Post: I start 30 years later: the teacher identifies with it and watches a movie every day for a year.


Australian university professor Adam Daniel conducted an experiment: watch the famous film Groundhog Day with Bill Murray every day for a year. What lessons did he take from this?

There is a film that, more than any other, can explain to everyone the essence of karmaAn Indian term that in one word philosophically describes the law of cause and effect. The actions we take, the suggestions we make, the way we conduct ourselves have direct consequences for other people. If our behavior is reprehensible, sooner or later we will have to answer for it. It’s a reflection of history Earth Dayconceived Danny Rubin and script Harold Ramis who also directed him for film. We all know this movie well. i start over in Italian and released in American theaters 30 years ago, February 2, 1993funny and surprisingly intelligent comedy.

The time loop in which the main character Phil Connors is imprisoned, forced to endlessly relive the same day, is the cornerstone on which the story builds its philosophy. This sarcastic and self-absorbed meteorologist has much to learn from life, which for some mysterious reason rages on him, allowing him to control his fate for an endless period of time for him, the same 24 hours for everyone else. When he understands that we all need to help each other on this planet, he will find redemption and be able to be reborn. Naturally i start over, revered by Buddhistsnever would have been famous for so long if this character hadn’t been beautifully embodied by someone who, perhaps Phil Connors, was a bit of himself. Bill Murray.

Groundhog Day Literally: University teacher watches Groundhog Day in circles throughout the year

These last years of the pandemic, when all of us, more or less, were forced to return home due to several lockdowns, tickled our minds, sometimes bringing them to the maximum reflection. Everyone held on as best they could, and this feeling of repetition from groundhog dayWithout the groundhog predicting a few more weeks of snow in Pennsylvania, we found ourselves. So sure Adam Daniellecturer at the University of Western Sydney, strove for an extreme fusion of reality and fiction, deciding what he would look like i start over every day for a year. So he did, and below you can read his account, published in The Conversation online magazine, titled “The Pleasure and Pain of Cinephilia: What Happened When I Watched Groundhog Day Every Day for a Year”:

Life in isolation brought me frustration, boredom, as if progress had stopped. This circumstance gave me the opportunity to set myself a very unusual task: to watch the same movie once a day, every day for a year. As a film student and cinephile, I wanted to find a film that could support this kind of viewing and understand what the viewer took away from the experience. Ricomincho da capo was a natural candidate. One Monday morning in September 2021, I sat on the couch and pressed the play button.

In the first month, my first interest was storytelling. Like many other viewers, I wondered how long Phil had been in this loop (my estimate is about 30 years, which is between the 10 suggested by director Harold Ramis and the 10,000 expected in the original text by Danny Rubin). I was wondering how plausible it was that Rita (Andie MacDowell’s character) would fall in love with Phil after getting to know him better in just one day. I was wondering how improvised Murray’s playing was (according to Rubin, “some nuances”, but proportionately less than one would think).

Gradually, my familiarity with storytelling forced me to shift my focus. Further visions became exploratory. I tried to reveal details that the average viewer might not notice. I started noticing the double appearance of some extras from one scene to the next, building my stories around their personalities. I realized that the boy in the wheelchair in the background of the scene at the hospital was the same boy that Phil saves every day from breaking his leg.

I used up all the excess material on the film. Rubin’s screenplay and film commentary, a detailed monograph by film critic Ryan Gilbey, and commentary by Harold Ramis were instructive. In retrospect, I realize that I followed my natural inclination as a scientist, trying to understand something more fully, delving deeper into it. And then I went into stasis.

Halfway through, my vision went into cataloging and memorizing mode. Phil Connors’ weather reports spontaneously flashed through my head, and I built a mental map of Punxsutawney. I was sure that I could show the way to the tourist. Then I started talking to the movie while it was on TV.

Some days the vision seemed like a curse. When Rita discovers Phil’s dilemma, she says, “Maybe it’s not a curse. Maybe it depends on your point of view.” A shift in my perspective has taken place over the past three months. I found myself returning to exploratory viewing mode, encouraged by sharing theories and discussing them with other people who liked the movie but weren’t crazy enough to watch it hundreds of times.

New theories have emerged. I decided that the bartender at the Pennsylvania Hotel was clearly aware of Phil’s plight (notice his vicious gaze and how quickly he serves their favorite drinks) and that one of the Punxsutawney residents was clearly having an affair, as you can see while visiting the groundhog. festival with his wife and a banquet with his lover. I am not the first to offer an alternative reading of the film, but during the last viewing I realized that the film can transform with us, opening up new layers from viewing to viewing.

In recent years, many scientists have explored the practice of rewatching, especially with the advent of devices that give us the ability to see what we want, when and where we want. Film theorist Barbara Klinger suggests that the films we are familiar with have the ability to become our “friends” and coined the term “karaoke cinema” to describe the joy of deep familiarity and quotation, arguing that the experience provides viewers with an element of comfort and mastery. My experience certainly confirms his claims.

Watching Groundhog Day every day for a year gave me a much greater appreciation for how a movie can contain connections, especially those we choose to relive over and over again. The legacy of Groundhog Day can be seen in the recurring appeal of time loop storytelling in TV shows and movies such as Palm Springs, Russian Doll, and Happy Death Day. And, like any worthy work of art, it is also able to support its own deep reflection and reveal its facets and dimensions to an inquisitive observer. By the finish line, I was in high spirits and celebrated the last viewing on the cinema screen. I have a feeling it will be some time before I see the film again, but it’s nice to know it will be there when I’m ready, like an old friend greeting guests.

Source: Coming Soon

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