the groundhog day project

Ultimately, it may seem like the point of Groundhog Day —taken especially as a romantic comedy—is that Phil must learn to love and be loved in return. Held up to scrutiny, there isn’t much evidence that Rita loves Phil in the end… but then again, we’re not bothering to scrutinize, are we? As I’ve mentioned before, we’re in this with Phil and on some level we think he deserves a happy ending so it is his ending that matters. It doesn’t matter necessarily if Rita is, or will be, happy (though she does claim she’s happy out there in the snow, doesn’t she?). But, there’s something bigger going on here. As a romantic comedy, as a film whose denouement comes with a couple getting together, we get a reification of the idea that we must be in a couple. That is to say, once again, Hollywood is telling us what it takes to be happy—though, to be fair, we’re not making much of an effort to object. In fact, as I already pointed out, we’re not only so invested in Phil that we want him to be happy...

The thing about Phil Connor’s use of Chekhov is, well, who knows if it’s appropriate… and really, who cares? It sounds good, right? In Rubin’s original, we get even less than we get in the film. We just get Rita telling Phil he “did a really nice job today. Really nice… That was great what you did there with Chekhov and the long winter.” (That “really nice” sounds more like movie Larry than Rita, but remember, in Rubin’s original, Phil is the young and inexperienced one, Rita the older producer who’s been around for a while.) What we get in the film is more substantial: 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. Rubin tells us in his book that he ha...

Phil Connors doesn’t speak French. While it might be reasonable to assume Phil does learn to play piano beyond the two songs we hear him play since this is at the point he is actually trying to better himself and affect the world around him in a positive way, the French bit is much earlier. It also comes from a bit in Rubin’s original screenplay, not with Rita but with “Tess Harper—Jefferson County Poetry Society.” Basically, it’s a clear example of Phil doing the same thing he does with Nancy in the movie; he makes stuff up to get what he wants. This is only Day 10 . He hasn’t gotten to the depression that arguably makes him realize he’s an actual human being like everyone else around him… I just realized, this also means he’s probably lying when he says, “Small town people are more real, more down-to-earth.” Later, he might actually believe it. But, at this point, each line is just a move to win over Rita. Anyway, in the original screenplay, Phil meets Tess like he meets Mary in ...

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...

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it! That’s Dickens in David Copperfield . He’s talking about what we call déjà vu. Déjà vu gets namechecked twice in Groundhog Day . When, Phil asks Mrs. Lancaster if she ever has déjà vu, she mistakes the term for some sort of food—you know, a good fun jibe at those hicks in Punxsutawney. When Rita asks Phil if he ever has déjà vu, he replies with the classic, “Didn’t you just ask me that?” From the French for “already seen,” we usually throw out the term déjà vu for any situation that seems a little too familiar, like it’s already happened before but we can’t consciously remember it. Like we’ve read someone’s blog entry already but it isn’t exactly the sam...

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it! That’s Dickens in David Copperfield . He’s talking about what we call déjà vu. Déjà vu gets namechecked twice in Groundhog Day . When, Phil asks Mrs. Lancaster if she ever has déjà vu, she mistakes the term for some sort of food—you know, a good fun jibe at those hicks in Punxsutawney. When Rita asks Phil if he ever has déjà vu, he replies with the classic, “Didn’t you just ask me that?” From the French for “already seen,” we usually throw out the term déjà vu for any situation that seems a little too familiar, like it’s already happened before but we can’t consciously remember it. Like we’ve read someone’s blog entry already but it isn’t exactly the same...