WHATCHA WATCHIN'? 11. Groundhog Day (1993)

“Oh, let's not spoil it!”

Groundhog Day (1993); directed by Harold Ramis; written by Harold Ramis and Danny Rubin, from a story by Rubin; produced by Harold Ramis and Trevor Albert; music by George Fenton; cinematography by John Bailey; editing by Pembroke J. Herring; distributed by Columbia Pictures; for full details and awards, go here.

Yes, Groundhog Day has come and gone. It’s a day that never made much impression on me until Harold Ramis, with co-screenwriter Danny Rubin, created the film of that name. It’s such a striking “celebration” of the day that it became at once a tradition in my house to watch it every year when the otherwise easily ignorable “holiday” comes around. And this year—2015—was particularly fitting as we were in great expectation, here in the Northeast, of a “big blizzard thing.” We did get snowfall in Connecticut that was not negligible, and which, compared to predictions, was a bit more inconvenient than the “historic” storm of the previous week (what was that line about “count the storms of winter”?). Anyway, there is plenty of snow in bulk on the streets to foil parking and travel, and walking the sidewalks requires a certain amount of strategy.

So, why not resuscitate my “50 Since 1970” series with a choice that makes it on because, yeah, I watch it at least once a year and it’s well on its way to “beloved” status. We lost Harold Ramis last year, in February no less, who was a comic presence well-liked since his brief stint with the initial cast—he was one of the chief writers—of Second City TV.

Ramis’s odd-ball genius is best represented by Groundhog Day, a film rather sui generis. It’s a comedy of (bad) manners, it’s a romantic comedy, it’s a comic quasi-Twilight Zone situation. News weatherman, and perennial misanthrope, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) gets trapped in a time warp that means he has to keep reliving February 2nd in Punxsutawny, PA, home of the groundhog, also named Phil, whose ability to see his shadow predicts the number of weeks to spring. Phil is there to cover the happy-go-lucky shenanigans with his new gee-willikers-style producer, Rita (Andie McDowell), and sniping camera-man, Larry (an essential Chris Elliott). Phil is fed up with just about everything and lets us know it in what is still one of Bill Murray’s best performances to date. Murray rose to fame as a lovable wise-ass, his knowing smirk one of the key features of Saturday Night Live during his time on the show. He often plays the type who doesn’t suffer fools gladly and is all-too-ready to play anyone as a fool. People tend to become his straightmen, willy-nilly. That’s very much the case here and his chagrin at getting stuck in Punxsutawny due to that blizzard is palpable enough. Then we get to experience the ultimate bummer when he realizes—with a range of emotions, from panic to glee to depression to delusions of grandeur, and, finally, acceptance and humility—that he is stuck in the same day, possibly forever.

Do you ever feel that other people are little wind-up robots doing and saying what they’ve been programmed to say and do? Well, that’s very much the case here as Phil gets to alter the script only so much. Everyone else is more or less in a state of repetition compulsion while he gets to be the free agent, within the limitations of the day and place. We get glimpses of just how far afield Phil can take his furloughs from his assignment: since he remembers what happens on each successive Groundhog Day and everyone else experiences the day for the first time, he’s able to lift huge sums of money, seduce a local woman as though he knew her in high school, joy ride without fear of lasting reprisal, eat like there’s no consequences to indulging his sweet tooth, and, when it all becomes too much, try offing himself in a variety of ways. He also begins to take an interest in Rita, who he initially brushed off as too lightweight and goody-goody.

There follows the kind of sequences that make this a good date movie too. Everyone knows those “first date” blunders that some never manage to recover from. As when Phil sneers at Rita’s major in college (French poetry) or when, winning near the goal on a few tries thanks to spontaneous laughter on her part, he tries vainly to recreate “the moment.” This is where the subtlety of the script becomes apparent: how many ways can Phil be foiled in trying to fuck Rita? Every way possible until, finally, he actually becomes, by befriending everyone and acting as an agent of mercy in any situation that could prove harmful for others on that day in that town, the kind of guy she could fall in love with. At which point Phil is no longer the Phil we started with. It’s as if Sisyphus has to keep rolling that damned rock up the hill till he figures a few things out.

Along the way there are many, many replays that repay the attention, so much so that the film becomes “one of those movies”: the kind that gets referenced in general interaction, its lines and situations applicable to the business of living “stuck in the same place where nothing you did makes any difference.” At one point, Phil, driven to despair by his inability to manipulate Rita—even after he sincerely tries to earn her affection—gives us the mantra for February: “It’s going to be cold, it’s going to be gray, and it’s going to last you the rest of your life.”

The setting of the film, the homey Illinois town that stands-in for Punxsutawny, looks better as time goes on. It’s a bit like another town we revisit each year, where Jimmy Stewart has a dark night of the soul on Christmas eve, which means it has average people doing average things with an average degree of acceptance of their place in life. Phil is the one who doesn’t get it, until he does. One of my favorite scenes along that journey is a brief shot of him sitting in the diner reading in the afternoon. It’s a glimpse of the kind of thing I associate with being in grad school (the film was released not long after I took my generals), where a good part of the day is spent reading and the world around you tends to become a warm cocoon of people doing their appointed tasks. In the scene, Murray looks up and looks around with that exact feeling of gratitude to the here and now that I recall feeling a few times. And one of the books on the table is Ulysses by James Joyce, who just happened to be born on February 2nd, and whose masterpiece examines one day in the life of an average guy.

And that, I suppose, is a way of saying that this is a literate comedy too. Something that was hard enough to find after the run Woody Allen had of excellent films to the end of the Eighties. At one point, Phil, newly inspired in his groundhog coverage, cites Chekhov, and later learns to play Rachmaninoff. That detail alone suggests how long, in terms of his experience, this purgatory lasts. If you ever need a figure for what it means to atone, this film should do it.

There’s great support for Murray too—from McDowell of the girl-next-door charm, the occasional hot pout and the leonine hair, to Chris Elliott’s smart-alecky sidekick, to Stephen Tobolowsky as the unforgettable Ned “Needle-nose” Ryerson, a “giant leech” in the form of a rather squirrelly insurance salesman, to Bill’s older brother Brian Doyle-Murray as the fond Mayor of the town, to a cameo by Ramis as a doctor consulted early on, to Dan Pasquesi as a timid shrink, to Marita Geraghty as the perennial high-school girl, Nan-cy, Nan-cy Tay-lor!, and don’t overlook an early sighting of Michael Shannon, Oscar-nominated actor (for Revolutionary Road), as Fred, the guy so buzzed about getting Wrestle-mania tickets.

Warm, funny, quirky, with enough fed-uppedness for just about any February, Groundhog Day is certainly one of the best comedies of the Nineties, one of the best “feelgood movies” of all time, and a big step along the way for Bill Murray from playing snarky, fatuous guys—for which Ghostbusters is still the best—to playing guys “with soul,” as for instance in Wes Anderson movies. In fact, that transition is the point of this movie.

50 Since 1970

DB's Song of the Day (day 364): "WING" (1996) Patti Smith

Today’s birthday girl, Patti Smith, got into my blood in the summer of 1978 after Easter was released. And in 1979 came Wave. Those two albums capped off the streak that began with Horses (1975) and Radio Ethiopia (1976). That’s classic period Patti. Songs from those four albums graced the tape I made of songs alternating between Patti and The Doors.

I thought initially I’d take a song from back then, something like the sensual bacchanalia that is “Break It Up,” from Horses, or the randy, mercurial seduction of “Ain’t it Strange” from her second album. Or even the prayerful plea of “Privilege (Set Me Free),” on her third, or a song that seemed tailored for me and MEM in 1979: “Dancing Barefoot.” All those songs carry a charge I could attest to, for sure.

But then I thought of a song Kajsa gave me by Patti Smith from 1996’s Gone Again. It was the return of Patti Smith, as I hadn’t heard her since those high and free late Seventies days. She had lost her husband, lost her first love Robert Mapplethorpe, her brother, and her early bandmate Richard Sohl. And hearing her haggard voice again was moving. In fact, the vocal that brought me to tears was her special guest appearance on R.E.M.’s “E-Bow the Letter” from New Adventures in Hi Fi that same year. It took me by surprise to be hearing her, and to know, as Gloucester says of Lear, “the trick of that voice” was quietly affecting. In 1996, my family suffered my father’s death and there were traumatic deaths back in 1979 too. It seems, somehow, that Patti Smith, with her tragic tones tempered by strength, fits into that state where you’re getting beyond the known world. What comes after? Who knows? But Patti Smith is one of the few rockers who seems to really want to know.

There’s always been this love-hate relationship with the notion of revealed godhead in her songs, as though, on the one hand, the poet wants to be a god unto herself, and, on the other, feels the need to worship something beyond the human. At times, her overstated yearning can become a bit much. In “Privilege” I don’t mind it because adding Psalm 23 to the song just seems like something worth doing, if you’re going to be calling upon God to “give me something, give me reason to live.”

Me, I tend to be somewhat less hieratic in my living, though not always in my writing, so maybe that’s why I feel able to claim kin often enough with Ms. Patti. And today’s song is her in an attenuated mood. This isn’t one to rock out on and do the dirty deed, nor one to beseech your Maker to give you some kind of soul boost, it’s a song of mourning, a song of coping, a song of coming through. And I like it as a wish for the end of the season, end of the year. It’s not a “wish you were here” so much as a “wish you could transcend” sentiment. “And if there’s one thing / Could do for you / You’d be a wing / In heaven blue.”

That could be said to those she’s lost; it could be said to the many ghosts I’ve cited—even the ghosts of former selves—in these many posts; and it builds on her statement that she “was a wing / In heaven blue” herself and “soared over oceans” and “I was free.” The imagery reaches back to the Song of day 357, Pearl Jam’s “Given to Fly,” another song about flying and freedom and making an effort on behalf of a spiritual connection. Smith is less heroic in her appeal here, though, and that in itself appeals; she identifies herself, in lines delivered in a characteristic nearly guttural drawl, “I was a pawn / Didn’t have a move / Didn’t have nowhere / That I could go / But I was free / I needed nobody / It was beautiful.”

That sense of getting beyond one’s debts to and need for others is part of the big finish of death, one imagines. When you can just sail like a wing into the blue. Similarly, there is a vision—seen in the eye of the dead—of “no future at all.” An uncanny, bodiless freedom, a freedom from being and from all the wanting and needing and trying and striving and shame and sorrow and joy and love that goes with the body. Not even a bird, mind you, just a wing. Just flight, and no way to land.

A wish for all our ghosts.

DB's Song of the Day (day 361): "STREETS THAT TIME WALKS" (1998) Son Volt

Jay Farrar, whose birthday was yesterday, was a main factor in Uncle Tupelo, along with co-leader Jeff Tweedy, who went on to bigger things with Wilco. Farrar formed Son Volt which released one must-have album, Trace (1995), and then a couple other lesser records. Farrar put the band on hiatus and then made two very interesting solo albums, Sebastopol (2001) and Terroir Blues (2003); the first of these was the first I heard of Farrar, c. 2002, when my friend Emmy mentioned Sebastopol in passing. I picked it up and it was one of the albums that dominated that period of my listening. Kajsa and I saw Farrar live—in Towson, MD—somewhere after his second solo album came out, and the live album he put out of that tour is a lot like what we heard. It was a great classic rock show.

Farrar is a good songwriter, if maybe a bit more old school with Son Volt than his former bandmate Tweedy is with Wilco, though the latter can be too. In those early-in-the-century years, Farrar was a nice shot in the arm, blending in well on tapes with songs of early-in-the-century Dylan and end-of-the-career Johnny Cash. Farrar, of late, seems to be on a mission to recreate a voice in music, via Woody Guthrie as model, that reflects his commitment to what music can be. All through those dark W. years Farrar was clearly looking for a way to signal opposition to the powers and culture that be. The problem is that Farrar can often be a bit lugubrious. Invective and satire and pithy political apothegms don’t exactly fly from his pen.

Which is one reason I prized Sebastopol so much. As a kind of “experiment with the basics” album, it gave us songs and created a sound that felt right in those up-for-grab times. It had glimmerings of joy, but it was all under a dark cloud. When I went back and picked up the Son Volt albums, I found on each some gems that increased my sense of Farrar as a voice of morose reflection, and that’s what today’s song is. It feels to me like the right choice for this post late in the series because it’s sort of addressing the very thing I’ve been addressing all through this swiftly ending year.

No conspiracy to deny you / Or push you astray / You’ve withstood the streets that time walks / Still treading on a hallowed, gone heyday

I certainly take to heart now and did then, c. 2003, that there was no conspiracy denying me whatever it is I wasn’t achieving, and as for going astray, well, that’s between me and me. But that bit about withstanding the streets that time walks? I liked to think, back then, that perhaps I had, that the past was past and something different would come. Now, I think that the pastness of so much of what I’ve posted about shows me to be once again on those streets, “treading on a hallowed, gone heyday” indeed.

Likewise “the promise of days gone past / Is a foregone situation.” Who would argue with that? If the promise is foregone we can trust that he has not nor will come to fruition. Other cheery formulations, like “A one way talk with only the darkness” and “Fleeing ghosts for all the wrong reasons / With apathetic eyes to the future,” capture some of the feeling here as we wind toward another winter, trying to dispense with some obligatory ghosts.

And at this very moment, on the point of departing where I’m from for where I live (approached by degrees via PA), I can note as apropos: “Homesick along with a hometown stay / Pack it up or pack it in.” I should be packing up soon enough before packing it in. But the idea that a “hometown stay” can be accompanied by homesickness is rather good, showing that our man Farrar knows how little what's actual matches what's virtual.

Let’s just say that the song is a prime example of the Jay Farrar Blues, full of a certain ripe and rueful regret. That sensation rang true to me then and it rings true to me now, though with some attenuation. I suppose that change comes from the feeling that the streets of time I walked then are not the ones I’m walking now. Still, it’s a resonant song to post on as yet another “time” ends.

Somewhere between “the big dream is hollowed” and “just take it for another spin” is the situation of this particular street.