The movie The Groundhog Day really
helped me to understand Nietzsche’s theory of the Death of God, thus, of
metaphysics.
In fact, this movie clearly depicts the three
metamorphosis Nietzsche says are essential to the death of metaphysics and the
birth of new values in a society.
In the movie, Phil is a metonymy of this
Society going thought big changes of values. Indeed, Phil at the beginning of
the movie is an egocentric man who is very cynic and who looks on his
surrounding with disdain. But when he understands he has to live the same day
over and over for eternity, his vision of life changes. He then goes through
three metamorphoses that we can find in Zarathustra’s speech.
When he realizes his actions do not have
consequences for more than a day, he first decides to make the most of that
day. He enjoys the pleasures of life without restrictions such as food, sex,
delinquency… This phase of the movie could correspond to Zarathustra’s phase of
the freeing of the camel, where the spirit, burdened by the values of the society, frees
itself from them.
These values, which are now separated from the camel, become a dragon that the
spirit has to fight. The fight against the dragon begins when Phil realizes he
cannot live the same day over and over for eternity. As a consequence, he
decides to kill himself. By committing suicide, he wants to destroy his life
which is becoming useless and boring as he follows his traditional value of
egocentrism. For Zarathustra, during this fight, the camel transforms into a
lion. Phil is in a phase of nihilism as he does not believe in anything
anymore.
The fight eventually finishes with the lion’s
victory and the spirit transforms into a child. In the movie, Phil becomes a
new person with new values. He cares about the others, their life and their
happiness. Phil adapts himself to his new life like a child and lives without
fear of the consequences of his actions. He plays the same game but with
different rules and it gives him pleasure. Phil is free of his old values and
can enjoy life by playing piano in front of a crowd that doesn’t know him, by
sculpting in ice or by saving lives in a restaurant of in a park. We can
clearly see Phil becomes a real altruist as he acts as if there was a tomorrow
when there is not.
Along the movie, we can see that the values of
the Society are reversed. Human life, which was devalued compared to God’s, is
valued as we understand when Phil tries to avoid the death of an old man by all
means. The movie is also presenting a change as for the opposition between God
and the human being. In fact, Phil repeatedly declares he is God, an assertion
which undermines the theory of the opposition between human and divine. Phil
thinks he Is God because he can change the destiny of people if he wants to and
he knows everything about them. The director of the film actually confirmed that
Phil had lived more than 10 years on the same day.
Thanks to this movie, I got to understand
Zarathustra’s speech about the freeing of the spirit and the changing of the
values that resulted from it. But I still have a question for you: Do you think
the freeing of the spirit is eternal, irreversible?
Nice Job!
ReplyDeleteActually, I found that there was a link between Groundhog Day and Zarathustra's speech too. But not exactly as you see it.
When Phil discovers that he's going to live the same day for ever, he freed himself from the burden of the camel. But Zarathustra doesn't mean it will turn the camel into a dragon. The dragon represents the "you must", every rule the camel have to respect, based on metaphysics. Phil is already a lion when he decides that no rules are governing him anymore. He tries to steal, to lie, to manipulate peoples, make fun predicting the future, eventually commit suicide. There is no consequence at all!
And I agree with the third transformation.
He experienced the nihilism. And then? If living is an obligation it's right he must create new rules. Help every people on a strict agenda he spent thousands of day to complete perfectly. This is the child, the third metamorphosis, and it is the state he reached the relief of living in the flowing time once again. He was God really under the lion phase. But that was boring.
The film is a bit ambiguous in the end : Being God is not a end, it is not constructive. But what give more possibilities than being God?
And to answer the question : I don't think it is eternal, one can fall into metaphysics once again, just other ones. But having done the process once gives a lot of chance to achieve it once again.