Sunday, February 15, 2015
Freedom Under Circumstances in Groundhog Day
Sartre's concept of "bad faith" means consciously ignoring our freedom in order to avoid accepting responsibility for our actions and choices. As humans, we have free will under any circumstances, although bad faith leads us to believe we do not. In the film, Groundhog Day, Phil (Bill Murray) is a grumpy, inconsiderate, and unhappy weatherman bored with his annual assignment to cover Groundhog Day in a small town. It is his bad faith that causes him to think he has no other choice but to continue living life this way. Bad weather causes Phil and his camera crew to have to stay in the town overnight, but when Phil awakens the next morning he discovers that it is again Groundhog Day and that he must re-live the day. This cycle repeats to an insurmountable number of days in which he must repeat this day over and over, despite his failed attempts to escape it. This can appear that Phil has lost his freedom, but I believe it is the opposite. Being forced to re-live the same day allows Phil the freedom to perfect that day, to learn skills- both practical and emotional, inevitably causing him to break his bad faith. He is even free from death, allowing him to fear nothing and allowing him the freedom to do absolutely anything he wants, good or bad, with the knowledge that he won't have to take responsibility for his actions that day. Sartre claims that life is a project, we must make it into what we ourselves want it to be. For Phil, this single day became his life and his project. He experimented, learned, and grew into the person that he wanted to be- a happier, compassionate, and loving person, able to accept his circumstances but remain aware of his freedom to change them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Phil is granted with the freedom of consequence. The "ultimate" freedom. Our whole world is built upon cause and effect, take that away and what seems to be the ultimate freedom is actually a prison. I believe this is to be an underlying message upon the watching this film. I do agree that life is what we make it, and that is truly freedom. While Phil hated his life, doing the same report again and again, he learned that through a change of direction in his personality, he could truly be happy and free.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the film I saw it as a way of showing this really monotonous life someone is living such as a that cliche business person going through the motion. I feel like we all have had that feeling in our lives where we just know what the minimum for the day is and we get it over with. And to then start over and we all have the "bad Faith" Satre talks about. But the film certainly points out what Tyler and Jade talk about, The ultimate freedom of deviation in a schedule, where going through those motions sets strict times for this and this but with the freedom we take for granted our lives can be as happy as Phil in the movie. We just have to set that time aside and do with our lives that make us happier. At least that is what Groundhog Day tells me. If we want to go that route of happiness I think we would be getting into hedonism where happiness is motivation for everything. Either way I think films like Office Space and others that make us want to seize the day with different activities that make us a better person and that motivates me but certainly tells me that we all have "bad Faith" to where we need these ideas of motivation when we should be doing that already.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen Groundhog Day, but it sounds like it has a similar concept to the Tom Cruise film from last summer titled Edge of Tomorrow. In this, Tom's character must figure out how to save the world from an alien invasion but when he dies the day starts over. It takes him a while before he realizes he can use this to his advantage. I think both films show how the character can change their life for the better once they realize they do not have to do the same thing everyday. It's a kind of new found freedom, because such crazy circumstances bring about the realization.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion Phil explored a myriad of projects before he found the series of choices that best suited him. Many of the projects themselves epitomized the idea of "Bad Faith," for instance the way he tailored himself toward the middle of the movie to be the perfect man for the primary love interest made it seem as though during those days he considered himself a lover by facticity. It wasn't until close to the end when he took on multiple meaningful and compassionate projects that he succeeded in both attracting the woman and breaking the cycle, making him the perfect definition of a being both "Pour Soi" and "En Soi."
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I really like the concept of that. Like if he was an artist he could draw every single day and grow until he is where he wants to be. I'm not saying I personally want a Groundhog Day but I think exploiting it is an interesting concept. I do think that it is ultimate freedom in that he has only a single day's consequences.
ReplyDeleteI think the only problem here is that although Phil may grow, his growth is limited to the situation. Naturally, if one had to repeat a day over and over, they;d go about doing things differently, but its predicable. Phil is limited by the situation that doesn't change and there's no telling if he'd use these newly developed skills if the days continued.
ReplyDelete