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Ghost World, Directed by Terry Zwigoff
United Artists, June 16, 2001 (US)
Screenplay: Daniel Clowes and Terry Zwigoff, based on the comic book by Daniel Clowes
Starring: Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, and Brad Renfro
Seymour (Steve Buscemi): I can’t relate to 99% of humanity.
This world is made of bones. Skinny bones. Breakable bones. Dancing bones that rattle lonesome in the night. Bone chimes that click and clack in the wind. It’s a fragile world these bony bones. They crumble. Crack. Split in two. Snap like handfuls of dry spaghetti. Pop like branches deep in the forest. Sometimes you can even hear them whisper. Your face and skin may be beautiful, but man, those bones!
Those bones don’t belong here. Neither do you. Someone could trip over them. Split their skull. Break their neck bone. What does a poor skeleton do? Moan? Groan? A bone’s gotta scuttle. Gotta bend. Be! So share them chicken bones with a friend! A truly scary friend. Fat friend. Ugly friend. Friend who climbs on rocks. Make bone contact! Reverberate. Vertebrate! Clavicle and scapula. Sacrum and radius. Mandible and tibia. You’re a wreck. A shipwreck. Flotsam and fibula. Nobody wants you. Everybody hates you. You’re a loser, coccyx. So why don’t you kill yourself and sweep up that damn clunky mess. Or scare the shit out of everybody else by hanging out with someone really, really weird.
Seymour: Well, I have to admit that things are really starting to look up for me since my life turned out to be shit.
Maybe you’ve met someone odd. Someone out of place. A stranger in a garage selling old junk. Old records. Sitting alone at a counter reading a dark comic book. It could be a funny hat. A nervous twitch. Orange socks. I remember someone from high school who told us aliens were communicating to him through the fillings of his teeth. It might be an old woman wearing a turban on a bus. A funny kid by herself in the library. The woman who collects soap dishes. Your science teacher. Your neighbor and his ham radio downstairs. An anti-hero in a Mexican wrestling mask stalking the streets at night trying to save the world. Point is, they are somehow different. They don’t try to fit in. They don’t even seem to care. Like the undead, forever roaming the world not knowing their fly’s undone, or head’s cut off. They weave in and out of this world not ever being noticed. But standing out just the same.
Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson): You actually like that guy?
Enid (Thora Birch): I don’t know, I kind of like him. He’s the exact opposite of everything I really hate. In a way, he’s such a clueless dork, he’s almost kind of cool.
Rebecca: That guy is many things, but he’s definitely not cool.
Nobody’s popular. Nobody’s cool. Deep down we all look like shit. We ache. We’re all empty inside and we cry at night hoping that someone will one day like us. Will talk to us. Be our friend. Meet us after school. Hold our hand. Hang out with us and take us somewhere. Anywhere. We’ve got blemishes and scars. We’re overweight and have crooked noses. Our boobs are too small. Too big. We’re short and stubby. Long and lanky. Our moms are dead and all our dads drunk. We’re children of foster parents. Godparents. Grandparents. We’re all alone shivering in the dark looking to be loved. Nobody’s better than anybody else. Nobody. So stick that snob bone back up your snobby bony ass. Tell your friends.
Creeps rule. We haunt the fetid city streets of the night. We walk the silent school halls where no one knows our name. We’re the last in line. The last chosen for teams. Last to get off the bus. The laughed at. The ridiculed. Faceless and decayed. Our eyes are crooked. Our arms outstretched. We come from the grave and we’ll bring you all back to it with us again. This world is a ghost town. A haunted town. Dead. We are all just ghost bones sharing and living in it. Tear away the skin. Tear away the beautiful hair, the expensive clothes and shoes. Take off the makeup. The diamonds, the earrings and pearls. We are all just dust and bones. Naked. Bones and nothing more.
Rebecca: Oh look, there he is.
Enid: As always.
Rebecca: Waiting for the bus that never comes.
Enid: I wonder if he’s just totally insane, or he really thinks the bus is coming?
Rebecca: Why don’t you just ask him?
Enid: Hi, what’s your name?
Norman (Charles Stevenson Jr.): Norman.
Enid: Are you waiting for a bus?
Norman: Yes.
Enid: I hate to tell you this, but they cancelled this bus line two years ago. There are no more buses on this street.
Norman: You don’t know what you’re talking about.
-TD
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