Is
Groundhog Day one of the great philosophical movies? Seen in the most trivial
level it is just another Hollywood movie, but on closer inspection, it provides
a stunning treatment of Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence.
In this
movie, a weatherman relives the same day repeatedly without hope to scape of
this situation. The story illustrates Nietzsche’s theory of eternal return and
it shows how we perceive the importance of the future. We see in this film how
this philosopher was able to offer an alternative to the Christian view of the
meaning of life.
Christianity
has a linear interpretation of time. It is the future that gives value to the
present, in others words, the future is when we will be in heaven. However, for
Nietzsche, this aspect of the religion is life-denying, so it corrupts our view
of our time here. His alternative is reject the linear conception of time.
Rather than moving on to another place after life, we would relive our life
over and over again. This possibility has been called eternal return. The eternal
return is the idea of Nietzsche that we have experienced the exact life we are
now living an infinite number of times in the past, and will do it an infinite
number of times in the future.
Instead of
The Christian linear concept of time, where there is an emphasis on the future,
Nietzsche’s theory maybe tells us to consider a different alternative.
Nietzsche though people would be depressed because there was no God or no life
after death. The problem is these beliefs provides comfort and help people
preserve in defaults moments. This is why the passage introducing the though
about eternal return is named “The Greatest Weight”, in other words, the
knowledge that is nothing better than this life could be a weight upon our
minds.
The
challenge offered by the theory of eternal return can be the question: “What if
this life is all we have? Are you strong to be free and choose to life
according to a model that is fitting for you, where there are no God or Heaven?
Phil, the weatherman in this movie, faced a similar situation.
In
Groundhog Day, Phil Connors believes that no matter what he does, every day he
wakes up at the same time, in the same bed, in the same hotel, in the same
small American town, on the same day. During the day, he is free to do what he
wants, but he knows he is doomed to start the same day again. Even when he
wants to die, he cannot.
Therefore,
the film presents the story of a man who must face the prospect of not having
any future. He must relive the same day among the people he disdains in a place
he does not like. It is also the story of a man who comes to appreciate and love his life as
it is rather than dreamming of a better future, while he hates the present.
However,
Groundhog Day, can contradict the Nietzsche’s theory. In the film, there is no
Nietzschean return of the same as soon as the main character is able to act
differently every day and make different events happen. Groundhog Day presents
a more human version of the eternal return.
Some
philosophers agree that the conventional view of Nietzsche's eternal return refers
to the return of the same, but objects to this view, claiming that it is a
sterile thought, which excludes any notion of "the other". Recurrence
is entirely self-referential. We can think of it as a kind of 'self-birth': it
provides men with the ability to give birth to themselves repeatedly.
In the
theory of eternal recurrence of Nietzsche, the individual has no memory of
their previous lives. However, Phil Connors certainly has, although he was the
only one. All others with whom he shares his eternal return is perhaps the
classic Nietzschean position of having no memory of their past lives. Phil is
not dealing with the eternal return as a hypothesis, he is a conscious
participant and his victim, totally out of your control.
The eternal
return Nietzsche is perhaps logically problematic because if an individual's
life is a repeat of previous lives then he would appear to have no free choice,
yet Nietzsche seems to want us to alter our attitude to life. Phil can change,
so he has complete free choice. It is up to him to choose his attitude to his
metaphysical and existential situation. First, he experiences complete shock,
before enjoying a brief feeling of omnipotence and omniscience. Then he suffers
depression but he is unable to die. He has some choices within the limits of
Punxatawney.
After much
pressure, Phil chooses to do most of the world he inhabits now. He educates
himself in many new fields. He also develops as a person and achieves
self-awareness, rather than the self-destruction he pursued previously. Through
this enlightenment, he finally secures the love of the woman he has pursued. He
become a monument of self-improvement Nietzsche. This is so important that, in
fact, Phil escape from the eternal return, but now he is a human being
transformed, reborn out of the difficulties he has faced.
This is
maybe the key to the eternal return: it is not to be taken literally, but as an
aphorism to guide people to whom Nihilism was becoming an increasingly
attractive prospect when Nietzsche wrote about it. The film’s situation is not exactly eternal
return, because Phil relives one day rather than an entire lifetime and more
importantly, he learns from his experience and alters his behavior.
Nevertheless, since eternal return is not a metaphysical thesis, these
differences are of little importance. Phil is directly confronted with the
possibility that he has no more future, that he must relive an ordinary day
over and over again, and this is way Groundhog Day helps us to illuminate
Nietzsche’s theory. When the eternal return begins, the main character feels
his “greatest weight” because he must relive the same day witch he hates.
The moral choice
we must regarding how we will see our situation should express strength. It is
an opportunity to choose a challenge for us. All the pain of this life offers
us worthy challenge and an opportunity to improve ourselves according to our
own ideal. To embrace eternal return is to embrace life. Nietzsche draws attention to the fact that
the way we conceive of life and its meaning affects the way we live. We should
not look outside of ourselves for meaning.
Embracing
eternal return involves a self-affirmation. Nietzsche alternative
to Christianity involves "self-expression without metaphysical
justification." Groundhog Day is a masterpiece of existentialism. The
film’s lesson is that we can escape from any dilemma that through the right
attitude. As Connors discovers, it is a hard lesson, but to learn is to earn
the means to transcend the problems of life.
