"Secret" J. D. Salinger documentary 5 years in the making

Wow the

Basically what I said 10 seconds after viewing the trailer.

 

What's interesting/worrying is that it was deemed necessary to present the subject matter in this manner.

 

Salinger - the - book - reviewed and Shane Salerno on the Charlie Rose show:

http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/salinger-2013-book-reviews.html

 

Thank you, I enjoyed the Charlie Rose interview. Salerno comes off very sincere and highly respectful of Salinger.

FWIW, I'm enjoying the book. Yes, it's not a traditional biography, but it's well-organized and dense with information. Great photos, too, but many are clearly unnecessary and obviously filler. A picture of Joyce Maynard is fine but pictures of her parents, children, one-time husband are kind of overkill.

Unfortunately it looks like the film won't be playing around here until September 20, so the wait continues. But still anxious to see it.

 

I must get the book. Did you read the Slawenski one?

 

I did. It was more of a literary biography so it had more (way too much more) analysis of Salinger's works. It did, however, have a really telling account of Salinger's mid-80's deposition for his legal fight with Ian Hamilton's publisher that wasn't mentioned in Paul Alexander's book. Slawenski said Salinger was so nervous and intimidated by the legal process and the defense lawyer's aggressiveness that his hands began to tremble to the point where his own lawyer had to hold them (or one of them) down. I felt really sad for the guy when I read that. (I hate to say it though, I'd love to see that deposition if it exists on video.)

Incidentally Salerno and David Shields do not seem to be fans of Slawenski's and are very critical of his book/research.

 

I enjoyed both the Hamilton and Slawenski books, though the latter took a beating in some areas because he was an 'amateur scholar,' though in the end, I don't think that mattered; his passion for the subject and the depth of interest greatly added to the picture of Salinger and his work. What was Salerno and Shields' view of Slawenski?

 

I agree.

Salerno said (pp. 25-26) Slawenski's book had "dozens of errors" and was "the most recent offender" in terms of repeating "inaccurate stories" and "misinformation" regarding Salinger's WWII record.

 

Thanks. I have to get this! I wonder what Salerno makes of it - or makes of the new information, at least.

 

Here's another review (with a good illustration!):

http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/salinger-by-shields-and-salerno-review.html

 

I still can't see Captain America allowing his father's 'new' works to be published. He seems to fight everything quite effectively.

 

He just updated Dead Caulfields this past week. Looks like he's taking the high road by delegating the criticism to others.

At some point in the book Salerno mentions that he interviewed Maynard for 18 hours over 2 days; the book is poorly organized and full of misplaced information/quotes.

 

Rather effectively too!

 

The film received emergency, post-release editing:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...ling--while-its-still-in-cinemas-8833072.html

The Salinger footage could be interesting -- unless it's more of this.

 

True, but he's the kind of person I want to know more about. If he hadn't chosen that lifestyle, I guess I wouldn't, however...

 

There's too much of Salinger in his characters (Holden, Seymour, Buddy) to not find the man almost as fascinating as his creations. And his lifestyle, as Ed says, only adds to that fascination.

 

I finally watched this last night. It has its faults (cheesy re-enactments, disorganization) but I still enjoyed it. I think the film was a victim of its own hype, but it needed some kind of hype to justify a theatrical release.

Incidentally, I went to the 9:30p showing at a 1700-seat theater. There were maybe 8 people in the audience. Looks like Salerno better get back to writing those blockbusters. Maybe Armageddon Again?

 

Let's hope the edited version is better.

 

This is on netflix streaming now. Watching it right now.

 

Excellent - doing the same. Thanks.

 

It's okay. If they cut out a half hour it would be a really amazing episode of American Experience.

The first thing they do that throws it off is they suddenly stop the narrative flow and spend 10 minutes talking to one of this stalkers who talked to him in his driveway. There is no reason for this to be shown at this point in the film. The stuff on the war years is amazing, but they hype up the footage they found just a tiny bit too much.

They spend way to much time on the his romantic life. The parts sprinkled in through out here about publishing and him having various episodes with editors and publishers is amazing. However it keeps slowing down so we can go back to the gossipy here are some woman we found who would talk to us parts of the story.

The other thing they do is they constantly throughout the movie hint that the man was not really a recluse and just playing a game. "if he really didn't want to talk to anyone why did he make that phone cal" or drive to me meet the person, or stop to talk the person. This is there because I personally felt really really dirty watching this so they try to counteract the shocking number of surveillance style photos they have of him picking up his mail, by saying "Hey he was just playing a game"

This all builds up the big reveal where they show us what books are being published and a little synopsis for each. To little to late and if true not much of a secret since they are being published.

There was a great movie there, the first 45 minutes I thought it was amazing, but then you feel like things are getting short shrift so they can spend more time showing interviews with the two woman from the mans life who would actually talk to them.

You are left with this view of a horny old man who hunted down teenagers and then dumped them. They kind of skip over the fact that he was with the last girl he found this way for I believe over 30 years.

 

Rider, thanks for letting us know about Netflix.

Well, unless I missed something, they did break the news about these specific works being published. Before which, this information was secret, no? Before Salerno/Shields, did we know about a Glass Family collection, etc.? The estate certainly didn't tell us.

They did show her, but without her cooperation in the project, there wasn't much to be shown or said about her. My understanding is that before the last-minute edit, Joyce Maynard had less screen time.

There's been a lot of criticism about the reenactments, which I agree with to a point. But the lack of source materials ensures that the film makers had to come up with some type of visuals to fill in the gaps between interviews. They did the best they could. I found the end result quite enjoyable.

 

As I said before if it's something that is going to be imminently announced to the public you are not reveling an earth shattering secret just getting a scoop and announcing some news early. They didn't uncover anything they just beat the official press release.

 

I'm not sure I understand. If the works aren't going to be released until 2015-2020 at the earliest, and the estate is dead silent on the matter in the interim, that's a legitimate scoop. "Imminently" isn't the word I'd use for something happening years from now. If this all turns out to be true, then by definition, these plans were a major secret, and they did uncover them.