| | Groundhog
Day by Ryan Gilbey.
The
British Film Institute's
book series, Film
Classic and Modern
Classic are valuable critical texts that focus on a
single film of choice picked by the author. Personal favorites
Taxi Driver by Amy Taubin in the former series,
and Dead Man by Jonathan
Rosenbaum in the latter series are now joined in my
library by Groundhog Day by Ryan Gilbey. Finding
acceptance with just about everybody, from Buddhist to Jewish
to Catholic to atheist, the film began as a screenplay by
Danny Rubin, eventually modified by director Harold Ramis
into its filmed incarnation. While the critical writing
of Gilbey isn't as insightful as Taubin's or Rosenbaum's,
the book is illuminating in the film's background, particularly
in Rubin's early drafts. For example, two of the biggest
changes to Rubin's script that cater to Hollywood's mainstream
tastes include not starting in the midst of Bill Murray's
supernatural milieu (seen as too "European") and
the elimination of February 3 - the day after Groundhog
Day - as being another unexplained loop, this time for Andie
MacDowell's character (the Hollywood happy ending happening
instead). The elimination of these, and other, aspects points
to its avant-garde beginnings, but more importantly illustrates
the strength of the initial idea with its main themes -
we can only change ourselves, change is a journey that takes
a lifetime, etc. - surviving until the end. But also its
widespread acceptance points to the malleability of the
film by the viewer, each person taking from it what they
wish, an uncommon feat in Hollywood's spoon-fed factory.
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