As filming "Groundhog Day"

• How to remove the "Groundhog Day"

The history of "Groundhog Day," started in 1987, when the Illinois Film Commission and the famous improvisational troupe Second City, gave the US a lot of brilliant comedians, we decided to help the people of Chicago to break into Hollywood. They announced that they will consider all scenarios the application submitted to them and sent the most interesting ones on the "dream factory".

One of those who inspired this ad was screenwriter Danny Rubin. He was the author of a wide structure - composed commercials, kids TV shows, drama, poetry and song, presenting magicians ... Work in the "big movie" True, he does not even dreamed of, and he had no idea how to write scripts of feature films. But it was a chance that Rubin could not miss.

After spending two days in the "brainstorming", the writer came up with fifty very different ideas and selected ten of them, to show him the most promising. One of them was a story about a guy who made a time machine and went into a temporary loop. Day after day, he was forced to relive the events of the same day, varying only according to his deeds.

Rubin decided to write a script about a man who is stuck in its development, and that a sudden newfound immortality allows for tremendous time to break its internal barriers and become first a lot worse than it was before, then much better.

He decided to do this afternoon some interesting but not "soiled" by other writers festival. Christmas, for example, or Halloween would be too obvious and boring options. And because Ruby had ever been in the state of Pennsylvania, and he had heard that it adopted on 2 February to celebrate Groundhog Day, he named the script after this comic celebration and made the protagonist cynical and childish television meteorologist, who with a film crew arrives in Punxsutawney town to film the celebration of Groundhog Phil predicting the continuation or the end of winter. The very main character is also given the name of Phil to Groundhog Day "officially" became his day.

The main generator of ideas was Harold Ramis, who co-wrote the script, produced and directed the picture. It Ramis rewrote the script so that the character was in the loop at once and does not exist in it from the first frame, and the "endless loop" gradually.

As for the leading actor in the big Ramis there was no doubt. Bill Murray, an old friend and colleague, the director, was as though born to play Phil Connors, and the director was convinced that Murray can make viewers fall in love with his cantankerous character long before the spiritually reborn. Also, the director was thinking about inviting Tom Hanks, but it was clearly too "good guy" role for Connors. Other outcasts become Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and John Travolta. But they all walked Bill Murray.

C Murray director has been a long and familiar. Together they starred in the incorruptible Novels "Ghostbusters" and the classical military comedy "Stripes". On one side of the camera, they worked in "Groundhog Day": Ramis played the doctor conducting the examination Connors head.

But with the choice of actress for the lead female role of cases were much simpler: brilliantly played by John Malkovich in "Object of Beauty", Andie MacDowell almost immediately get jobs in the film.

A natural location for the filming of the picture was a real town of Punxsutawney, where almost all the action developed. But when he was visited by Ramis, he found that Punxsutawney picturesque enough for conceived of the film. In particular, the borough was not the main square, which was planned to remove many of the key scenes of the picture.

So Punxsutawney participated in shooting only through its officials, see to it that the ritual of the Groundhog Day was screened in accordance with municipal regulations. Filmmakers also worked on the band in Woodstock in Illinois, just 50 miles from Chicago. Since the frame got some real noticeable buildings Woodstock, later became the town an open air museum for fans of "Groundhog Day." Specially built for the film was a city cafe, which after the completion of filming was a real Woodstock eatery.

she Takes pictures in the movie groundhog and his understudies have been grown and trained to specifically for the tape. Toothy actors twice bitten Murray, and he had to make shots against rabies. In the shooting script marmot has been given much more attention than in the final cut of the film.

The main headache assistant director was a perfect match of all scenes, differing only in the actions of Phil. Aides Ramis carefully followed to ensure that all participants crowd behaved identically to the car drove into the frame at the same time and that puddles were where they were supposed to be scripted. To unpredictable winter weather did not prevent the "sync" and that at the time of installation was a large variety of options, all of the key street scenes were filmed many times, in different weather conditions.

"Groundhog Day" was released in rent February 12th, 1993, and at first it was met with sympathy but without much joy. Like, nothing special, Harold Ramis took another funny comedy with Bill Murray. But as soon as the critics and the audience tasted a picture of her duties immediately jumped and shot over 15 million tape has collected $ 70 million in North America alone.

In the year of such films as "Jurassic Park," "Schindler's List" and the "Piano", from "Groundhog Day," there was no chance for the prestigious award. But they were the picture and do not need. The tape was fixed in the memory of viewers without any notes, listing "Oscars", and now it was listed among the best mystical and fantastic bands and the best philosophical comedies of world cinema.

Most of all, Ramis was surprised by how well the film was attended by representatives of different religions. The director feared that picture, in which the hero declares himself a god, orthodoxy will curse and to picket. Instead, Christians, Buddhists, Jews and many others began to use the "Groundhog Day" as an illustration of the total for all of them thought, "What would a man do, he is marking time, if not spiritually develop." We took the picture as "his" and psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, operating with the same ideas, but without the religious overtones.

With the success of the picture word character Murray that tomorrow will not necessarily come, because today it was not, has become a popular quote. However, an even greater popularity came to the name of the film, which became a symbol of any constant repetition, as well as life in the "squirrel in a cage" - the movement is, and no promotion.