the groundhog day project

There's a great line in John Crawford's " Groundhog Day and Judaism - follow-up and answers "; guy says, "So, anyhoo... Bill Murray inspires mystery. The kind of mystery that people build academic courses around." Or blogs, I would add. Crawford also quotes Kuczynski ("Groundhog Almighty" which I've mentioned before): Some theologians see much less Buddhism in the story than Judaism. Dr. Niles Goldstein, rabbi of the New Shul congregation in Greenwich Village and author of "Lost Souls: Finding Hope in the Heart of Darkness" (Bell Tower, 2002), said he finds Jewish resonance in the fact that Mr. Murray's character is rewarded by being returned to earth to perform more mitzvahs — good deeds — rather than gaining a place in heaven, which is the Christian reward, or achieving nirvana, the Buddhist reward. He has not used the movie as an allegory for his congregation, he said, but he might now. "The movie tells us, as Judaism d...

Recently, I made the argument that a) there is no inherent meaning in things and b) we make meaning by finding/manufacturing it. And, obviously, I’ve found plenty of (and presumably manufactured some) meaning in Groundhog Day or this project would have already been done and lamentably forgotten. And, plenty of people have found not only meaning but personal meaning in the film. And, by personal meaning, I mean they don’t see it as some obvious screed with its own message but a message befitting of their own personal beliefs. In fact, the film was featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s film series “The Hidden God: Film and Faith” back in 2003. Alex Kuczynski wrote in The New York Times : …the film “has become a curious favorite of religious leaders of many faiths, who all see in “Groundhog Day” a reflection of their own spiritual messages. Curators of the series, polling some 35 critics in the literary, religious and film worlds to suggest films with religious interpretations, found ...