OKAY, CAMPERS, RISE AND SHINE, AND DON'T FORGET YOUR BOOTIES 'CAUSE IT'S COOOOOOLD OUT THERE TODAY: It's February 2, so it's time to talk about the movie again. Do you buy the whole Buddhist thing, or should we just quote lines for a while and generally discuss its awesomeness?
Participate in this thread, or it's gonna be cold, it's gonna be grey, and it's gonna last you for the rest of your life.
the piano teacher is God http://www.metafilter.com/100170/Its-groundhog-day-again#3497871
ReplyDeleteThis is easily one of my favorite features on the blog. Thanks for doing it.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible that he stops going to lessons at a certain point, and shifts to his ice carving practice?
ReplyDeleteBut he clearly goes for a piano lesson on that final Groundhog Day, because while he's performing at the party, the teacher boasts to Andie MacDowell, "He's my student!"
ReplyDeleteI need to rewatch to see if I still like my theory: Phil had to figure out the most karmically optimal way to spend the 18 or so hours he would have on his final day.
ReplyDeleteOver time, he settled on some perfect combination - saving the fellow from choking, buying wrestlmania tickets, saving the kid from the tree, letting Ned have a good day of sales, comforting a dying man (did he do that on the final day? Or was just the vehicle to teach him love?) letting the piano teacher have a moment of such pride, and winning the girl - many things that were dead-ends (seducing Nancy, kidnapping the groundhog, etc.) were things that he eventually learned not to do.
He was trapped in a globally-well off town, was cut off from leaving, and could only work with the cast of characters he had - there was no obligation in that day to try to solve some world problem, but merely -- with the canvas before him -- to do all a man could do in those 18 hours.