Author Remains Elusive in Documentary ‘Salinger’

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Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Jerome David Salinger, J.D. to his readers, remains one of the most influential and controversial authors of the 20th Century. Known intuitively for the classic novel “Catcher in the Rye,” he also was known as a reclusive soul. His life and times make up the new documentary, “Salinger.”

If you know nothing about J.D. Salinger, this document will fill in the gaps. However, there is a sense of redundancy in the piece – readers love his writing! he’s reclusive! – without a feeling of the inner humanity. Virtually all of the “documentary techniques” are thrown against the wall in this film – talking heads, archive footage, reader appreciations, celebrities and actor recreations, and all of this creates a bit of a jumble. Points that are made early in the film are reiterated later, with no perception of purpose. In the end, it feels that J.D. Salinger will remain a mystery, and cannot be captured in summary – there are too many gaps in his 91 years on earth. For the writer that rejected his celebrity, he elusively gets the last laugh.

J.D. Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. He was a child of upper middle class parents, and was an educated product of private and military schools. His love for writing came during his teenage years. Although he was in and out of colleges during the late 1930s, he met a teacher who encouraged him to submit his short stories to magazines.

The Author Writing ‘Catcher in the Rye’ During World War II in ‘Salinger’ Photo credit: The Weinstein Company

World War 2 temporarily derailed his writing career, as he participated in ground troop maneuvers associated with D-Day. Back in New York City after the war, he began to write in earnest, and eventually release the novel “Catcher in the Rye” in 1951. The book exploded as a cultural touchstone – still selling 250,000 copies a year – and forced the reluctant Salinger into a world of literary superstardom. He denied that world, and only published two novellas and a collection of short stories thereafter. He became just as famous for escaping his fame, as he had been as an author.

The documentary doesn’t focus on a chronology of Salinger’s life, but flits around with commentary surrounding that life. The talking heads in the film are numerous and insightful, especially as they talk to Salinger’s contemporaries in the literary world. The celebrities interviewed have that hand-picked “rebellious’ quality for a Salinger doc – Philip Seymour Hoffman, Martin Sheen, John Cusack and Edward Norton – but Hoffman does make a nice observation about gaining fame, as in not knowing what to do with it once it happens.

Apparently the documentary was made over nine years, and the indecisiveness in the way the story is chronicled exposes that fact. The jumping around without a major connecting thesis becomes distracting, and even when there is a compelling section – the influence of “Catcher in the Rye,” for example – it is bludgeoned into overkill. It would have been interesting to see a counterpoint regarding the work, that’s how worshipful the film treats it.

The reclusiveness of Salinger is one of the themes that overly haunt the film. The whole thing starts with an anecdote of a photographer assigned in the 1970s to take a picture of the older Salinger in his hometown, and what may be adventurous to the filmmakers comes off as a bit creepy to the viewer. There was also a “biggest fan” that tracked him down, actually left his family to do so. Of course he wasn’t ready for give-and-take once the meeting happened, and then blamed J.D. for the shortcoming of it all. Maybe this was the filmmaker’s intention, because the emotion was “leave the man alone.”

The Agony, Ecstasy and Nicotine: The Author in an Early Publicity Portrait in ‘Salinger’ Photo credit: The Weinstein Company

Salinger did apparently have his quirks, including an appetite for younger girls, but they all were over the age of consent when they took him on. The author is best revealed in his published works, readily available to anyone, disclosing more about the man in one short story than this whole film. It was a noble and anticipated attempt to capture the elusive man, but in the end there is a notion that a better film about J.D. Salinger is yet to be made.

Here is a revealing passage from Salinger’s ethereal “Franny and Zooey” – “I don’t know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn’t make you happy.” It would be great if J.D. Salinger died a happy man.

By PATRICK McDONALD Senior Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com pat@hollywoodchicago.com