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Sunday, January 23, 2011

Groundhog Day (film)

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Groundhog Day is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was written by Ramis and Danny Rubin, based on a story by Rubin.
Murray plays Phil Connors, an egocentric Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during a hated assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. After indulging in hedonism and numerous suicide attempts, he begins to reexamine his life and priorities.
In 2006, the film 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), new producer Rita (Andie MacDowell), and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott) from fictional Pittsburgh television station WPBH-TV9 travel to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to cover the annual Groundhog Dayfestivities with Punxsutawney Phil. Having grown tired of this assignment, Phil grudgingly gives his report and attempts to return to Pittsburgh when a blizzard shuts down the 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. The day plays out exactly as it did before, with no one else aware of the time loop, and only Phil aware of past events. At first he is confused, but, when the phenomenon continues on subsequent days, he decides to take advantage of the situation with no fear of long-term consequences: he learns secrets from the town's residents, seduces women, steals money, drives recklessly, and gets thrown in jail. However, his attempts to get closer to Rita repeatedly fail.
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 kidnaps Punxsutawney Phil and, after a long police chase, drives into a quarry, appearing to kill both himself and the groundhog. However, Phil wakes up and finds that nothing has changed; further attempts at suicide are just as fruitless as he continues to find himself awaking on the morning 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 uses the time to learn, among other things, to play piano, ice sculpt and speak French.
Eventually, Phil is able to befriend almost everyone he meets during the day, using his experiences to save lives, help 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. He wakes the next morning and finds the time loop is broken; it is now February 3 and Rita is still with him. Phil is a different person than he was on February 1 and, after going outside, Phil and Rita talk about living in Punxsutawney together.

[edit]Cast

[edit]Production

"Ned's Corner" commemorative plaque, Woodstock.
Tip Top Cafe, Woodstock.
According to Harold Ramis's DVD commentary, there are several differences between Danny Rubin's original script and the film as it was actually released.
The original script began in the middle of the narrative, without explaining how or why Phil was repeating Groundhog Day. 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 character Rita reliving the day with Phil, and portrayed 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 in the commentary that he believes 10 years pass. The website Wolf Gnards calculated the time spent as 8 years, 8 months, and 16 days: based on him spending 3 years learning to play the piano, 3 years learning to ice sculpt, 2 years learning French, and 6 months learning to throw cards into a hat.[3] However in an e-mail response to Wolf Gnards, Ramis said "I think the 10-year estimate is too short. It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and alloting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years".[4]
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 ratherWoodstock, Illinois. Residents of the city helped in the production by bringing out heaters to warm the cast and crew in cold weather. The real Gobbler's Knob is located in a rural area about 2 miles east of Punxsutawney, but the film location gives the impression that it is in the town. The Tip Top Cafe, where much of the film takes place, was originally a set created for the film, but local demand led to its remaining open as a real cafe. After it closed, the Tip Top Bistro took its place, eventually to be replaced by Bella's Gelateria which serves coffee and Italian ice cream.[5] 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 Pittsburgh Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette buildings, as well as Gateway Center.
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.[6][7]

[edit]The final scene

Stephen Tobolowsky at Groundhog Day 2010 in Punxsutawney recalled the making of the final scene:[8] "He [Bill Murray] said, 'I refuse to shoot this scene until I know how I am dressed. Am I wearing the clothes I wore the night before? Am I wearing p.j.'s? Am I not wearing that?' That is, what happened that night between him and Andie [MacDowell]?..." explained Tobolowsky. "So, he refused to shoot it. Harold Ramis, the director, had not thought of this question, and he didn't know. So he took a vote from the cast and crew as to what Bill was wearing. Is he wearing the clothes from the night before, or is he wearing pajamas? And it was a tie, a tie vote, so Bill still refused to shoot the scene." Then one crew member raised her hand and said, "'He is absolutely wearing the clothes he wore the night before. If he is not wearing the clothes he wore the night before, it will ruin the movie. That’s my vote.' So Harold Ramis said, 'Then that's what we are going to do.'"

[edit]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,[9] 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.[10] After giving it a three-star rating in his original review,[11] 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.[12]
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.[13] It currently garners a 96% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic, the movie has a score of 72 (Generally favorable reviews) out of 100. It was also nominated for a Hugo Award in 1994 for Best Dramatic Presentation, but lost to Jurassic Park.

[edit]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.[14][15]

[edit]Legacy

The phrase "Groundhog Day" has entered common use as a reference to an unpleasant situation that continually repeats, or seems to.[16]
In the military, referring to unpleasant, unchanging, repetitive situations as “Groundhog Day” was widespread 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.[17] 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.[18] In February 1994, the crew of the USSSaratoga 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.[19] Fourteen years after the movie was released, "Groundhog Day" was noted as American military slang for any day of a tour of duty in Iraq.[20]
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."[21]
Groundhog Day has been considered a tale of self-improvement which emphasizes the need 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.[22][23] As such, the film has become a favorite of Buddhists[24][25] 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."[26]
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,[27]).



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

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