With Murray, he made a movie that reflected not just their genius as entertainers and comic minds but also their journey as spiritual seekers, men whose work regularly addressed the big issues in life. With 1993’s Groundhog Day, his magnum opus, Ramis set out to make a throwback to the ingratiatingly sentimental, small town- and simple folk-loving screwball comedies of Frank Capra while also commenting incisively on the nature of existence and the eternal struggle to find meaning in a seemingly cruel and arbitrary world. Yet these films also flaunted their sloppiness with the brazen defiance of stoned youth. They succeeded, of course, because they were to comedy what the partnership of Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese was to drama around the same period. With Meatballs, Caddyshack, and Stripes, Ramis and Murray clearly just wanted to make movies that were funny and entertaining and made a lot of money. By the time their run of collaborations ended prematurely with 1993’s Groundhog Day, however, their ambition had risen in perfect unison with their singularly complementary talents. Not bad for men whose tersely titled first three collaborations, Meatballs, Caddyshack, and Stripes, all managed to be enormously popular and influential despite being so sloppy and haphazardly constructed that they barely qualify as movies. Murray, meanwhile, did not even need to die to be anointed a preeminent comic saint, a magical, almost shamanistic figure that overly worshipful fans look to, not just for entertainment, but also for guidance on how to live, how to be, and how to channel the master’s spirit in their own lives. Even before he died, Ramis had ascended to the level of a cuddly comedy Buddha that Second City’s film school is named after him is just one measure of his influence. It’s tough to overstate the popularity, impact, and influence of the films Bill Murray and Harold Ramis made together, just as it’s difficult to overstate the esteem in which the two men are held.
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