Did you ever see the movie Groundhog Day? It came out in 1993. The original trailer was a close-up of an alarm clock going off, showing the same day and time, over and over again with the simple tag line:
He's having the worst day of his life ... over and over ...
That movie reminds me that we are destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again until we finally get them right! I wanted to write more about that, but while looking for web-sites and information about the movie, I found this excellent article! I humbly bow to a man who teaches educators how to teach ... This is an excellent article presented by Ken Sanes about the movie, Groundhog Day:
Groundhog Day:
Breakthrough to the True Self
Groundhog Day ... shows us a character who has to be exiled from normal life so he can discover that he is in exile from himself. In the movie, actor Bill Murray plays Phil, an arrogant, Scrooge-like weather forecaster who spends the night in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he is to do a broadcast the next day about the annual ritual of the coming out of the groundhog. He wakes up the next morning, does his story and is annoyed to discover that he is trapped in Punxsutawney for a second night because of a snowstorm that comes in after the groundhog ceremony.
When he wakes up in his guest house room the next morning, lo and behold, it is the morning of the day before all over again. Everything that happened to him the previous day -- the man trying to start a conversation at the top of the stairs; the old high school acquaintance recognizing him on the street, the ritual of groundhog day -- it all happens again.
And, once again, due to inclement weather, he is forced to spend the night. When he wakes up the next morning, it is the same day as yesterday and the day before, with the same oncoming snowstorm keeping him stuck in town and the same events repeating themselves like a broken record.
And so it goes, day after day ... trapped in Punxsutawney on groundhog day ... in a time loop. If he does nothing different, events will repeat themselves as they were on the original day. But if he changes his behavior, people will respond to his new actions, opening up all kinds of possibilities for playing with the unfolding of events. Either way, with each "new" day, he alone remembers what happened in previous editions of the same day.
At first Murray's character responds with bewilderment. Then he despairs and begins to treat life as a game: he risks his life and gorges on food, expressing both his sense of hopelessness and his growing recognition that, no matter what he does, time will reset itself and he will wake up as if nothing had happened.
In one scene, which turns out to be central to the movie's theme, he expresses his despair to two working class drinking buddies in a local bar.
One of his two inebriated companions then points to a beer glass and sums up the way he is responding to his situation: "You know, some guys would look at this glass and they would say, you know, 'that glass is half empty'. Other guys'd say 'that glass is half full'. I bet you is (or I peg you as) a 'the glass is half empty' kind of guy. Am I right?"
But as the days pass endlessly into the same day, this half-empty character finally finds a purpose in life: learning everything he can about his female producer, Rita, played by Andie MacDowell, so he can pretend to be her ideal man and seduce her. When that fails, and his efforts net him slap after slap, day after day, his despair deepens and he begins to spend his days killing himself. He kidnaps the groundhog and drives over a ledge into a quarry; he takes a plugged-in toaster into the bath; and he jumps off a building, always waking up whole in the morning.
In desperation, he reveals his plight to the female producer and she stays with him (without sex), in his room,through the night. Once again, he wakes up alone in the same day. But, enriched by this experience of intimacy, and by the fact that someone actually liked him for who he is, he finally figures out a constructive response --
He begins to live his life in the day allotted to him, or, rather, he begins to live the life he never lived before. Instead of allowing circumstances to impose themselves on him, he takes control of circumstances ...
... aided by the fact that he has all the time in the world and the safety of knowing what will happen next. He begins to take piano lessons from a music teacher who is continuously surprised at how proficient he is, since she always believes it is his first lesson. He learns how to be an ice sculptor, which is the perfect art form for him since everything he does will have melted away when he wakes up anyway. And he becomes more generous.
Then, an encounter with death -- an old vagrant dies in his day -- has a deep effect on him. At first, he can't accept the man's death and, in at least one subsequent edition of the day, he tries to be good to the old man, taking him out to eat (for a last meal) and trying, unsuccessfully, to keep him alive. When he stops trying to force death to relent, his final defenses fall away and his compassion for the old man transfers to the living.
He begins to use his knowledge of how the day will unfold to help people. Knowing that a child will always fall from a tree at a certain time, he makes it a point to be there and catch the child every time. Knowing that a man will choke on his meal, he is always at a nearby table in the restaurant to save him.
Slowly, he goes through a transformation. Having suffered himself, he is able to empathize with other people's suffering. Having been isolated from society, he becomes a local hero in Punxsutawney.
Now, he sees the glass as half full, and the day as a form of freedom. As he expresses it in a corny TV speech about the weather that he gives for the camera, at the umpteenth ceremony he has covered of the coming out of the groundhog:
"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 of warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."
In other words, having accepted the conditions of life ... he is no longer like all those people who fear life's travails (trials), and try to ... control events. He accepts "winter" as an opportunity.
Finally, the female producer falls in love with the good person he has become and she again spends the night (although he falls asleep so, again, there is no sex.) They wake up in the morning. She is still there and it is the next day.
In a last bit of irony, the couple decide to settle down in Punxsutawney. Like Maxwell Klinger in the last episode of MASH, Murray's character will end up living in the one place he couldn't wait to escape.
What is so powerful about Groundhog Day is the way it lets us experience what it would be like to make a breakthrough like this in our own lives. The movie shows us a character who is like the worst in ourselves. He is arrogant and sarcastic, absorbed in his own discomforts, without hope, and cut off from other people ... he is forced to stop and treat each day like a world onto itself, and decide how to use it. In the end, he undergoes a breakthrough to a more authentic self in which intimacy, creativity and compassion come naturally ...
In telling this story, the movie hits on a message that is commonly found elsewhere and that appears to express an essential truth. When we get beyond denial and resentment over the conditions of life and death, and accept our situation, it tells us, then life ceases to be a problem and we can become authentic and compassionate.
Inevitably, the movie also has mythic resonance and literary counterparts. Murray's character is like all kinds of saviors and heroes in well-known stories, secular and religious, who experience some combination of suffering and courage, until they go through a transformation to a new state of knowledge. Among the religious and mythic elements we can recognize in the story: he fights off his demons; he is changed by an encounter with death; he experiences a kind of rebirth; he appears to people to exist in time but he also exists outside of normal time; he manifests deep compassion; he is in the world but not of it, suffering with a special knowledge that he uses to save those around him; and he is given a second chance in life.
Groundhog Day includes a number of phases:
1. The beginning, which takes place in normal time, in which the character is self-centered and embodies hate of self and others, defense and constriction.
2. The bulk of the movie, which takes place in an enchanted timelessness in which the character becomes other-directed, loving and free. This has a number of sub-phases, which can, more or less, be described as:
- bewilderment;
- despair;
- risk-taking and treating life as a game with selfish ends;
- first breakthrough to intimacy;
- generosity and the embracing of life;
- shock at, and refusal to accept, death;
- acceptance of the circumstances of life and death , and breakthrough to deep compassion (love);
- being celebrated as a local hero and a second experience of intimacy in which he gets the object of his love.
3. The end, which has moved back into normal time, but which is now enchanted in a different way, by the attitude of the main character.
* * * * * *
In showing us this transformation, the movie provides a fictional counterpart to a universal experience, one that some people have in their own lives: that a confrontation with death andor an acceptance of the circumstances of life, leads to a freeing up of the self, with greater enjoyment and compassion.
* * * * * *
In addition to the mythic-archetypal elements ... the main character is like all kinds of heroes who have to face various monsters and obstacles. But, here ... most of the conflicts come from within him: they are a result of how he responds to life and what he causes life to give back to him.
(The movie also offers another mythic element ... similar to Logan's Run, which is one of many other works that embody the idea that humanity must escape ... false paradises to find an authentic life.)
* * * * * *
The movie offers a number of contrasts that highlight the character's transformation:
Earlier, he gorges on food, because of his despair over his life situation. Later, he provides a feast for the old vagrant in an effort to conquer despair over life's consequences for other people;
Earlier, he injures people's self-esteem with sarcasm and drives them away. Later, he enlarges people with his vision of life, bolsters their self-esteem and draws them to him like a magnet.
Earlier, he is forced to be in Punxsutawney. Later, he decides to live there.
Earlier, he tries to simulate a false self, to win the female producer, and fails. Later, he shows her the real self he never knew he had andwins her over.
* * * * * *
The timeless middle of the movie has some of the characteristics of a virtual world in which Murray can experiment with alternative ways of living and being ... Murray's character treats his life as a game only when he is in despair. Once he has a sense of hope, he becomes more authentic and discovers himself.
* * * * * *
(excerpts are from an excellent article written for educators at http://www.transparencynow.com/groundhog.htm by Ken Sanes)
I like stories of redemption, where people just like us are transformed into the kind of people we would like to be if only ... But, you know what?
WE CAN BE TRANSFORMED!
There are elements of RECOVERY all throughout this story!
He begins to live his life in the day allotted to him, or, rather, he begins to live the life he never lived before. Instead of allowing circumstances to impose themselves on him, he takes control of circumstances ...
Living one day at a time ... AND ... taking care of his own "stuff" ... The movie does everything but recite the Serenity Prayer!
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change ...
like all those people who fear life's travails, and try to ... control events. He accepts "winter" as an opportunity.
The Courage to change the things I can ...
In other words, having accepted the conditions of life ... he is no longer What is so powerful about Groundhog Day is the way it lets us experience what it would be like to make a breakthrough like this in our own lives. The movie shows us a character who is like the worst in ourselves. He is arrogant and sarcastic, absorbed in his own discomforts, without hope, and cut off from other people ... he is forced to stop and treat each day like a world onto itself, and decide how to use it. In the end, he undergoes a breakthrough to a more authentic self in which intimacy, creativity and compassion come naturally ...
The wisdom to know the difference ...
In telling this story, the movie hits on a message that is commonly found elsewhere and that appears to express an essential truth. When we get beyond denial and resentment over the conditions of life and death, and accept our situation, it tells us, then life ceases to be a problem and we can become authentic and compassionate ...
Amen!
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