'Salinger' chases a recluse out of the shadows
By turns fascinating and infuriating, the documentary 鈥淪alinger鈥� arrives with a public-relations fanfare not unlike Geraldo Rivera鈥檚 opening of Al Capone鈥檚 vault. The promotional campaign cautions 鈥淯ncover the Mystery but Don鈥檛 Spoil the Secrets.鈥� The 鈥渕ystery鈥� here is the life of J.D. Salinger; one of the 鈥渟ecrets,鈥� already trumpeted in advance in the press, is the tantalizing possibility that Salinger, who died in 2010 at age 91, instructed his estate to publish five additional books beginning in 2015.
Shane Salerno, who wrote and directed the film, and who also produced a just-published companion book, an oral history also titled 鈥淪alinger,鈥� is the screenwriter of 鈥淪avages鈥� and has also written several upcoming sequels to 鈥淎vatar.鈥� He鈥檚 a showman who treats Salinger鈥檚 life in expos茅 fashion, heavy on the psychobiography. Much of what is revealed in this film has been reported in the past, though not in such detail. We hear about Salinger鈥檚 posh New York upbringing 鈥� his Jewish father, who disapproved of his son鈥檚 literary ambitions, was in the cheese business; his Roman Catholic mother was much more obliging. Tossed out of a series of prep and military schools, wanting to make his mark as an actor before discovering writing, he enlisted in the Army and landed on Normandy Beach during the Allied invasion. Likely shellshocked, working in counterintelligence directly after the war, he encountered the Nazi death camps and had a nervous breakdown. He brought back to America a German bride who, it turns out, may have been a Gestapo spy. (The marriage was dissolved almost immediately.)
Salinger had been selling stories to established magazines like Esquire, but his ambition, his obsession, was to crack The New Yorker, something he finally accomplished. When 鈥�The Catcher in the Rye,鈥� which Salinger had been working on even in wartime, was published in 1951, it turned him into his generation鈥檚 instant guru. Its success also drove him from the New York literary scene, which he hated anyway, into reclusion in the wilds of New Hampshire, where he resided until his death. His last published story, coming after the books 鈥淔ranny and Zooey鈥� and 鈥淩aise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters,鈥� was in 1965.
Salerno pays lip service to Salinger鈥檚 literary accomplishment, with brief talking-head segments featuring everyone from Gore Vidal and Tom Wolfe to John Guare and Robert Towne, but what really interests him is the down-and-dirty stuff. So we hear from a parade of women, often decades younger than Salinger, with whom he consorted. (Joyce Maynard, who once wrote a tell-all book about her life with Salinger, is the most prominently featured.) Salerno pushes the idea that Salinger鈥檚 early, failed love affair with the teenage Oona O鈥橬eill, who dumped him for Charlie Chaplin no less, was a lifelong regret.
He also pushes, more plausibly, the contention that much of Salinger鈥檚 emotional difficulties were a species of post-traumatic stress disorder suffered in the wake of World War II. But there is much overreaching in this film. A talking-head voice-over tells us in doomy tones how the birth of Salinger鈥檚 daughter, Margaret (who, unlike his son, Matthew, is interviewed in the film), disrupted his ordered life. What exactly is unique about this disruption?
The film has a quote from Salinger from 1980 saying that 鈥渨riting Holden was a mistake.鈥� Some mistake: The book has sold 60 million copies and continues to sell 250,000 a year. According to this film, Salinger stipulated in his will that 鈥淭he Catcher in the Rye鈥� never be made into a movie. (Billy Wilder and Elia Kazan, among others, tried to convince him otherwise.) So instead of a movie of 鈥淭he Catcher in the Rye鈥� we have 鈥淪alinger,鈥� a documentary that turns the author into a crypto Holden Caulfield. Maybe Salinger was right all those years in shunning the limelight. Psychobiography isn鈥檛 all it鈥檚 cracked up to be. Grade: B (Rated PG-13 for disturbing war images, thematic elements, and smoking.)
