Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me
Why Groundhog Day is a Great Buddhist Movie
by Tom Armstrong
[This work is reprinted here with permission of the author.]
A revised version of this essay,
Groundhog Day and the Cosmic Sense is available at the Zen Unbound web site.
One thing that
Shakyamuni Buddha, David Letterman and I all have in common is that
we like lists. Our lists are different, certainly: Letterman's Top
Ten lists are comical; Buddha's are not comical; and most of the
ones I like are nonsensical. In this fractious season of Oscar
competition, I view movies with nominations and rate and rank (and
rant and rave about) films and performances, trying to decide which
are best, and it what order, even though these are impossible
comparisons. It is as foolish as trying to decide which
(for all time) is better: the Fuji Apple, the Valentia Orange, or
the Anjou Pear? [Ans: Pear] or, which noirish movie is the most fun
to see a second time: "Out of the Past", "L A Confidential", or
"Body Heat"? [Ans: "Out of the Past"]
To the question "What
is the greatest Buddhist movie ever made?" there don't seem to be a
great many possibilities. "The Burmese Harp" and "Why Did the
Bodhi-dharma Go to the East?" are art-house movies that are
brilliant and are very directly about the lure of Buddhism. Both,
too, are heavily symbolic and are best viewed by a knowing audience
of Buddhists. "Why Did the Bodhi-dharma Go to the East?" is
particularly difficult for someone not versed in the symbols of Zen,
since, while it is a beautiful film [Named by Photoplay magazine as
one of the all-time ten best achievements of cinematography] it has
very little in the way of a plot and can seem tedious.
Old
Hollywood movies that have a Buddhist connection are "Lost Horizons"
and "The Razor's Edge." In each there is suffering followed by a
special experience in the Himalayas (a euphemism for Tibet). In
each, while we appreciate the characters' transformations, the
experience for the viewer is external. We may well imagine ourselves
in the characters' situation, but it is hard to know how the
experience affected them. Yes, Shangri-la is spiffy, but can a
person bring Shangri-la back home?
As you all are probably
aware, there have been two recent big-budget Hollywood movies about
the Dalai Lama's youth. "Kundun" and "Seven Years in Tibet" are both
wonderful films and reveal a lot about Tibetan culture, but they are
essentially biographies. The events are wrenching and our sympathies
are with the Tibetan people, but it is a leap for any of us to
identify with the Dalai Lama--who is majestical, and treated as a
prince. Another film of recent vintage is "The Little Buddha." Here,
in one of two story lines, Siddhartha's story is told. Perhaps it
says more about me than the movie, but when the miraculous events in
Siddhartha's life are shown with the literalness that cinema
demands, the Buddha seems more like a celluloid comicbook superhero
than an actual person who lived, experienced and taught.
All
of the films I have mentioned are excellent. Writing what I have
about them makes me want to jog over to Blockbuster and rent the lot
of them right now!! But a really, really real Buddhist movie isn't
about Buddhism in the way that ichthyology is about fishes. I want a
Buddhist movie that can be the fish! I want to crawl right up
into the innards of the protagonist such that when he/she blinks I
see this big dark veil with woolly eyelashes descend over the screen
momentarily. I want inside. I want to vicariously experience the
Great Luge Ride from mundane-minded person to profound
enlightenment.
Well, it's a tall order. Too tall. But there
is a film, a grand transformative adventure that is the center of a
growing cult and is causing a stir internationally. Stanley Cavell,
a Harvard professor, when asked by New York Times Magazine to name
works that will be cherished one-hundred years from now, named this
movie. Daniel Golden, a writer on the Boston Globe and an avowed
member of the cult, wrote of the movie "Screenwriting gurus cite it
as a model, and postmodern philosophers study its alternate
realities. Its message of self-purification through struggle and
repetition has been analyzed in religion treatises and appropriated
by Buddhist, Christian and Jewish theologians alike." And the
envelope, please........The movie is a seemingly modest 1993 Bill
Murray comedy named "Groundhog Day."
The gimmick of the movie is that the
protagonist, weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray), must re-live
Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, (a day and place he
hates) many thousands of times. The events of his day (down to the
bark of a dog or a breeze blowing by) will play out exactly as they
did the first time--except to the extent that Connors changes what
he says or does. But whatever he does, in twenty-four hours he will
wake up again, at 6am, in the bed at a Bed & Breakfast in
Punxsutawney, on Groundhog Day, to the tune of "I Got You, Babe" on
the radio.
The first bit of genius by the screenwriters is to
not explain the how or why of these endlessly repeating days. Phil
simply wakes up and it's the same day, over and over. There is no
Angel Clarence, no ghosts, no hint of an obtrusive God: It all just
happens. The wheel turns and it is as if he is reborn but with a
clear memory of his prior 24-hour lives.
The viewer is a
witness to Phil's transformative process, and as such imagines
his/herself in such a circumstance. What if (the movie silently
asks) you had your own second-, third-, two-thousandth- coming, and
you understood your life and all that is about you ... completely
... deeply ... profoundly? What would hold your interest? Your empty
ambitions? Feeding your hungry ego? Ceaseless hedonism? Would you be
bored out of your mind? Or, would you find yourself by losing
yourself?
The film is so clever, so knowing, in the effect a
static circumstance has our our bombastic hero. The adventures and
desperation strike exactly the right sequence of chords--such that
this spellbinding comedy drives a mighty dagger to the ground of the
viewer's own being. Achieving this, the film is Buddhist, though by
no means is nirvana in view nor is Buddhism alluded to. But Phil has
travelled an important distance along a path of questioning the
foundations of his life and seeing himself in others, just as we can
see ourself in him. Best Buddhism movie? "Groundhog Day." You
bet.
Back to the home page of Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me
The Ned Ryerson Conundrum by Tom Armstrong
On the Trail of the Groundhog: Groundhog Day is a Great Buddhist Movie by Tom Armstrong
The Greatest Buddhist Movie Ever Made!! by Tom Armstrong
New York Times Feature Story on Groundhog Day, The Movie
Boston Globe Anniversary Appreciation
The French Stuff
Paul Schindler's Blog Comments On Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day Links and Metalinks
Groundhog Day Script Writer Danny Rubin
Groundhog Day Star Bill Murray
Groundhog Day Director Harold Ramis
New Yorker Profile of Groundhog Day Director Harold Ramis
Groundhog Day essay in Stephen Simon's book, The Force Is With You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives
Groundhog Day essay by Mario Sesti in the Museum of Modern Art catalog for, The Hidden God: Film and Faith
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