Movies & the Meaning of Life
September 14th 2006 11:29
Groundhog Day
When I first saw this film many years ago, I thought it was interesting, slightly irritating and mildly entertaining. Now, in retrospect, I think I missed the key point of it. I recently read and devoured a gem of a book called Movies and the Meaning of Life by Kimberley Blessing and Paul Tudico. The book is a compilation of essays written by various writers with qualifications ranging from philosophy to theology. It is dedicated to showing how a wide variety of films have tackled the eternal question of ‘what’s it all about’. Life that is. This question has perplexed the great thinkers of philosphty for eons. According to Albert Camus, an existentialist writer, ‘The meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.’
This book of essays draws on films such as The Truman Show and Contact to explore the nature of reality; Fight Club and Being John Malkovich for cogent lessons on finding one's true identity; American Beauty and The Shawshank Redemption for pointers on life's purpose; Pleasantville and Spiderman for nuggets of wisdom on how to live one's life; and many more interesting corrolations.
The chapter on Groundhog Day caught my eye, I wondered this particular film could have to do with finding the meaning of life. The opening quotation by Nietzsche from his piece The Gay Science set the scene:
‘The Greatest Burden. What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou lives it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence-and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and thou with it, thou speck of dust!’
The film represents Nietzsche’s ideas about eternal return. The basic premise is that the universe is limited in extent and contains a finite amount of matter, while time is viewed as being infinite. The universe has no starting or ending state, while the matter comprising it is constantly changing its state. The number of possible changes is finite, and so sooner or later the same state will recur. At least one mathematical proof has been developed to disprove this rationale for eternal return. In other words, life is cyclical.
Coincidentally the film was actually on television the day after I read the chapter. Perfect timing. Phil, a weatherman is faced with a situation not that different to the one envisaged by Nietzsche. It is not quite an eternal return as Phil relives a day rather than an entire lifetime, but he learns from his experience and changes his behaviour accordingly. This is Phil’s fourth year covering the same story in Punxsutawney, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the 'following' day he discovers that it's Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. At first he tries to use this to his advantage and then discovers that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing every day. He begins to worry that he will be living like this forever. He scrambles through the days with different attempts at making a difference.
Its meaning was beginning to take shape in my mind and has remained quite strong since reading the essay and the seeing the film. What is the point of our lives if we don’t live it actively? And until we do so, our life may just plod along without zest. Is this what we want? This is the essence of the film, once Bill Murray’s character realises the power of living actively, it was only then that his life could change and he would be free from the confines of Groundhog Day.
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Comment by Craig
That was probably the one thing I've disagreed with Camus about: the importance and urgency in finding the meaning of life.
Comment by Tracy
Movies and Life
I know what you mean about searching for the meaning of life...there are some days that it just doesn't seem so imperative...or maybe that's apathy...ah well...and then there are days where its meaning is completely perplexing....
Comment by Chantal
The thing is, Phil's reaction is probably the same as most people's. I think it would take a lot of stupidity before we worked out the real meaning of an experience like that... hey isn't that what we're doing in this life? Making loads of stupid mistakes, a lot of the time repeating them in the hopes that some day we'll find greater meaning and it will all fall into place.
Comment by Cibbuano
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