It seems like almost every day someone approaches me and asks, “How long did Bill Murray spend trapped in the film Groundhog Day?” And I always say, “Hmmm, that's not the most timely of questions, but I'll do my best to answer it.”
Actually, Groundhog Day was on TBS yet again and a wave of Geek OCD hit me. I was compelled to count the days and find just how many days Phil Connors spent in Punxsutawney. According to Harold Ramis, on the Groundhog Day DVD commentary, Bill Murray spent 10 years trapped in his own little corner of hell... Punxsutawney (I kid Tawney, I'm sure you're lovely). But this seems like an arbitrary number. We can do better than that.
There are, at least, 36 separate days shown in the movie including his multiple death scenes. There could be more, but it's hard to verify if some moments are simply later in the same day or an entirely different day. Additionally, in the scene where Bill Murray revealed he's a god, he stated, “I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen, hung, electrocuted, and burned.” Of those the movie only showed electrocution, so that brings it to a base line of 42 accountable days. However, there were many days not shown. We know from the scene when Billy Murray and Andy MacDowell are throwing playing cards into a top hat that it would take, “Six months. Four to five hours a day, and you'd be an expert.” So, we have a bare minimum of six months.
Follow up:
In the first half of the movie, the only other truly time consuming event was the the robbery. Let's give him at least a month to plan a proper bank robbery and memorize when wind gusts. This brings us to roughly 256 days by the time he decides he wants to be a better man. However, becoming a better man is the most time consuming part of Phil's journey! He needs to become an expert pianist, an ice sculptor, and learns French. The tough part about this is that is that no one learns these things at the same rate. He could be a very old piano wunderkind after all. Or it could take him 600 years to become a decent ice sculptor. For the sake of argument let's say it takes an average person 3 years to learn to play the piano. It also would take an average person 3 years to become a professional ice sculptor. However, we don't know how good Phil was at either... maybe, he just learned one song, or just how to sculpt Andy MacDowell's face. But for the sake of argument, let's say three years apiece. And he cannot do both at the same time because an ice sculpture is 8 hours of work, and he only has a small window each day to get a piano lesson. Learning French which is also subjective. It's safe to say it would take him, at least, 2 years to learn enough French to read French poetry.
Which puts us at the grand total of 3176 repeated Groundhog days, or 453 weeks, or 105 months, or 8.7 years. Precisely, 8 years, 8 months, and 16 days. So, in the end Harold Ramis was right and I wasted a Bill Murray length of my time. But I made the hash marks, and I was going to do the math!
Groundhog Day Update
Harold Ramis responded to this blog. You can see the original response at Heeb Magazine or here at Wolf Gnards. Harold Ramis speaks out on Groundhog Day timeline.
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BUT there is only so much a person can learn in a day, and once that limit has been reached any further time investment produces diminishing returns on the investment.
I can tell you from personal experience, after 2 to 3 hours on the piano all you're doing is rehashing your mistakes instead of making genuine progress.
In the real world most people work 231 days a year (sick leave, holidays and weekends). So, if Bill had a productivity level of the Average person it would take closer to 5.5 years to become an expert at something.
While this does not tell you how long he was there, I am sure those three activities did not take up the majority of his time in the lovely town.
I find the 27 years mentioned from the original script much more believable.
Seriously Jonathon, you need to go to a hospital immediately. You're brain is severely damaged.
So what may take someone 10 000 hours to become an expert may take Murphy significantly more time.
What your article skips, is how long did he spend between the times where he was picking up skills? How many days did he have to repeat before he started looking for ways to "killed [him]self so many times, [he] don't even exist anymore."? Its not like he would start doing that on day 10.
Or how many days would he have to repeat before he got so bored that he would spend 6 months just throwing cards?
A prior poster said that he could have spent all day learning things like the piano, but he really couldn't, because of all of the things he had to do every day (save the drunk, save the kid, change the tire, save the mayor from choking, etc).
How many hundreds and thousands of days would he have to keep repeating to know everything about everyone in the diner?
How many hundreds and thousands of days would he have to keep repeating to build up the one perfect day.
There is a clue in the film where he says "He's just been around so long, He knows everything." He knows everything because he has been around for so long.
I think (and obviously there is no proof) that he repeats that same day for hundreds of years.
watch it again with directors commentary and he said that the original plan was 10,000 years.
but was i was wondering was what would happen if bill didnt fall asleep? meaning he broke the pencil and stared at it until it 6am?
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN?
great article by the way and thanks digg for the link.
He has an unlimited supply of money for himself, since he knows he'll repeat the same day, he has no stress of needing to get a job or really any responsibilities at all.
This makes it much easier to do anything and enjoy it. You could learn a language, piano, etc within the span of a few months (or at least a considerably shorter time frame) if you had unlimited resources and zero responsibility.
I think, though, that the key factor here is that he frees himself from the day when he frees himself from a life lived for the past or the future and for himself and is able to be content with the present moment, accept things as they are and commit himself fully to whatever he wants to do. This could take a day, a year, a lifetime, a thousand lifetimes. The story comes at a breaking point in his life. He goes through a period of time of dealing with this crisis. It seems to me that a reasonable intelligent person would get bored of playing around after a month or two tops. Then there is the trying to get Rita. Which I wouldn't give him more than a couple of weeks at (it would get REALLY boring REALLY fast).
Yeah, there are a lot of people to get to know. but not THAT many people. If he knows 300 people and just spent three days really getting to know each one... doesn't take more than a couple of years. And he doesn't relate to 300. More like 50. Plenty of time to do that in a couple of years.
I think 3 years is reasonable.
As for the ice sculpture, he didn't only sculpt her face. He did a different one with a chainsaw for the whole town to see. The one he did of her face was actually a snow sculpture, not an ice sculpture.
Let's not forget... the Jeopardy televisions how. How long did it take him to memorize all the answers?
How long did it take him to memorize the lives of everyone around town? How long did it take him to memorize the exact timing of what would happen in the restaurant?
What about the old man who died? How many times did he try to pamper the old man and then watch him die?
Not only did he learn French. He also learned another language. (When he leaves in the morning, he speaks to the big guy who entered the hallway.)
So, if we add more time for those things I listed above... that brings the total from 8 years to 10 years. (Maybe more.)
Thanks!
Plus, with a few hours each on piano, sculpting, french, and card-chucking, you'd be proficient in all four. During the downtime in between, you'd visit the same places over and over, and would inevitably pick up knowledge about everyone in town.
His character is an intelligent man. 10 years is enough time for him to learn to do those things.
Your answer is far too precise here. You can't say that it would take him about three years to learn to play piano and then have your final answer include a specific number of days. A real answer probably shouldn't even include a specific number of months. I'd say a reasonable answer would probably be 10±2 years, or something in that ballpark.
That ten-year estimate doesn't include Phil's other "phases," like the suicide phase, the card-tossing phase, the hedonism phase, or his learning the life story of seemingly everyone in Punxsutawney, a town with a population over 6,000. And while it's possible that Phil studied French and ice sculpting concurrently with his piano lessons, either pursuit would greatly decrease his available practice time. With all of that in mind, I'm casting my vote with those who assert that the script's original estimate of 27 years is the most believable.
I can confirm that he spent 1 day there. The only way the answer could be anything different is if you were in his timeline.
I *love* this answer.
Language Barriers:
He would'nt have had to learn any language in it's entirety, he'd only need to learn whatever parts of each language for each situation he came across (ie. one would'nt learn the entire dialect, just to come across the same person doing and saying the same thing every day - there are only so many directions a conversation would go - subject to your own knowledge of their language and their knowledge of yours - besides, who'd want to stand chatting all day when you've got a broadcast to do, a woman to chat up and other stuff besides..)
As with the piano - you'd only learn the basics with the piano teacher, then play only certain songs (it'd take a lot less time to learn a particular piece, than it would take to learn to read music, then play the piece - it's a similar to the language barrier problem above)
The same applies for Ice Sculpture, First Aid and other skills that he 'aquires' in the movie.
Being in TV - memorising some kind of script, for each situation for ongoing daily routines would'nt be much of a problem either.
Great post by the way.
We were in his timeline. Imagine how boring the movie would have been if we had been in anybody else's timeline.
Also, to the author, your 8.7 year guess is completely arbitrary. It's not even a good low ball estimate. It could be one fourth that. More likely it was several times that. I think you attempted to choose something close to the 10 years specified on the DVD commentary, but we don't even know if Ramis meant 10 years as in something that takes 10 years, or 10 years as in 10 more years before cold fusion, or jet packs, or AI as smart as a human. It could have been a complete guess on the part of Ramis.
Also, what about the time it takes him to learn how to save a life? He saved that bum quite a few times before he lost interest. Unless you are assuming he knew CPR before the movies inception and in that case my inquiry is withdrawn....
I think he would be batty.
Happy Days!
Think about it. He's in his 40s at that point? When the cycle stopped and he made it to the next day, he had maybe 50 years left if he's very lucky? That's no time at all compared to 1000 years. That's the most depressing thing about some people here projecting anything over 500 years.
"Groundhog Day was on TBS yet again"
Although I have no solid figures in this regard I've found it to be the ultimate irony that a movie about being stuck in one day seems to be on tv every single day. In fact, I can't count the number of times I've seen this movie. Based on the comments above it seems that the majority of the posters on this thread have seen this film more than once, if not many more.
Thus, my question is this: Is it Bill Murray who is trapped repeating the same day or is it us trapped watching the same movie until we know every detail?
A recurring argument here regards how long it would take him to remember certain events - the answers on jeopardy, the bank robbery, the details of people's lives. How many times did it take to watch the movie to remember all of these facts? I'm still in the 7-12 years camp for total time spent, but I don't think anybody watched the film more than 10 times to remember the various plot details and I don't think it would take too long to memorize a single day of jeopardy.
Furthermore, for the sake of discussion, I postulate that the destructive 'phase' lasted far longer than in the film. Certainly, stealing Phil and driving into the quarry could not be a severe aberration from a pattern of criminal minded activity. I imagine that this is more like playing Grand Theft Auto where you go around stealing cars and shooting random people in addition to performing missions to reach the ultimate conclusion.
Finally, although I appreciate the attempts by the original poster to quantify this, I believe any attempts are ultimately futile and beyond the realm of human understanding.
How does a change of either 10 or 27 (I think once a sufficiently surreal hunk of time has passed the specific year count becomes academic) years achieved - to the outside observer - affect a person?
He's had an enormous wodge of life handed to him for free, and with it an enforced zen-style attitude, as there was never the option to stop living (think of the master of calm he could potentially have become). Yet, to everyone around him, he appears to have simply changed overnight.
That's got to be a bit weird, hasn't it? Plus, time suddenly passes for him again, which, however much he has longed for it, he won't be used to; there are consequences to actions. After ten-odd years without, must suddenly be something you may need to ease yourself into again.
What would a sequel be like? My fear of such a thing being made and ruining a perfectly good stand-alone film by making it part of a series is tempered by my curiosity regarding the many ways a sequel would be approached.
Could it repeat the format, but have it happen to someone who actually encounters Phil living his now-linear life? We could see some of his world post-groundhog, later on down the line, and intersect it with a Groundhog happening to a new character.
The potential for lovely conversation with Murray's character is a wonder to muse on, as he could be regularly consulted by the n00b (sorry. There was no need for that sort of language, there), offering up purposely obscure/unhelpful information, depending on how he's approached.
"Which day are you on now?"
"100 - I think I'm going mad."
"Hah! 100! Come back in 900 days time, my friend."
"That's what you said two months ago"
(etc, etc, only better)
Or, as Barbariancoug says; maybe he just goes mad.
Though that's less of a fun film idea.
Nobody has taken into account this yet.. maybe we can get a revision on the 8.7 year thing.. considering his suicidal tendancies, if he killed himself a 1000 times, he would have woke up, and tried to kill himself.. so, there could be 3 years worth of him only spending 3 or 4 hours a day, before he killed himself and his day reset.
Just a thought. Awesome post tho!
As an existentialist... I say, there was no time, everything he experienced never happened. And the story, whatever I'm talking about was neither good or bad.
You have to firstly deduct six hours for each of the 3176 days as he always wakes up at 6am and a lot of the days end prematurely when he dies.
An estimation from myself (but with whoever wrote this doing the hard work) I'd say he spent about 6 years on groundhod day.
I'm sorry if someones already mentioned this but I was too lazy to read all the comments but repetition is very appropriate for this thread.
But what fascinates me isn't the ultimate "do good for others" message in the movie, but just how long it takes for him to come around to that position and how, almost accidental, it seems that he does. He tries everything else, including various forms of suicide, before just deciding to live more proactively.
I wonder if there is any intended message in that as well as the overall "do good" one?
There would have been no physical effects of aging because he was re-living the SAME DAY over and over. His age reset right along with everyone else. Just the memories of the day prior remained. Bill's character would have been there an eternity if he never learned his lesson.
I think the 10000 hour rule should be extrapolated to all skills at this level, with a 4-8 hour cap a day for productive learning (for the truly dedicated).
He also read a lot of books, and the time he spent with everyone in town probably took a long time too.
I prefer to think of him spending decades or hundreds of years (lifetimes) to become the great man he became from the petty man he was. :) This is more wishy than scientific though.
Something that a lot of people mentioned was his suicidal phase. If you could do anything without repricussion and have the ability to learn your body inside and out and what it's limits were, I imagine you would learn to the uttmost. I am going to guess he died at least once everyday for 100 years at the very least. Eventually it would get boring and he would know how he could push it and not get hurt.
As far as the other skills go, I imagine after he gives up on trying to make the woman love him, he decides to persue other things in life. Only after he is satisfied that he did everything he would want to ever know or learn how to do would he break this cycle. If you had infinite time you would probably try to gain infinite knowledge.
Since he was intelligent he could have thought philosophically for years on ways to make himself better and then the human race better. After failing to come up with anything for a while he would then turn to playing with the pawns in his life.
At this point everyone is a pawn because they will react the same way every time every day. He can learn to manipulate them to his will. Thus he is truly a god among mortals at this point.
Part of his playing around with mortals eventually nets him the girl and he falls from power. I still think that the order of Milena to millions of years would be required to have the monumental change in personality experienced and the degree of knowledge learned.
The happy figure is 8 years. The reality is probably between 10,000 - 1,000,000,000 years.
-Bo
twit the pic
1) have hired three guys to swap in a finished ice sculpture while she was turned the other way?, and
2) hire a guy to play piano off stage and just fake it
I was just going to mention how I feel the storyline really relates to our imperfections as humans and how stuborn we can be, but you said it first (and better).
Reading through all the the posts, it's easy to see what people think most about: 50% concentrate on the benefits of having all this time at one's disposal, perfecting skills, improving one level of wellbeing, enjoying a life with no responsibilities, etc. The other 50% go the other way, and underline boredom, depression, suicide and all the other logically horrible things about being stuck in the same 24 hours day after day.
Murray's character is an example of a person we all can relate to in some fashion and that makes him both frightening and hugely enjoyable at the same time.
When I watch this great movie, I find it all too easy to imagine myself in his situation and to think of how hard it would be to do anything much different than he does it.
Btw, being French, I'd like to mention a few things that have been missed in regards to the Jacque Brel poem:
1) Murray's accent is pretty obvious even though disguised in a low whispering murmur as he recites Jacques Brel's poem. This tells me he didn't work on his French for that long.
2) His quote, however, is four lines specifically selected out of a three verse, 40 line each, long poem. I looked it up, I don't actually know it by heart :-). This suggests he really got into seriously reading poetry and understanding it to better impress Rita.
3) The lines he recites also have a doublemeaning in regards to his specific situation. Directly translated, it means:
The girl that I will love
will be like good wine
that get's a little better
with each morning.
Now that's something I can relate to!
Just want to propose an idea. Several people have mentioned that you can learn more than one skill at a time, but no one has postulated how to do this using some simple facts from the movie.
He robs the armored car in the early morning - he has tons of money.
1. He knows about the piano teacher, but maybe she isn't the only one and maybe he goes to a music store and buys an electric piano (like the one he uses on stage) and practices throughout the days. A book store would also have books on reading music and other background information. He could also visit several venues to get more musical intuition - but this is a more esoteric thing to learn and would, realistically, take the longest.
2. He goes to the book store and buys one of the many 'learn a foreign language' programs there and finds people around town to talk to or gets a tutor to help - he doesn't need to go to college to learn French.
3. The hardest would be the ice sculpture, but there are plenty of books on that and it mostly takes practice - he could buy basic lessons then practice all he wanted until he was ready for the next lesson.
So - it would have been possible for him to learn all three at the same time - sharing time on each until the mistakes on one made him switch to another.
Again - just an idea. Keep up the great ideas.