ONE YUK-KY GUY
Big Screen comedy genius Ramis died at 69
‘GROUNDHOG Day” director and cowriter Harold Ramis, who died Monday from complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis at the muchtooyoung age of 69, was just as much a genius as the fellow comedians he helped make movie stars: John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd.
Like Ramis, they emerged from the takenoprisoners “Saturday Night Live” Second City school of improvisational comedy that evolved out of the ’60s counterculture to reinvigorate the genre on TV in the late 1970s before moving en masse into movies.
Ramis made Belushi a major screen presence, cowriting the raunchy, eradefining comedy “Animal House” (1978), in which Belushi played the explosive and nearly wordless Bluto Blutarski.
Ramis also helped develop Murray into an equally distinctive (and unlikely) movie star in his directing debut, “Caddyshack” (1980), as well as the war comedy “Stripes” (1981) — which Ramis cowrote and costarred in for director Ivan Reitman.
The pair’s biggest hit was the Reitmandirected “Ghostbusters” (1984), which starred Murray, Aykroyd and Ramis in an inventively funny script by Ramis and Aykroyd that launched an entire genre of specialeffects driven comedies.
Ramis also helmed the often-erratic Chevy Chase’s best screen vehicle, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” (1983).
He brought an unusual combination of heart and smarts to those anarchic comedies — and influenced a generation of filmmakers such as Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow.
“For me, it’s the relationship between comedy and life — that’s the edge I live on, and maybe it’s my protection against looking at the tragedy of it all,” Ramis once said in an interview.
“It’s seeing life in balance. Comedy and tragedy coexist. You can’t have one without the other. I’m of the school that anything can be funny, if seen from a comedic point of view.”
Ramis’ undisputed masterpiece is “Groundhog Day,” which I’d rate as one of the greatest films of the last 25 years — the top romantic comedy of its era, and near the apex in the fantasyscience fiction genre as well.
The film was treated as nothing special when released in 1993, but has gathered an ardent appreciation through endless TV showings and video releases.
When I spoke with Ramis a few years ago, he was especially pleased that his film is taught in religion courses because of its spiritual themes, which are so subtly presented that it’s easy to miss them on first viewing.
It’s a hilarious but also extraordinary film about a misanthrope (Murray, never better), whose endlessrepeat predicament in Punxsutawney, Pa., eventually turns to selfdiscovery.
“Groundhog Day” is a pitchperfect movie that effectively integrates black comedy and a resolute avoidance of sentimentality.
Ramis never approached that peak during the final 20 years of his career. But he didn’t need to.
If Ramis had never made anything other than “Groundhog Day,” he’d be remembered as one of the greats — which is quite a compliment considering his “Animal House” and “Ghostbusters” contributions.