil’s profound love for Rita
is the driving force of his transformation, the central event of the film, it
is important to contrast it to the common Romanticism - with a capital “R” -
that one finds in many 19th century novels, and some films old and
new, and which has its roots in Rousseau.
(Romanticism, of course, is broader in its meaning than just how it
treats romantic love; here, to stay on topic, I stick to that aspect). This Romanticism presents a view of romantic
love as an ennobling force with the potential to lift humans out of the
banality of bourgeois existence. Romantic
love is elevated above all else in the world including “conventions” like
marriage, which is why adultery is often the theme.4 In real life, however, adultery, rather than
being ennobling, is typically just destructive, of not only marriage, but of
families. In Groundhog Day, Phil’s love for Rita is not set into a
sphere unconnected to the rest of his moral life, but rather into its proper
place. We see this primarily because we
see that the love is the source of him becoming a better person in a full and
broader sense. We also see a glimpse of
this contrast with Romanticism when he takes his raincheck to run his errands. Coffee with Rita, however deeply desired,
will have to be postponed briefly to save the falling boy.
It would be incomplete to discuss
morality and romantic love in Groundhog
Day without touching on its view of sexual morality. While it is not a prudish film, and is
contemporary (or at least sits halfway between 1968 and 2018) in its mores,
Phil’s views of sex do change from beginning to end. In the beginning, he is guilty of making some
lecherous comments towards Rita which would be considered workplace harassment
today, and, probably, then. By the end,
however, he would not make a joke about reading Hustler, or in fact read Hustler,
not because he has become a prude, but because a) he would not want to make
someone else uncomfortable by being offensively boorish, and b) because it
would be bad for his soul. And while
Phil and Rita do fall asleep together in the same bed the last night of the
recurring day, their love is not consummated.
One is left thinking that the overarching meaning of Groundhog Day implies something perhaps
closer to a traditional view of sexual morality, but if so, it is implicit, and
like with politics it is left for us to contemplate.
Since Groundhog Day is a story of moral redemption, it is only fitting to
ask also what it says about religion, about the divine. There are a few mentions and allusions, as I
note in the summary above. First, and
most explicitly, there is Phil’s claim to divinity, proven false by his failure
to save the old man. Second, it is
mentioned when Rita states that she has had twelve years of Catholic
school. Third, when Phil fails for the
last time in his attempt at CPR, he unmistakably looks to heaven, sadly, but
with understanding. Fourth, we hear the
name of God in the pivotal scene where Phil reads the line from the poem he has
just read: “Only God Can Make a
Tree.” I will also note that one does
sense that Phil’s character in the beginning is entirely secular. One is perhaps not surprised, given her
accent, to learn that Rita was at least raised as a churchgoer. So while there are only a few explicit
mentions of religion, it is also not precluded.
The film and its main theme operate largely in the realm of the human, of
society, of human nature and human character, rather than in the realm of the
metaphysical or theological. While doing
so it leaves open the question - the possibility that if nature is the standard,
the divine may be the ground of that nature, and hence of human morality. However, Groundhog
Day - perhaps wisely for us, in our times – does stick to this natural,
human scale, and avoids becoming an explicitly religious film. Like with partisan politics and sexual
morality, any implications are left unsaid.
What of the most prominent feature
of Groundhog Day, the plot device
itself, the recurring day? This feature
fades a bit when we look at the story it presents of Phil’s
transformation. Yet at the conclusion,
it confronts us again, as indeed it must.
We are left wondering, is it just a fantastical poetic device for
showing us Phil’s transformation, like an extended version of Scrooges’
dreams? When trapped in it with his old
self, it becomes like an eternal punishment, a mythological curse – Sisyphus
and his stone, Prometheus, his liver, and the eagle. Through Rita and his transformation, Phil
escapes only when it becomes unnecessary for him to escape, when living with
himself ceases to be a punishment. If
not simply a poetic device, did it really happen? Is it a “natural” phenomenon - was it a
psychotic break, a dream, an epiphany? Or,
is it something beyond nature?5 The realm of the moral inevitably
points beyond itself, nature to metaphysics and theology, being to the ground
of being.
There is likely every possible
interpretation, religious & otherwise, already written about the meaning of
the repeating day - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, secular,
multiple universes, etc. The film,
however - and to make the point again - leaves this unsaid. In doing so, it leaves open this largest of
questions, and, by leaving it open, Groundhog
Day accomplishes two things. First,
it leaves the film accessible to all – it professes no specific creed. Second, in pointing to this, but leaving it
open to all, it also underscores the universality of the moral realm based on nature
– which is the movie’s theme, ultimately, even if it points beyond it.6
In the
poem "Trees," from which Phil quotes the one line in the pivotal
scene, and which I reproduce below, human art is presented as hopelessly
inferior to nature. We might note that
this film attempts to reveal to us human nature through art. Perhaps the reference to this poem is an
acknowledgment of humility, an acknowledgment of the limited ability of human
art to give a fully adequate account of nature. Even if this is necessarily so, even if Groundhog Day is at best a humble
attempt - a mere sketch, as it were - we its recurring audience can rightly
conclude that Ramis and Murray do succeed - on a small scale, in small town America, the
type of place where adolescents full of wanderlust might complain that “nothing
much happens” – in presenting to us a broad view of human nature, of human
goodness, mercy, and love, of virtue and human excellence, of the meaning of
human happiness, and of the deepest longings of a man’s soul. What is all the more remarkable is that they
do so at a lively clip and with a light heart – they do so while laughing all
the way.
Trees
I think that
I shall never see
A poem
lovely as a tree,
A tree whose
hungry mouth is prest
Against the
sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks
at God all day,
And lifts
her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that
may in summer wear
A nest of
robins in her hair;
Upon whose
bosom snow has lain;
Who
intimately lives with rain.
Poems are
made by fools like me,
But only God
can make a tree.
-
Joyce Kilmer
Notes
1.
1) Rita’s list of traits she is looking for in a
man: humble, intelligent, supportive,
funny, romantic, courageous, physically attractive without vanity, kind,
sensitive, gentle, unafraid to cry in front of her, likes animals and children
(and doesn’t mind changing “poopy” diapers), plays an instrument, and loves his
mother. It’s a long list. Of interest, Phil comes closer to what she
thinks she wants after his transformation than when he tries to be what she
wants in order to seduce her. In the
end, he’s still probably not the perfect image of a man she thought she desired;
he’s instead a virtuous version of Phil Connors. There is great variation in human nature,
after all, even if that variation has natural limits.
2.
2) “Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on
his smiling face a dream of Spring!” A
nice sentiment delivered cheerfully, but worth noting that it is from the
melancholy Coleridge poem “Work without Hope.”
3.
3) It would be interesting at greater length to
contrast that claim with that of other films from the same era. For example, and briefly, 1) Joe vs. the Volcano (civilization is unnatural
and puts Man in chains) 2) Fight Club
(nihilistic view of Man, which can be rescued through sublimation of pure
Romantic Love) 3) The English Patient
(typical Romantic 19th century novel type view that life can have an elevated
meaning though pursuit of pure passion and Romantic Love, silly conventions
like marriage and adultery be damned).
4.
4) I am reminded here of a story Allan Bloom
tells about teaching a class with the Nobel Prize winning novelist Saul Bellow:
“Once in class I said, with a rhetorical flourish, that all nineteenth-century
novels were about adultery. A student objected that she knew some which were
not. My co-teacher, Saul Bellow, interjected, ‘Well, of course, you can have a
circus without elephants.’ And that’s about it.” (Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship p. 209).
I was also reminded of this story when the “Ringling Bros. and Barnum
& Bailey Circus” announced in 2015, under pressure and after lawsuits from
animal rights groups, that it would stop using elephants in its shows. The last elephants performed May 1,
2016. The circus folded and ceased
operations in May of 2017 after 146 years in business.
5.
5) Is it perhaps a stretch to note that the
closing song, “Almost Like Being In Love,” is originally sung by the character
Tommy in the musical Brigadoon after
he falls in love with Fiona who is from the magical town in Scotland he and his
friend have stumbled upon that only exists for one day each hundred years?
6.
6) Consider, from the standpoint of one revealed
religion, the natural justice written into men’s hearts, men for whom the
revelation is unavailable. Deuteronomy
4:6: “Keep therefore and do them; for
this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which
shall hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and
understanding people.’”
