Ghost World (film)

Infobox Film
name = Ghost World


image_size =
caption = Theatrical poster
director = Terry Zwigoff
producer = Lianne Halfon
John Malkovich
Russell Smith
writer = Daniel Clowes (comic)
Daniel Clowes
Terry Zwigoff (screenplay)
narrator =
starring = Thora Birch
Scarlett Johansson
Steve Buscemi
Brad Renfro
music = David Kitay
cinematography = Affonso Beato
editing = Carole Kravetz
Michael R. Miller
distributor = United Artists
released = July 20, 2001
runtime = 111 minutes
country = US
language = English
budget = $7,000,000
gross = $8,761,393 (Worldwide)
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website = http://www.ghostworld-the-movie.com/
amg_id = 1:247388
imdb_id = 0162346

"Ghost World" is a 2001 film by Terry Zwigoff, based on a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. It stars Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson and Steve Buscemi. Although the film was not a box-office blockbuster, it was enormously acclaimed by critics Fact|date=October 2008 and has established a strong cult following.

The story focuses on the life of two teenage friends, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), who are outside of the normal high school social order in an unnamed suburb, often assumed to be in or around Los Angeles, where much of the movie was shot.

Plot

Enid and Rebecca (best friends and outcasts among their class mates) graduate from high school. The class throws off their graduation hats, and Enid and Rebecca wander off in the distance and give the finger to the school they've managed to survive. After checking her diploma, Enid is angered to discover that it was awarded only conditionally and that she must attend a remedial art class that summer.

Later, Enid and Rebecca attend the graduation party, where they are annoyed by various students they don’t like, including Melora, an overly enthusiastic would-be actress.

The next day, while in a mediocre imitation of a 1950s-style diner, Enid and Rebecca decide to make a prank call to a lonely man named Seymour who has placed an ad in the personals section, pretending that they are the woman he is infatuated with. He shows up at the restaurant (where Enid and Becky and waiting with their friend and reluctant accomplice Josh), and Enid begins to feel sorry for him. In the next few days, Enid and Rebecca follow up on Seymour and go to look at a garage sale, where Seymour is selling records. Enid purchases one 33 1/3 RPM blues record from him. He wraps it in his own plastic bag, which delights her.

Enid also begins to attend her art class, which is taught by Roberta Allsworth, an arty, self important performance artist. She dismisses Enid's talented drawings as cartoons, preferring the conceptual artwork of another student because it is "serious" and "political." Enid becomes more depressed and withdrawn. Rebecca, on the other hand, finds a job in a coffee shop and seems more and more content to lead an ordinary life.

Despite her growing alienation, Enid finds some solace in her growing friendship with Seymour, becoming increasingly infatuated with him as her relationship with Rebecca fades. She learns more details about Seymour's life, including his middle management position with a fast food franchise called Cook's Chicken. Seymour informs Enid of Cook's secret racist past (it was originally called "Coon Chicken" also known as Coon Chicken Inn) after Enid discovers an old poster from Cook's depicting a grotesquely caricatured black man. Seymour unwisely lets Enid have the poster. Enid brings the poster to her art class, presenting it as a found art object. Her classmates are appalled, but Roberta is impressed with the concept behind Enid's project and later offers her a scholarship to an art college.

As much as Enid grows to like Seymour, she is not entirely honest with him. First, she sets out to arrange dates for him and eventually encourages him to develop a relationship with Dana, the woman he originally became infatuated with. However, Enid becomes jealous when Dana works to end Enid's friendship with Seymour out of her own jealousy. After Seymour turns down Enid's invitation to her art class's end of term show, Enid is too upset to attend the show alone and skips it, unaware that her contribution, the racist found art object, has created a scandal that makes the papers (and costs Enid her scholarship and Seymour his job). Later Enid, intentionally or not, sabotages Seymour's relationship with Dana by having a drunken one-night stand with him. Seymour, whose feelings towards Dana have been fading anyway, now hopes to have a serious romantic relationship with Enid. Enid, on the other hand, flees Seymour's apartment the next morning before he awakens and refuses to take his calls.

In the meantime, Enid and Rebecca get in a heated fight, and the two, who originally wanted to rent an apartment together, reconsider; Rebecca thinks she would be better off living on her own, but Enid, after discovering that she has lost the scholarship and that her father's former girlfriend is moving back, insists that she still wants to live with Becky. On the night before she is to move in with Becky she is unable to finish packing, and she does not show up at Becky's the next day. Seymour turns up though, frustrated because Enid has been ignoring his calls (and that he has lost his job because of her). Becky, angered herself by Enid's not showing, spitefully tells him about the telephone prank she and Enid played on him earlier. Seymour turns up at Josh's workplace, a convenience store, to take out his anger and humiliation on Josh, but a customer intervenes and injures Seymour, putting him in the hospital. Enid visits him and lets him know that she has in fact come to like and respect him a great deal, showing him the art portfolio she made with Seymour being prominently featured in it. Enid and Rebecca also have a reconciliation of sorts, half-heartedly speaking of “calling each other” sometime. As time passes, Seymour has a therapy session with a bored psychiatrist to work out his issues. Enid, who is still trying to figure out what to do with her life, boards a bus—once thought to be on a defunct line—and the bus drives off into the distance.

Cast

*Thora Birch as Enid, an alienated teenage girl—intelligent, witty, artistic, cynical, sarcastic. A keen observer of the world around her, she has been compared to Holden Caulfield.
*Scarlett Johansson as Rebecca, Enid's best friend since childhood, also alienated though slightly less so.
*Steve Buscemi as Seymour, Enid’s partner in loneliness. A record collector, only Seymour can understand Enid’s trouble with individualizing herself while, at the same time, trying to find some happiness because he has had the same problem all of his life.
*Brad Renfro as Josh, the unhappy convenience store clerk, whom Enid and Rebecca enjoy tormenting. Low key and mature, he often disapproves of the two girls' pranks but is usually cajoled into going along with them.
*Illeana Douglas as Roberta Allsworth, Enid's art teacher. Affected and pretentious, she nevertheless comes to Enid's defense when Enid is attacked for her politically incorrect found art project.
*Bob Balaban as Enid's kind but ineffectual father.
*Stacey Travis as Dana, Seymour's love interest. She is attractive and likable, but her conventional tastes bore Seymour and he eventually dumps her.
*Teri Garr as Maxine, the girlfriend of Enid's father. Enid dislikes her, as she does most adults.
*Dave Sheridan as Doug, an eccentric loiterer who frequently clashes with Josh's boss at the convenience store.
*Tom McGowan as Joe, a housemate and garage-sale partner of Seymour's.
*David Cross as Gerrold, the Pushy Guy
*Brian George as the irritable Greek owner of the convenience store where Josh works
*Debra Azar as Melora, an aspiring actress who graduated with Enid and Rebecca
*Rini Bell as the self righteous, handicapped graduation speaker
*Ezra Buzzington as Weird Al, a nickname Enid and Rebecca give to their waiter, Allen, because his hair style reminds them of "Weird Al" Yankovic. Buzzington additionally appears in Art School Confidential, another film directed by Terry Zwigoff also based on a short story by Daniel Clowes.
*Ashley Peldon as Margaret, another student in Enid's art class, the teacher's pet.

Differences from the comic

The film departs from its source material in a number of ways.

*Enid and Rebecca's surnames, Coleslaw and Doppelmeyer, are omitted.
*The character of Seymour is entirely absent from the novel, and the sequence involving the prank call and the personal ads involves an unnamed older man who bears little resemblance to Seymour, and is only seen for a few panels.
*The summer art school scenes are not in the comic, and are based on another Clowes comic, Art School Confidential (but mostly original with the film).
*The comic featured a story in which Enid is applying to a prestigious college, which causes a rift to form between her and Becky. This subplot is absent from the film.
*The tall magazine store employee who sells videotapes to Enid early in the film is actually an amalgam of two characters from the comics, John Ellis and Johnny Apeshit.
*The character of Bob Skeets, an astrologer and psychic, is dropped from the film entirely. The satanists are also given more focus in the comic.
*In the comic Becky lives with her grandmother, a character who does not appear in the film.
*The comic does not feature the subplot involving Enid and Becky trying to find an apartment.

Reception

"Ghost World" premiered on June 16, 2001 at the Seattle International Film Festival, to lower than average recognition by audiences, but admiration from critics. It was also screened at several film festivals all over the world including the Fantasia Festival in Montreal.

With a limited commercial theatrical run in the US, "Ghost World"’s commercial success was extremely minimal—grossing less money than used to make the film, and from small attention from audiences and box office recipients – however its critical reception was far greater than a certain degree of films released that year, sitting at a lofty eminent position on many critical lists, significantly praised in many reviews. The overall box office tally for "Ghost World" in 2001 was US$6,944,894, on its estimated $7,000,000 budget. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162346/business Box office/business for Ghost World] ] [ [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ghost_world/ Rotten Tomatoes] ]

Film critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said "I wanted to hug the film ["Ghost World"] . It takes such a risky journey and never goes wrong. It creates specific, original, believable, lovable characters, and meanders with them through their inconsolable days, never losing its sense of humor. The Buscemi role is one he's been pointing toward during his entire career; it's like the flip side of his alcoholic barfly in "Trees Lounge," (1996) who also becomes entangled with a younger girl, not so fortunately." He also listed on his "Top Ten of 2001" list. [ [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1109008/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=default&page=1&rid=242342 Ghost World BY ROGER EBERT] ] Its 92/100 rating of fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes reflected its commercial success, marked by being one of the most-rented films from March 2002–December 2002, sitting at number 7 on its first release into video stores.

"Ghost World" topped MSN Movies' list of the 'Top 10 Comic Book Movies', [ [http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=114936&mpc=2 Top 10 Comic Book Movies - MSN Movies News ] ] was ranked number 3 out of 94 in Rotten Tomatoes' "Comix Worst to Best" countdown (where 1 was best and 94 was worst).cite news | last = Giles | first = Jeff | coauthors = | title = Comix Worst to Best | work = Rotten Tomatoes | pages = | language = | publisher = | url = http://www.rottentomatoes.com/features/special/2007/comic/?r=3&mid=1109008 | accessdate = 2008-09-30 ] 5th 'Best' on IGN's 'Best & Worst Comic-Book Movies' [ [http://comics.ign.com/articles/673/673860p3.html IGN: Best & Worst Comic-Book Movies ] ] and "Empire" magazine ranked the film 19th in their "The 20th Greatest Comic Book Movies" list.cite news | last = | first = | coauthors = | title = The 20th Greatest Comic Book Movies | work = Empire | pages = | language = | publisher = | date = | url = http://www.empireonline.com/features/comicbookfilms/default.asp#comicbookfilms | accessdate = 2008-09-30 ]

Soundtrack

Infobox Album
Name = Ghost World: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Type = Soundtrack
Artist = various artists


Released = August 14, 2001
Recorded =
Genre = Bollywood
String band
Blues
Length = 62:58
Label = Shanachie
Producer =
Reviews = * Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://wc05.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hxfoxqe0ldde link]
Last album =
This album =
Next album =The score to "Ghost World" is composed by orchestrator and arranger David Kitay, an excerpt of his work for the film is heard on the last track of the soundtrack album.

Music in the film includes the Bollywood dance number, "Jaan Pehechaan Ho" by Mohammed Rafi and "Devil Got My Woman" by Skip James, as well as "Pickin' Cotton Blues" by the bar band, Blueshammer.

There are songs by other artists mentioned in the film, including Lionel Belasco, which are reflective of the character Seymour, and of director Terry Zwigoff himself, who is a collector of 78 RPM records, as portrayed by Seymour. Other tracks are by Vince Giordano, a musician who specializes in meticulous recreations of songs from old 78 RPM records.

Referenced in the film is R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders, a band that Zwigoff played in. Enid asks Seymour about the band's second album, "Chasin' Rainbows", and Seymour replies, "Nah, that one's not so great."

There is one Track missing on the soundtrack, "What Do I Get" by The Buzzcocks. It can be heard when Enid dresses up like a punk. In addition, the majority of David Kitay's score is missing.

Track listing

#"Jaan Pehechaan Ho" (Mohammed Rafi) – 5:28
#*From the opening sequence of the film, during which Enid is watching and dancing to a video clip of a dance number from the 1966 Bollywood musical "Gumnaam".
#"Graduation Rap" (Vanilla, Jade and Ebony) – 0:32
#"Devil Got My Woman" (Skip James) – 3:00
#"I Must Have It" (Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks) – 2:59
#"Miranda" (Lionel Belasco) – 3:02
#"Pickin' Cotton Blues" (Blueshammer) – 3:35
#"Let's Go Riding" (Mr. Freddie) – 2:55
#"Georgia On My Mind" (Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks) – 3:11
#"Las Palmas De Maracaibo" (Lionel Belasco) – 3:15
#"Clarice" (Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks) – 3:29
#"Scalding Hot Coffee Rag" (Craig Ventresco) – 3:02
#"You're Just My Type" (Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks) – 2:33
#"Venezuela" (Lionel Belasco) – 3:15
#"Fare Thee Well Blues" (Joe Calicott) – 3:12
#"C. C. & O. Blues" (Pink Anderson & Simmie Dooley) – 3:08
#"C-h-i-c-k-e-n Spells Chicken" (McGee Brothers) – 2:59
#"That's No Way To Get Along" (Robert Wilkins) – 2:55
#"So Tired" (Dallas String Band) – 3:20
#"Bye Bye Baby Blues" (Little Hat Jones) – 3:10
#"Theme From Ghost World" (David Kitay) – 3:58

Awards

Won
*Chicago Film Critics Association—Best Supporting Actor–Steve Buscemi
*Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay –Terry Zwigoff, Daniel Clowes
*Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor –Steve Buscemi
*L.A. Film Critics Association—Best Screenplay–Terry Zwigoff, Daniel Clowes
*New York Film Critics Circle—Best Supporting Actor–Steve Buscemi
*Toronto Film Critics Association—Best Actress–Thora Birch
*Toronto Film Critics Association—Best Screenplay [Runner-up] –Terry Zwigoff, Daniel Clowes
*Toronto Film Critics Association—Best Supporting Actor [Runner-up] –Steve Buscemi
*Toronto Film Critics Association—Best Supporting Actress–Scarlett Johansson

Nominated

*74th Academy Awards—Best Adapted Screenplay–Daniel Clowes, Terry Zwigoff
*Golden Globe Awards—Best Actress—Musical or Comedy–Thora Birch
*Golden Globe Awards—Best Supporting Actor–Steve Buscemi
*American Film Institute—Best Screenplay–Daniel Clowes, Terry Zwigoff
*American Film Institute—Best Supporting Actor–Steve Buscemi
*Independent Spirit Award—Best First Feature–Terry Zwigoff
*Writers Guild of America—Best Adapted Screenplay–Daniel Clowes, Terry Zwigoff

See also

*List of films based on comics

References

External links

* [http://www.ghostworld-themovie.com/ Official Site]
*imdb title|id=0162346|title=Ghost World
*amg movie|id=1:247388|title=Ghost World
*rotten-tomatoes|id=ghost_world|title=Ghost World
*metacritic film|id=ghostworld|title=Ghost World
*mojo title|id=ghostworld|title=Ghost World
* [http://www.cinemademerde.com/Ghost_World.shtml Essay: "Ghost World" is the movie of a generation]
* [http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/aug/30/ghost_writer/ Daniel Clowes interview]
* [http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?a=6296&s=Interviews Terry Zwigoff interview]
* [http://tcj.com/236/r_ghost.html The Comics Journal review (compares it to the graphic novel)]