the groundhog day project

I must admit I had nothing to write about today. So, I asked my daughter Saer to ask me a question about Groundhog Day and I would spend today's blog answering it. She asked what Phil Connor's favorite color is. But, an aside first: I kept busy most of the day, including cutting apart the deleted scenes from Groundhog Day for later use, skipping through Planes, Trains & Automobiles and all three of the Nolan Batman movies (because Bob Hudgins mentioned that the Amstutz Expressway in Waukegan, Illinois--which is where Phil talks to the trooper in the snow--was used in one of those... (I swear he implied it was the latest one, but it was in Batman Begins (and I started with the latest and worked backward) that I found the brief moment in which Batman drives the Tumbler on that highway.) Since I found it and all, here you can see the shape of the overpass (where the Amstutz deadends): Which is the same shape (but I'm fairly sure not the same bridge) as the one ...

I found it amusing, reading Benesh (2011), that she only watched the (entire) film 8 times over the course of 2 months (p. 65). In describing how she collected images and symbols within the film, she also suggests that "even after multiple viewings, it is impossible to list every image and object and less so to analyze such" (ibid). If nothing else, the purpose of The Groundhog Day Project is to prove that statement false. For example, Benesh does list the snowman, though she deals with it in terms of the color white and spheres--I've already suggested that "snowmen and snowballs" are "perfectly reasonable objects to have in a story set in midwinter." Same for the color white. The color blue, in which Benesh also sees significance-- obviously I think there's something going on there. But, with white? I don't think so. As for the snowman (or snowmen, really, since we see two of them... sort of), I think there's a better line of symbolism...

Every day, think as you wake up, "Today I am fortunate to have woken up. I am alive, I have a precious human life. I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry, or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can." - The Dalai Lama While you ponder that, I will begin what may amount to very little. Subtitle today's entry, things noticed watching GroundhogDay on blu-ray for the first time. First thing noticed: a mistake. Phil's clip-on microphone disappears when he gets up from the news desk. He's got it for the weather report, he's got it when he sits down by Nan. Next shot he's by Larry and Kenny and he's got no microphone. Now, maybe Phil violently tore it off in that split second we couldn't see him. But, more likely, h...

In their essay, “Terminators, Monkeys and Mass Culture," Dimitrakaki and Tsiantis give us a slightly different take on Phil’s experience than Daughton’s (1996) notion that “Phil’s situation… parallels that of the economically disenfranchised, the Other”; Dimitrakaki and Tsiantis tell us “what comes under attack” in the film “is a particular manifestation of cyclical temporality that actually exists in capitalist societies.” One essay’s take on the “cyclical temporality” implicit in Ralph’s line, “That about sums it up for me” matches up with another’s take on Phil’s trap linking to him the disenfranchised, which arguably includes Ralph. That “arguably” of mine is a key point where many might disagree, though. Usually, we would only use “economically disenfranchised” to describe people living, say, below the poverty line, people without many options in their lives, people stuck… well, see, I’m already blurring the definition just enough to be sure I can include the likes of Ralph,...

( Enough about religion... for now.) Let's talk instead about something light: psychoanalysis. In the International Journal of Psychoanalysis (87 (2006), 1387-98), Richard Almond tells us that "[i]n the paradigm of the therapeutic narrative, a troubled person plays out his/her typical pattern in relation to an other who is more anonymous, a foil who is depicted in idealized and/or mysterious terms." This "other" is Rita, and Phil is the one undergoing the therapeutic process in Groundhog Day . As I've mentioned before, Claire S. Bacha, in Psychodynamic Counselling (4.3 (Aug 1998), 383-406), claims Rita as "the object of Phil's desire exactly because she seems so much his opposite." Both Bacha and Almond are putting the onus for Phil's transformation, at least in part, on his attachment to Rita, whether it's idealization, attraction, or both. I think I'd side with Almond on this one. Almond tells us that Groundhog Day is of ...

Subtitle: thoughts while watching Groundhog Day at the laundromat. First, of all, a new thought about Rita’s introduction in front of the blue screen: Rita is the oncoming storm. Phil, being a weatherman, has to figure her out and win her over to get out of the loop because that’s his job. Rita’s clothes deserve an entry all their own, I think. She changes at weird times (in the middle of experiment day for example) from one outfit to another, and wears more layers possibly than anyone in the film. Thought the quilt on Phil’s bed might be a wedding ring pattern and wondered if there was something worth obsessing about there in a later entry… checked online and that is not a wedding ring pattern, not enough interlocking circles. I always thought the DJ voices were Harold Ramis and Brian Doyle-Murray. But, no. They are apparently some actual DJs from Chicago, Richard Henzel and Rob Riley. Personal sidenote, supposedly if I had been twins, I would have been named not just Robert bu...

It starts with blue sky—sure there are clouds moving, movie shorthand for the passage of time… Ryan Gilbey, author of the BFI Modern Classics critical study of Groundhog Day , calls this “only slightly less clichéd than the peeling leaves of a calendar.” But, then there’s the bluescreen. Where does Phil point to when he says where he would like to be if he could be anywhere in the world? He says, Elko, Nevada. But, he is gesturing at the blue emptiness. And, he soon warns about “one of these big blue things” coming for Pennsylvania. The next notable blue is Rita. Not Rita herself, obviously; she’s not Smurfette. She’s wearing her blue coat and she’s playing like a child in front of that same blue screen. Fun, but not Phil’s kind of fun. Too innocent, maybe. Minor blue: Kenny’s shirt. Kenny is, presumably, Phil’s assistant. He’s played by Willie Garson. (And Larry’s blue jeans, but I’m not sure if counting blue jeans is fair. Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself, like Rubin’s original scr...