[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 19 (Wednesday, February 15, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1347-S1348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    POPULARITY OF ``GROUNDHOG DAY''

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, yesterday and a few weeks ago, I invoked 
the movie ``Groundhog Day'' starring Bill Murray to provide a 
perspective on consideration of our tax reconciliation package. For the 
edification of my esteemed colleagues and other interested parties, I 
ask unanimous consent that an article originally published in the 
February 14, 2005, issue of ``National Review'' titled, ``A Movie for 
All Time,'' be printed in the Record. This article provides some 
information on the film and its enduring popularity.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the National Review, Feb. 14, 2005]

                          A Movie For All Time

                          (By Jonah Goldberg)

       Here's a line, you'll either recognize, or you won't: 
     ``This is one time where television really fails to capture 
     the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the 
     weather.'' If you don't recognize this little gem, you've 
     either never seen Groundhog Day or you're not a fan of what 
     is, in my opinion, one of the best films of the last 40 
     years. As the day of the groundhog again approaches, it seems 
     only fitting to celebrate what will almost undoubtedly join 
     It's a Wonderful Life in the pantheon of America's most 
     uplifting, morally serious, enjoyable, and timeless movies.
       When I set out to write this article, I thought it'd be fun 
     to do a quirky homage to an offbeat flick, one I think is 
     brilliant as both comedy and moral philosophy. But while 
     doing what I intended to be cursory research--how much 
     reporting do you need for a review of a twelve-year-old movie 
     that plays constantly on cable?--I discovered that I wasn't 
     alone in my interest. In the years since its release the film 
     has been taken up by Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, 
     Buddhists, Wiccans, and followers of the oppressed Chinese 
     Falun Gong movement. Meanwhile, the Internet brims with 
     weighty philosophical treatises on the deep Platonist, 
     Aristotelian, and existentialist themes providing the skin 
     and bones beneath the film's clown makeup. On National Review 
     Online's group blog, The Corner, I asked readers to send in 
     their views on the film. Over 200 e-mails later I had learned 
     that countless professors use it to teach ethics and a host 
     of philosophical approaches. Several pastors sent me excerpts 
     from sermons in which Groundhog Day was the central metaphor. 
     And dozens of committed Christians of all denominations 
     related that it was one of their most cherished movies.
       When the Museum of Modern Art in New York debuted a film 
     series on ``The Hidden God: Film and Faith'' two years ago, 
     it opened with Groundhog Day. The rest of the films were 
     drawn from the ranks of turgid and bleak intellectual cinema, 
     including standards from Ingmar Bergman and Roberto 
     Rossellini. According to the New York Times, curators of the 
     series were stunned to discover that so many of the 35 
     leading literary and religious scholars who had been polled 
     to pick the series entries had chosen Groundhog Day that a 
     spat had broken out among the scholars over who would get to 
     write about the film for the catalogue. In a wonderful essay 
     for the Christian magazine Touchstone, theology professor 
     Michael P. Foley wrote that Groundhog Day is ``a stunning 
     allegory of moral, intellectual, and even religious 
     excellence in the face of postmodern decay, a sort of 
     Christian-Aristotelian Pilgrim's Progress for those lost in 
     the contemporary cosmos.'' Charles Murray, author of Human 
     Accomplishment, has cited Groundhog Day more than once as one 
     of the few cultural achievements of recent times that will be 
     remembered centuries from now. He was quoted in The New 
     Yorker declaring, ``It is a brilliant moral fable offering an 
     Aristotelian view of the world.''
       I know what you're thinking: We're talking about the movie 
     in which Bill Murray tells a big rat sitting on his lap, 
     ``Don't drive angry,'' right? Yep, that's the one. You might 
     like to know that the rodent in question is actually Jesus--
     at least that's what film historian Michael Bronski told the 
     Times. ``The groundhog is clearly the resurrected Christ, the 
     ever-hopeful renewal of life at springtime, at a time of 
     pagan-Christian holidays. And when I say that the groundhog 
     is Jesus, I say that with great respect.''
       That may be going overboard, but something important is 
     going on here. What is it about this ostensibly farcical film 
     about a wisecracking weatherman that speaks to so many on 
     such a deep spiritual level?


                       THOROUGHLY POSTMODERN PHIL

       A recap is in order. Bill Murray, the movie's indispensible 
     and perfect lead, plays Phil Connors, a Pittsburgh weatherman 
     with delusions of grandeur (he unselfconsciously refers to 
     himself as ``the talent''). Accompanied by his producer and 
     love interest, Rita (played by Andie MacDowell), and a 
     cameraman (Chris Elliott), Connors goes on assignment to 
     cover the Groundhog Day festival in Punxsutawney, Pa., at 
     which ``Punxsutawney Phil''--a real groundhog--comes out of 
     his hole to reveal how much longer winter will last. Connors 
     believes he's too good for the assignment--and for 
     Punxsutawney, Pittsburgh, and everything in between. He is a 
     thoroughly postmodern man: arrogant, world-weary, and 
     contemptuous without cause.
       Rita tells Phil that people love the groundhog story, to 
     which he responds, ``People like blood sausage, too, people 
     are morons.'' Later, at the Groundhog Festival, she tells 
     him: ``You're missing all the fun. These people are great! 
     Some of them have been partying all night long. They sing 
     songs 'til they get too cold and then they go sit by the fire 
     and get warm and then they come back and sing some more.'' 
     Phil replies, ``Yeah, they're hicks, Rita.''
       Phil does his reporting schtick when the groundhog emerges 
     and plans to head home as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, 
     a blizzard stops him at the outskirts of town. A state 
     trooper explains that the highway's closed: ``Don't you watch 
     the weather reports?'' the cop asks. Connors replies 
     (blasphemously, according to some), ``I make the weather!'' 
     Moving on, the cop explain's he can either turn around to 
     Punxsutawney or freeze to death. ``Which is it?'' he asks. 
     Connors answers, ``I'm thinking, I'm thinking.'' Reluctantly 
     returning to Punxsutawney, Connors spends another night in a 
     sweet little bed and breakfast run by the sort of un-ironic, 
     un-hip, decent folks he considers hicks.
       The next morning, the clock radio in his room goes off and 
     he hears the same radio show he'd heard the day before, 
     complete with a broadcast of ``I Got You Babe'' and the 
     declaration, ``It's Groundhog Day!'' At first, Connors 
     believes it's an amateurish gaffe by a second-rate radio 
     station. But slowly he discovers it's the same day all over 
     again. ``What if there is no tomorrow?'' he asks. ``There 
     wasn't one today!''
       And this is the plot device for the whole film, which has 
     seeped into the larger culture. Indeed, ``Groundhog Day'' has 
     become shorthand for (translating nicely) ``same stuff, 
     different day.'' Troops in Iraq regularly use it as a rough 
     synonym for ``snafu,'' which (also translated nicely) means 
     ``situation normal: all fouled-up.'' Connors spends an 
     unknown number of days repeating the exact same day over and 
     over again. Everyone else experiences that day for the 
     ``first'' time, while Connors experiences it with Sisyphean 
     repetition. Estimates vary on how many actual Groundhog Days 
     Connors endures. We see him relive 34 of them. But many more 
     are implied. According to Harold Ramis, the co-writer and 
     director, the original script called for him to endure 10,000 
     years in Punxsutawney, but it was probably closer to ten.
       But this is a small mystery. A far more important one is 
     why the day repeats itself and why it stops repeating at the 
     end. Because the viewer is left to draw his own conclusions, 
     we have what many believe is the best

[[Page S1348]]

     cinematic moral allegory popular culture has produced in 
     decades--perhaps ever.
       Interpretations of this central mystery vary. But central 
     to all is a morally complicated and powerful story arc to the 
     main character. When Phil Connors arrives in Punxsutawney, 
     he's a perfect representative of the Seinfeld generation: 
     been-there-done-that. When he first realizes he's not crazy 
     and that he can, in effect, live forever without 
     consequences--if there's no tomorrow, how can you be 
     punished?--he indulges his adolescent self. He shoves 
     cigarettes and pastries into his face with no fear of 
     lovehandles or lung cancer. ``I am not going to play by their 
     rules any longer,'' he declares as he goes for a drunk-
     driving spree. He uses his ability to glean intelligence 
     about the locals to bed women with lies. When that no longer 
     gratifies, he steals money and gets kinky, dressing up and 
     play-acting. When Andie MacDowell sees him like this she 
     quotes a poem by Sir Walter Scott: ``The wretch, concentrated 
     all in self/Living, shall forfeit fair renown/And, doubly 
     dying, shall go down/To the vile dust, from whence he sprung/
     Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.''
       Connors cackles at her earnestness. ``You don't like 
     poetry?'' She asks. ``I love poetry,'' he replies, ``I just 
     thought that was Willard Scott.''
       Still, Connors schemes to bed Rita with the same techniques 
     he used on other women, and fails, time and again. When he 
     realizes that his failures stem not from a lack of 
     information about Rita's desires but rather from his own 
     basic hollowness, he grows suicidal. Or, some argue, he grows 
     suicidal after learning that all of the material and sexual 
     gratification in the world is not spiritually sustaining. 
     Either way, he blames the groundhog and kills it in a murder-
     suicide pact--if you can call killing the varmint murder. 
     Discovering, after countless more suicide attempts, that he 
     cannot even die without waking up the next day he begins to 
     believe he is ``a god.'' When Rita scoffs at this--noting 
     that she had twelve years of Catholic school (the only 
     mention of religion in the film)--he replies that he didn't 
     say he was ``the God'' but merely ``a god.'' Then again, he 
     remarks, maybe God really isn't all-powerful, maybe he's just 
     been around so long he knows everything that's going to 
     happen. This, according to some, is a reference to the 
     doctrine of God's ``middle knowledge,'' first put forward by 
     the 16th-century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina, who argued 
     that human free will is possible because God's omniscience 
     includes His knowledge of every possible outcome of every 
     possible decision.


                           THE METAMORPHOSIS

       The point is that Connors slowly realizes that what makes 
     life worth living is not what you get from it, but what you 
     put into it. He takes up the piano. He reads poetry--no 
     longer to impress Rita, but for its own sake. He helps the 
     locals in matters great and small, including catching a boy 
     who falls from a tree every day. ``You never thank me!'' he 
     yells at the fleeing brat. He also discovers that there are 
     some things he cannot change, that he cannot be God. The 
     homeless man whom Connors scorns at the beginning of the film 
     becomes an obsession of his at the end because he dies every 
     Groundhog Day. Calling him ``pop'' and ``dad,'' Connors tries 
     to save him but never can.
       By the end of the film, Connors is no longer obsessed with 
     bedding Rita. He's in love with her, without reservation and 
     without hope of his affection being requited. Only in the 
     end, when he completely gives up hope, does he in fact 
     ``get'' the woman he loves. And with that, with her love, he 
     finally wakes on February 3, the great wheel of life no 
     longer stuck on Groundhog Day. As NR's own Rick Brookhiser 
     explains it, ``The curse is lifted when Bill Murray blesses 
     the day he has just lived. And his reward is that the day is 
     taken from him. Loving life includes loving the fact that it 
     goes.''
       Personally, I always saw Nietzsche's doctrine of the 
     eternal return of the same in this story. That was 
     Nietzsche's idea--metaphorical or literal--to imagine life as 
     an endless repetition of the same events over and over. How 
     would this shape your actions? What would you choose to live 
     out for all eternity? Others see Camus, who writes about how 
     we should live once we realize the absurdity of life. But 
     existentialism doesn't explain the film's broader appeal. It 
     is the religious resonance--if not necessarily explicit 
     religious themes--that draws many to it. There's much to the 
     view of Punxsutawney as purgatory: Connors goes to his own 
     version of hell, but since he's not evil it turns out to be 
     purgatory, from which he is released by shedding his 
     selfishness and committing to acts of love. Meanwhile, Hindus 
     and Buddhists see versions of reincarnation here, and Jews 
     find great significance in the fact that Connors is saved 
     only after he performs mitzvahs (good deeds) and is returned 
     to earth, not heaven, to perform more.
       The burning question: Was all this intentional? Yes and no. 
     Ultimately, the story is one of redemption, so it should 
     surprise no one that it speaks to those in search of the 
     same. But there is also a secular, even conservative, point 
     to be made here. Connors's metamorphosis contradicts almost 
     everything postmodernity teaches. He doesn't find paradise or 
     liberation by becoming more ``authentic,'' by acting on his 
     whims and urges and listening to his inner voices. That 
     behavior is soul-killing. He does exactly the opposite: He 
     learns to appreciate the crowd, the community, even the 
     bourgeois hicks and their values. He determines to make 
     himself better by reading poetry and the classics and by 
     learning to sculpt ice and make music, and most of all by 
     shedding his ironic detachment from the world.
       Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin, the writer of the original 
     story, are not philosophers. Ramis was born Jewish and is now 
     a lackadaisical Buddhist. He wears meditation beads on his 
     wrist, he told the New York Times, ``because I'm on a 
     Buddhist diet. They're supposed to remind me not to eat, but 
     actually just get in the way when I'm cutting my steak.'' 
     Rubin's original script was apparently much more complex and 
     philosophical--it opened in the middle of Connors's sentence 
     to purgatory and ended with the revelation that Rita was 
     caught in a cycle of her own. Murray wanted the film to be 
     more philosophical (indeed, the film is surely the best sign 
     of his reincarnation as a great actor), but Ramis constantly 
     insisted that the film be funny first and philosophical 
     second.
       And this is the film's true triumph. It is a very, very 
     funny movie, in which all of the themes are invisible to 
     people who just want to have a good time. There's no 
     violence, no strong language, and the sexual content is about 
     as tame as it gets. (Some e-mailers complained that Connors 
     is only liberated when he has sex with Rita. Not true: They 
     merely fall asleep together.) If this were a French film 
     dealing with the same themes, it would be in black and white, 
     the sex would be constant and depraved, and it would end in 
     cold death. My only criticism is that Andie MacDowell isn't 
     nearly charming enough to warrant all the fuss (she says a 
     prayer for world peace every time she orders a drink!). And 
     yet for all the opportunities the film presents for self-
     importance and sentimentality, it almost never falls for 
     either. The best example: When the two lovebirds emerge from 
     the B&B to embrace a happy new life together in what Connors 
     considers a paradisiacal Punxsutawney, Connors declares, 
     ``Let's live here!'' They kiss, the music builds, and then in 
     the film's last line he adds: ``We'll rent to start.''

                          ____________________