It’s not about monotony -- it’s about re-birth.
Twenty-six years ago, an unassuming little film about a
cantankerous weatherman on the most random of holidays became a pop culture
phenomenon that ingrained itself in our consciousness. The title became a
metaphor for reluctantly acknowledging the dailiness of life. With the silly
story of Phil Connors waking up everyday in Punxsutawney, PA, with Sonny and
Cher singing “I’ve Got You Babe” on an endless string of February seconds, Groundhog
Day entered the lexicon as a way to describe the drudgery and repetition of
daily life. But the movie was never simply about the mundane nature of
existence. It was always about self-awareness and second chances and
reinvention and hope.
Let’s face it, by February 2 the New Year’s resolutions are
fading, the fitness centers are back to the regulars, and we’re all bogged down
in the drudgery of winter. These moments are ripe for a bit of pop culture
existentialism, and the quirky film from Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin puts that
long cold winter, the odd little holiday, and the repetitiveness of daily life
in perspective. Watching the story of a disgruntled weatherman pondering the
absurdity of a weather-forecasting rodent provides a second chance at
mid-winter self-reflection and re-invention. The conceit of the film is not
only the ridiculous holiday but also the inexplicable weirdness of Phil
Connors’ predicament.
The film Groundhog Day is actually a wonderful primer
for the wisdom of existentialism, and when I taught the philosophy in my
college literature class, I would often lead or conclude with a viewing of Bill
Murray’s brilliant portrayal of a man trying to bring some sense of meaning to
a life that seems nothing short of absurd. Clearly, the idea of living the same
day over and over again in an unfulfilling, dull, mundane place and repeating
the seemingly mindless tasks of a pointless job is portrayed as a curse and a
cruel joke, and that realization is at the heart of existentialism. Life makes
no sense. Phil spends many years in disgruntled fashion viewing his life as
exactly that, a cruel meaningless joke of an existence.
However, the movie shifts when Phil considers his situation
as an opportunity and a second chance at reinvention with the opportunity to
get it right. Of course, Phil’s initial reaction to his epiphany of a life
without consequences is to indulge his most base fantasies. It’s understandable
-- who wouldn’t at least consider that? He truly seizes the day, drinking to
excess, smoking indiscriminately, gulping coffee and pastries, manipulating
women, and even robbing an armored car. Of course, the freedom and control he
ultimately achieves is freedom from and power over those primal and
materialistic urges. For even unrestricted access to hedonism and debauchery
apparently becomes boring after a while.
Initially, Phil’s attempts at betterment are jaded with
ulterior motives -- he learns French simply to seduce his producer Rita. Later
on, however, his attempts to change become about improving his quality of life.
A pivotal, but often overlooked, moment in the film is when Phil is sitting
quietly in the cafe reading, and he notices a piano playing in the background.
Rather than simply enjoy the music, he seeks to develop the ability to create
such beautiful sounds and immediately begins learning piano, offering his piano
teacher “a thousand dollars if we could get started today.” He also masters
other art forms like ice sculpting, but most importantly he learns deeply the
details and hope and dreams of the people in his life.
The film is more than an entertaining romantic comedy, and
numerous writers have explored how Rubin and Ramis incorporated key elements of
existentialism into the film, notably the idea that in a life devoid of
meaning, it is up to man to create it for himself. The film draws on
Nietzsche’s idea that existence is a cycle of eternal recurrence, and it
incorporates insight from Albert Camus who theorized in his essay “The Myth of
Sisyphus” that despite the apparent misery of the subject’s situation, he
actually imagined Sisyphus happy. Sisyphus, as you may recall, was the Greek
king whose punishment by the gods was to push a huge rock up a steep hill only
to see it roll back down as he neared the top. Camus framed Sisyphus’ situation
as a reflection of the human condition -- stuck in a repetitive cycle which
would seem absurd to the outsider. When he “imagines Sisyphus happy,” he shifts
the narrative from judgment and punishment to liberation and empowerment. Both
Sisyphus and Phil transition through the act of acceptance -- embracing their
inescapable dilemma and finding joy in the meaningless absurdity.
Groundhog Day is a film with a message -- each of us will
wake up again and again to the same existence that at times seems pointless.
The only point is that you have the rest of your life to make it exactly what
you want it to be. Bringing meaning to our daily lives was a focus of the
numerous American writers like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow whose poem “A Psalm
of Life” advised us that “neither joy, and not sorrow is our destined end or
way, but to act that each tomorrow find us further than today.” The point is
progress; the goal is getting better. What F. Scott Fitzgerald called Gatsby’s
“Platonic conception of himself” was simply the eternal quest for the ideal,
for striving to become our own best selves. Life is an endlessly repeating
opportunity to improve. In Bill Murray’s role as Phil Connor, we can find a
second chance at New Year’s resolutions and an opportunity to, in the words of
Henry David Thoreau, “live the life you have imagined.”
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