I just saw the movie and am still kind of stunned by it, and I’m not really sure what to make of it.
What was with Enid getting on the bus at the end? It seemed depressingly escapist to me.
Does anyone have any insight into this movie? I’d try to offer some of my own, but my mind needs to recover.
Are there any earlier threads that talked about this movie? I’d find them on my own, but I can’t search.
She got on the bus and got out of town because she had torched every relationship with everyone she cared about, beyond repair. In the comic (which the movie adapted), there was a great scene at the end, right before she got on the bus, where she wanted to say goodbye to Becky but saw that Becky was getting along great without her, that maybe she’d been dragging Becky down, and out of Becky’s sightline and earshot, said “You have become a lovely young woman.” It was very powerful.
But I had thought that she managed to repair those relationships.
When I saw Norman get on the bus I was so excited because I thought that would tie into things improving for Enid, but I was disappointed.
What’s the philosophy of the movie? Does she learn to accept humanity, or remain cynical?
Is the graphic novel worth reading in addition to seeing the movie, or is it really unecessary?
The graphic novel’s excellent. The movie covered most of it really well, but there are parts they left out which you’d find interesting, ie Feldman and other bits. I havent read it for a couple of years, but i’m sure someone will be along to explain in more detail.
I’d also recommend oter work by Clowes too: Like a velvet glove cast in iron (which someone should really try to make a film of, David Boring and the ongoing Eightball comic.
I don’t think we’re given to know. It’s still an open question, like it is for so many of us.
I love the ending to this movie! It’s one of the best endings in movie history. It resolves nothing, and yet resolves everything. It’s perfect!
Earlier in the movie she commented that the one thing she’d love to do is to leave everything behind. Get in a car and go to a strange city and start a whole new life and leave everybody back home wondering.
She fullfills her dream when she realizes that the people in her life won’t miss her. Everybody in Enid’s life but her has moved on. Even her town has moved on without her. The quaint strip-malls are gone. They’re been replaced by Burger King’s and other familiar corporate businesses. So she decides that she too must move on.
I believe in the comic book, Becky hooks up with Josh.
In the comic, Enid occasionally mentions a stupid test she has to take while talking to Becky. It’s most likely one for a scholarship grant, but Enid doesn’t want to appear like a snob to Becky, so she downplays it. It doesn’t work. Becky gets angry at Enid for using big words like “contentious.” They both become aware of the cultural gap growing between them, and they were both outcasts to begin with.
There’s also a very touching part in the comic where Enid is looking for a children’s record she used to have. She’s scouring the second hand record stores, but nobody’s heard of it. After her argument with Becky, and feeling like she’s the worst person on the planet, she comes home to find that her father found her record and record player and left it on her bed. She hugs the album and listens to it for the entire night. It’s a very poignant moment. (If this happens in the movie, I don’t remember it)
In the movie, she has a box of her old childhood things as she’s getting ready to move to the new apartment. She finds her record and plays it.
Okay, I’m starting to understand it a little more now, thanks.
One reason I was confused is that I’m bad at figuring out philisophical points. For example, when I read Camus’ The Stranger, I thought it was an excellent story about how living without morals is bad…
Why did Enid stop talking to Seymour for a while? Is it because she got drunk and had sex with him and felt really awkward about it?
BTW, the characters Enid and Rebecca remind me almost exactly of some friends of mine from high school, except my friends aren’t quite as hoplessly cynical or mean. They have similar interests and a similar sense of humor.
Enid dresses a lot like one of my friends except that my friend doesn’t have the bondage gearlike clothes like fishnet stockings and leather boots. She even walks the same way! She also likes to draw pictures of people in her notebook.
I don’t know if my other friend is as similar to Rebecca though.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. Plus, since he got his hopes up about Enid and broke off his relationship with that realtor woman, she just HAD to ditch him. He’s a plain-faced loser, and that’s the law.
Of course, if I were a woman I’d be all over Steve Buscemi.
Did Rebecca belive that Enid thought he was a loser? She must have looked through the whole notebook if she knew where the page with the cut out personal was. Was she just telling him that to damage the relationship between her and Seymour.
Rebecca told Seymour that he was a “dork” because she was mad when he suggested Enid was with Josh. In the comic both Rebecca and Enid have a thing for Josh and there’s an on-going thing where they say, “YOU should go out with Josh”.
Plus, Rebecca probably blamed Seymour for her and Enid’s failing relationship.
Thank you. That settles it, I’m getting the graphic novel.
Daniel Clowes’ Art School Confidential is currently being adapted to film. Same director as Ghost World - Terry Zwigoff - and starring Max Minghella, John Malkovich, Anjelica Huston, Sophia Myles and, of course, Steve Buscemi.
Back to Ghost World. I loved the film but it depressed me so, because Enid is the type of person I’d love to be friends with. Unfortunately, I live a solitary life in the middle of a thousand acres of forest, with no other fully-human beings for companionship.
Anyhoo…
I’ve got mixed feelings about this. The best gags from the ASC comic already appeared in Ghost World. But. it’s such a rich subject…
Sounds like it’ll be cool. Between GW and Reservoir Dogs, Steve Buscemi is becoming one of my favorite actors.
Plus I loved the art class scenes in GW.
I made my parents watch the movie and I don’t think they understood it. My mom disliked Enid and thought she was selfish. I told her that Enid grows throughout the movie, but my mom didn’t seem to notice much.
I thought it was a sign of improvement with Enid that she turned out to be kind of nice to the art teacher. She came back to ask about the scholarship and didn’t seem to have too much contempt about it.
Do you guys agree that Enid became an all-around better person, or was I imagining it?
What scenes would show this?
Enid only went back to the art teacher when she felt all of her options were gone.
I don’t think Enid was exactly selfish, although it comes out like that. Like I said before, she just didn’t want to move on with her life when the people in her life wanted to move on with theirs. She didn’t want to grow up, she didn’t want to take anything seriously. Rebecca, Seymour, her father, and the art teacher did.
I’ve seen this movie way too much. 
I haven’t seen the movie since it first came out (even though I own the DVD :dubious: ), but I remember thinking at the time that Enid getting on the bus was symbolic of her death.
I can’t remember too much why I thought that now though; is this founded or was I making stuff up?
I also thought that the ending was about Enid’s death also. I thought she commited suicide and this was the director’s way of telling us.
I figured when the old guy got on the bus it was actually him dying. That’s why I think the bus signifies death.
I fucking hope not, Amp.
That would be unbearably depressing.
Unless someone comes up with a good reason otherwise, I’d prefer to believe that she was simply moving onward to a brighter future.
What about Seymour? Was his ending positive or negative? My mom thought his life was ruined, but he was saying that he’d get back to it next week. Plus the psychiatrist said that the breakup was the best thing that could happen to him. I took it to mean that he’d be getting out of that rut he’s always been in.
Oh! Did anyone notice that when Seymour was wearing his new pants, in the very next scene Enid is walking on the sidewalk and the pants have disappeared from it?
A gift from Dana, huh? :dubious: