10 Years In The Loop?
That's an awfully long time:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/movies/groundhog-day.html
Surprisingly there's no ghosts or faeries, or burlesque dancers
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MovieChat Forums > Groundhog Day (1993) Discussion > 10 Years In The Loop?
Ten years would explain his knowing every intimate detail of everyone in town and explain his proficiency with the keyboard.
I heard it was 33 years…
“According to Whatculture.com, Bill was stuck in the loop for 33 years and 350 days. That means he was left repeating the same day an incredible 12,395 times.”
Any other estimate other than 10 years comes from people breaking down how long it would take to learn Phil's skills. The problem with that, is there is such a wide margin of time different people require for different skills. The Whatacultrue estimate of 33 years has some overestimating in it. Another article pointed out they estimate 12 of those years just learning French. We don't know that Phil is fluent in French, we just know he can recite a few words. Even if Phil knows French, why does the site estimate 12 of those years solely for French as if that's the only thing he studied for 12 years?
I took many years of language class in high school, but I was never good at it and I'm also terrible at art, so it would take me many many decades to get good at ice sculpting. But musically, I became proficient at guitar and drums relatively quickly, as I had a knack for it.
Everyone is different.
10 years is likely going to be correct, especially if the source is from Ramis himself.
The French is believeable. I became proficient in German doing Duolingo for a few months. But I think he’d need more than 10 years of piano lessons to get as good as he was at the end. He never played before so it wasn’t like he was born with musical talent.
shareJust because he didn't play before doesn't mean he wasn't born with a musical talent. You don't know you have a musical talent unless you actually pick up the instrument.
There's tons of videos of 6 year old kids absolutely killing it on the piano or whatever instrument. They'd never know their knack for it if they never tried it. Such is the case for Phil.
But musically, I became proficient at guitar and drums relatively quickly, as I had a knack for it.
I agree that kids are born with varying degrees of latent musical talent - my youngest son plays guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, saxophone, and a fife I bought him when we visited Fort Ticonderoga in upstate NY when he was maybe 5 - he was playing any song you could name by the time we got home.
My point is that people who are that musically talented usually show a big interest in music very early, and *usually* will pick up instruments at a young age. Phil's first time touching the piano was when he was in his mid 40s, so I'm guessing he wouldn't be especially musically gifted and his piano skills would have taken 10 years which, as you pointed out, is what Ramis said.
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Picking up a musical instrument in your 40s is tough, especially if you never played any instrument before. Musical ability and interest does surface early, and has to be nurtured early too. But someone who say became proficient at cello early on would have an easier time picking up another instrument later in life. For the sake of the argument, we could assume Phil played violin or something which helped him take to piano so easily.
shareBetter than 10,000!
"Evidently Danny Rubin’s original script indicated that Phil was stuck in his time loop for 10,000 years, but Ramis told me in an interview that he and Rubin decided that the character was stuck for about 10 years..."