Groundhog Day Theology

I had quite a few hits on my article about Groundhog Day.  A friend of mine from church shared this article about the movie with me...it's quite good.


http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=17-03-012-v

Groundhog Day

It's almost February 2, and as I sit in my study on a subzero Minnesota winter day, the length of winter does seem to be a source of great concern for me.  This movie came to mind today.  As I thought about it, I couldn't help but reflect on something I once heard Bill Murray say in an interview.  One of the interesting things about Bill Murray (and there are many interesting things about him), is that he has a background in improvisation.  He spent some of his early years in Chicago's Second City Comedy Club, a club that is all about improvisation.  With that in mind, his statement about "Groundhog Day" is all the more interesting.  He stated in this interview that almost every movie he has ever done has involved a lot of improv on his part.  He sees the script as a starting point, and a lot of the work he does goes beyond what is written.  He went on to say that one of the only times that he didn't even touch the script was for "Groundhog Day", a movie that he thought was written so well that it needed no amendments.  This movie is startlingly well executed.  It is very funny, but it also is actually quite profound as well.  It is a perfect example of how the Academy does not value comedy.  This movie is not just a comedy classic, but a classic.

Phil Connors (Murray) is a Pittsburgh weatherman who is on his way to Punxatawny, PA for the annual Groundhog Day festival.  Accompanying him is his producer Rita (Andie McDowell) and Larry (a wonderfully smarmy Chris Elliot).  Phil is a prima donna.  He hates doing this annual festival.  He feels that he is above everyone in the town, and he certainly feels that he is above doing this stupid groundhog day festival again.  He phones in his story and can't wait to get back home.   Unfortunately, a snow storm keeps his and his crew from going back to Pittsburgh.  He returns to his bed and breakfast for another night, wanting desperately to get back to his home in the big city.

The next morning, Phil wakes up and realizes he is living the same February 2 again.  This troubles him obviously weird for Phil, as he seems to be living the same day he just finished, but everyone else seems oblivious to that fact.  Day after day, Phil wakes up in the same place, on the same day.  The audience is the only "person" who also knows of Phil's predicament, and it is fascinating to watch the different stages he lives through.  He goes through a sage of debauchery.  He goes through a stage of depression.  He goes through a wild stage.  He goes through a suicidal stage.  His reaction to his situation ends up running the gamut of human emotion.  Along the way, his reactions are at times hilarious.  He begins to use his sudden immortality to hit on women, take enormous risks, eat whatever he want, and basically indulge his flesh.  After a while, he begins to see his colleague Rita in a new light.  She is a lovely woman who is completely disgusted by Phil's insensitivity and selfishness.  As Phil begins to fall for her, he begins to see a new purpose for his life, and he tries to become a better man.

I had never seen a movie remotely like this before I saw it, and nothing has been made like it since.  The ability of the writer for us to be so entertained by some of the same events time and again is noteworthy.  Phil is our device to view all of it in a new light and find it all funny.  The actors around Murray do an amazing job of repeating their tone and emotions, while Bill Murray's character can react to their actions in a new way each time.  In the long run, the movie is actually quite profound.  It has a lot to say about existence, selfishness, and why we do what we do.  But the movie would not work so well if it was not also light hearted and very funny.  Not only is Bill Murray perfect in his role, but the supporting cast and character actors in the film all create a wonderful world in Pennsylvania.  As Phil becomes increasingly desperate to escape Groundhog Day, the obliviousness of everyone around him makes his frustration even funnier.  "Schindler's List" run Best Picture the year this movie came out, and that is appropriate.  But this movie is a giant, and I think it will be remembered and only get better with age.  One of the only weak spots I can find in it is how dated the music is sounds.  The last time I watched it, I found it hard to get through the song playing under the opening credits!  Other than that, this is a great movie.  Dust it off and enjoy it again!

Idea for Future Posts

Over the last couple of days, I have had a couple of friends suggest movies that they would like to hear my thoughts on...I would love to start a list of some ideas of movies on which to write.  I wondered if some of my readers would mind leaving requests for me in the comment section.  If you are not on blogspot, go ahead and e-mail me at losbascoms@mac.com.  I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Kingpin

Art is unnecessary.  Some people, including myself, would say that it is a necessary outgrowth of any culture...but as far as the survival of the race goes, there is nothing necessary about it.  It always involves reflection, and reflection is hard to come by if one is merely trying to survive.  Paradoxically, I think we as humans do need art.  We need to be able to see that we are not alone.  Artistic expression is one way that we know that we are not alone.  From the works of the Psalmist in the Bible, to the paintings of Picasso, to the symphonies of Beethoven, to the film works of Akira Kurosawa, art emanates from every part of the globe, and from every age.

I watched a movie called "Kingpin" recently.  "Kingpin" would never be called high art.  It is low brow comedy, and it does contain a lot of laughs.  When I was through watching it, I was convinced that I had seen a work of art, but I felt worse as a person for watching it.  Some of this has to do with my faith, of course.  My faith has certain tenants regarding sexuality, and when they are joked about so mercilessly and crudely, I sort of feel like I have been dragged through the mud.  However, the movie had great comic acting, the jokes were creative and well constructed.  It's just that nearly every single one of them ended up making me cringe as well.

The movie follows an up and coming bowler named Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson).  He was brought up to bowl by his father, and he is on his way to glory when he meets Ernie McCracken (Bill Murray, playing an absolutely horrible person, and playing it well).  Ernie sees his talent, and gets the naive Roy to help him win at gambling.  One of the victims of their scam gets angry, and as Ernie flees the scene, Roy is left at the mercy of the thugs, who mutilate his hand in a bowling ball return.  Years later, Roy is living a disgusting, sad life.  At a bowling alley in Scranton, PA, he sees a young Amish man (Randy Quaid) who appears to be gifted at bowling.  He sees this young man as a ticket out of his hard luck, so the two of the set off for Reno to compete in a million dollar bowling competition.

The movie was directed by the Faraley Brothers, who went on to direct the highly acclaimed comedy, "There's Something About Mary."  I have never seen that movie, and I'm not sure I will now.  I can appreciate well crafted comedy, even when it is dirty.  Eventually however, it becomes an exercise in understanding what works for me.  This movie ended up being funny, but it didn't have enough truth to warrant the humor, nor the cheer in the humor to make it fun.  Instead, it was continual joking about either bodily functions or human misery.  As a film, on it's own, I found it irredeemable.  As it turns out, each film must be judged on its own.  For instance, I really enjoyed "Fever Pitch", another Faraley Brothers film which I found to be very funny, but much more uplifting.  It is too easy to simply write off a director or an actor without judging actually looking at an individual work.  This film is well crafted on many levels, but since art is interactive, there is more to the experience than simple craft.

It would be easy I suppose, to take the view of abstinence.  After all, if I never watch a movie again, I will never be offended again.  I would never have to have the feeling of being dragged through the mud again.  My faith, at so many levels, is about finding balance.  Sometimes one only knows when one is out of balance once one had fallen off the beam.  Fortunately, I didn't injure myself too badly falling off the beam on this one. 

Zero Dark Thirty

It's kind of nice to be in a position in which I have absolutely no idea how close to accurate this film is, so I can enjoy it for what it is.  Make no mistake, there are things in the film which are controversial, so their veracity is important.  But, since the end of the movie is already known going in, the journey to the ending is what makes this movie noteworthy.  The movie clearly wants to depict certain things with which the viewer can grapple, but I felt that the movie's strong point was the fact that it didn't preach.  With some of the things depicted in this film being very controversial, I think it would have been easy for director Kathryn Bigelow to stray into the realm of moralising, and I think it is to her credit (and the film's) that she did not.

The film follows the 11 year journey of one CIA agent named Maya.  After the attacks on September 11, 2001, America got involved all over the world in leads regarding terrorism, and became particularly entangled in Iraq and Afganistan.  Maya moves to Pakistan to help the CIA track down terrorists, particularly the ehad of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden.  Some of the opening scenes involve Maya acclimating to the difficult world of interrogation.  The scenes depicting water boarding and other interrogation methods are handled honestly, and with very little commentary.  It is clear that the first time Maya sees an interrogation that she is uncomfortable.  She clearly becomes more comfortable over time with the methods (or more calloused, you be the judge), and the movie leaves ambiguous how directly these methods affect the eventual outcome.  One cannot watch the interrogation scenes and not at least question the appropriateness of these actions, but given the scale of the attacks on America, it certainly makes things murky at best, and the movie seems comfortable leaving it that way. 

Once some of that depiction is out the way, the movie actually settles into a standard underdog movie.  Maya believes that one person (Abu Ahmad) is the key to finding Bil Laden.  Maya's boss (a one note character played very well by Kyle Chandler) is not only not convinced that this lead is a good one, but he doesn't even think that finding Bin Laden is that big of a deal.  He feels that the attacks that the US has been under in other places show that Bin Laden is not where the CIA should be focusing.  In a turning point confrontation scene, Maya asserts that all of the other battles he has been fighting are roads that lead back to Osama Bin Laden anyway. Maya is eventually able to land some key intelligence and thus begins the slow march toward that fateful night in May of 2011 when a group of Navy Seals penetrated the home where Osama Bin Laden lived.  As the day of the operation draws near, Maya's obsession with catching Bin Laden takes center stage.

Many have criticized this movie as being pro torture because torture is depicted, and it leads the viewer to think that "torture" was necessary to catch Bin Laden.  I don't necessarily disagree with the position, but after seeing the movie, I think it kind of misses the point.  The film is depicting a world in which terrorism and interrogation exist, and doesn't spoon feed the viewer what to think of it.  The world of war is a very different one.  One of the reasons war is to be avoided is that it creates a myriad of moral ambiguities.  Saying that interrogation of this nature is evil sort of begs the question, since war itself is evil (though I believe it can be morally justified at times-a necessary evil.)  I think that the viewer needs to ask whether or not this film does a good job depicting the world in which these things happen, and I think this film does do that well. 

The acting is also very good.  Jessica Chastain seems to land one great role after another (the mother in "Tree of Life", the isolated housewife in "The Help").  She carries this movie very well in the put upon "against all odds" story.  The supporting cast is also quite good.  I thought James Gandofini truly stole the scenes he was in as CIA director Leon Panetta. All of the actors (including several actors of Middle Eastern descent) create a very effective portrait of this man hunt.  I do not think this movie will be a classic, but it was very effective, and it stands out as a movie for our time.  It is a story very close to all of us who have lived in the post 9/11 world.

Les Miserables

    2012 will always be always be remembered by me as a very complicated year.  But one thing stayed with me almost the whole year.  In May, I decided to begin the task of reading Victor Hugo's colossal novel Les Miserables.  I cannot remember if I knew at the time that a movie version of the musical was being made, but I knew that I wanted to read this book that I had heard so much about.  As I began the book, the opening pages were both verbose and beautiful.  They recount the life and character of a Bishop in a French village called Digne.  The opening chapters go into tremendous detail about this Bishop, but he does not figure at all in most of the story.  Instead, it is essential to the greater arc of Hugo's narrative that he show this Bishop's character so that when Hugo's protagonist (the paroled thief Jean Valjean) comes to him, we already know how he will treat him.

    As I found myself enthralled in the beginnings of this story back in May, I called my dad to tell him how much I was enjoying this book.  He was very aware of the book and the musical, but had never read the book or seen the play.  I was so excited to share this work with him, and I hoped that some day he too would read the book and we could discuss it, as we had discussed so many works of art over the years.  When I finally finished the novel in October, I no longer had my dad with me to discuss the work.  Also, I had begun to await the arrival of the movie version of the musical with great anticipation.  I am confident that any time I return to this story, whether I see it on the stage, the screen, or read the book again, I will be reminded of this time in my life, and how the story of suffering and grace that Hugo gave us all became a soothing balm for me in a troubling time.

    The story of Les Miserables is a story that touches me for many different reasons.  The primary reason I find it so moving is its understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  The movie which Tom Hooper directed does very little to water down that element of both the musical and the book.  I want to here issue a SPOILER ALERT...some of the thematic elements upon which I will reflect involve plot point from the end of the story.  As I mentioned before, the character of the Bishop at the beginning of the story is key.  He figures in this way: as Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) leaves his life as a prisoner, he is given papers by a French officer named Javert (Russell Crowe) to show that he is an ex-convict.  As such, no one will hire him for work, nor take him in.  When the Bishop of Digne is the only one who takes him in, Valjean repays him by stealing his silver dishes and heading out of town.  Unfortunately for Valjean, he is caught trying to escape, and when the police bring him to the Bishop, the Bishop merely states that Valjean had forgotten to also take the silver candlesticks that he had given him as well.  As the police leave, the Bishop charges Valjean to become an honest man with the silver. 

    Valjean does indeed accomplish this, but Javert never trusts him.  Many years later, Jean Valjean is a mayor in a town as well as a factory owner who employs a woman name Fantine.  Fantine has had a daughter out of wedlock, and when that becomes known, she is thrown out by the foreman of the factory without Valjean's knowledge.  As Fantine's life unravels, eventually she dies, but not before Valjean promises to raise her child.  The story continues to involve itself with uprisings of the working class poor in Paris as well as the ongoing struggle between grace and law that is symbolized by Javert (law) and Jean Valjean (grace).  The film is a musical, and there are several memorable musical moments along the way which are stunning.

    As a film, this movie is a remarkable accomplishment on many levels.  Each musical number was recorded live on camera, while most musicals have had actors or actresses recording songs beforehand and lip synching on camera.  Modern technology made it possible for director Tom Hooper to digitally remove the microphones on the performers, thereby lending an authenticity to the musical numbers that I have never seen in a musical before.  The photography and visual imagination of the film is also great.  The scenery gives us the rough streets of Paris in all of their poverty and filth. 

    On another front, I think this musical works better as a movie than on the stage.   For instance, in one of the the most popular numbers in the musical, "One Day More", each character can sing their parts in their actual place in the story, rather than all the characters standing next to each other on the stage.  The film allows them to be singing separately, and I think it works better. 

    The cast of this movie does great work.  I cannot think of a more harrowing scene in almost any film than Anne Hathaway's interpretation of the show stopping "I Dreamed A Dream" number toward the beginning of the movie.  Tom Hooper's use of silence in this scene was also quite effective, as the desolation Fantine feels comes across on the screen.  As Javert, Russell Crowe evokes an effective presence.  Even though he doesn't have the finest singing voice, he does a great job of inhabiting the character.  Sasha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are perfect as the bottom feeding Thenaldeiers.  Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne are very good in their roles as young lovers Cosette and Marius.  Daniel Huttlestone is pitch perfect as the street waif Gavroche.  And Hugh Jackman anchors the whole film with a remarkable presence as Jean Valjean.  He does not have the best singing voice, but his ability to evoke true emotion from these songs and to show this character as the world weary man that he is is truly remarkable.  I quite admired Daniel Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, but I think Hugh Jackman's work moved me even more.  The film (and the musical for that matter) have drawn criticism from some for being too over the top and emotional.  It is fair to say that this movie is not nuanced.  It is a "pull out all the stops", weepy, emotional experience.  Since that is not everyone's cup of tea, that should be kept in mind.  On the other hand, a story which wears both its heart and its message on its sleeve can be quite refreshing.  I love a good, challenging art house movie as much as anyone, but I also have lots of room in my heart for a overwrought spectacle such as this.  Tom Hooper delivers a movie musical with a distinct style and vision, and he should be considered for his second best director award in three years (he won for "The King's Speech" two years ago).  This film is at least worthy of appreciation, whether one likes the overwrought romanticism or not.

    But beyond the technical and artistic greatness of this film version, it is the thematic elements of the story that touch me.  The depiction of those themes is done very well here, so that makes the experience that much more moving.  With all of these wonderful performances and music, there is much to be seen as well from the depth of the story.  As Jean Valjean attempts to leave behind his past, Javert will not let him forget his sins.  Javert is a true legalist, and he cannot abide the thought that a man should not be punished to the full extent of the law.  He is, in the end, completely unable to live once he is in turn shown grace, and the struggle between these two men and what they stand for is the heart of the story.  This is what I would have loved to share with my dad.  As a believer in the Christian message, the appeals in this movie to the grace and freedom of the cross are rich.  Dad would have been truly moved by those images as they flickered across the screen.  Ironically, this is also a movie about suffering and how we go to death, and these two issues were brought home to me in a real way last year.  As Jean Valjean's life comes to an end, he sees death very much as St. Paul does in 2 Timothy.  Death is the end of a long race and struggle, and the rest that he can find in death is apparent, especially as he can rest in the salvation of his soul.  I don't know why dad died last year, and I never will.  But I do know that the longer I live, the more I see how much suffering and weariness there is in this world.  There is a certain comfort that can be taken in the possibility of peace beyond the grave.  Jean Valjean has that in his faith, and so, I believe, does anyone who comes under the grace of God through Christ.  This powerful reality does not negate the horrible suffering of this world, but it can redeem it, and that truth became real to me this year more than ever as I buried my father and immersed myself in this powerful story.  Maybe it is not an accident that I saw this movie in the first days of 2013.  Maybe this year will be one wherein I can move forward.  However, I am given no such guarantee.  Things could get worse this year for all I know.  But one thing I know...like Jean Valjean, I hope in the grace of Christ.  The beauty of this message flashes across the screen in this movie with such richness.  This story will always occupy a special place in my life not only due to its content, but when I encountered it on my journey.  To see these truths come across the screen in an ordinary multiplex in an ordinary suburb was truly an extraordinary experience.

"42" Trailer

A trailer for a biopic of Jackie Robinson...with Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey...could be interesting.