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Salinger is a 2013 documentary film written and directed by Shane Salerno.
On January 29, 2010, the website Deadline Hollywood broke an exclusive story and review of Salinger, a feature-length documentary about reclusive author J. D. Salinger that Salerno directed, produced and financed himself. The documentary was kept secret for five years. The film features interviews with 150 subjects including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, John Guare, Martin Sheen, David Milch, Robert Towne, Tom Wolfe, E. L. Doctorow, and Pulitzer Prize winners A. Scott Berg, Elizabeth Frank and Gore Vidal. Michael Fleming, the first journalist in the world to view the film, said Salerno's picture was "arrestingly powerful and exhaustively researched". Additionally, Fleming announced that Salerno had co-written a 700-page biography on Salinger with New York Times bestselling author David Shields.[2]
On February 4, 2010, Entertainment Weekly released an article about the Salinger documentary that detailed the elaborate security protocol that was put into place to keep the film secret for five years.[3]
On January 26, 2011, Salerno spoke with Associated Press about his Salinger documentary and its expected late 2012 release. "In the final analysis, what distinguishes our film and book project is access — access to Salinger's friends, colleagues and members of his inner circle that have never spoken on the record before as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has never been seen," Salerno said. "We take the viewer and reader inside J. D. Salinger's private world and shine light on a man named Jerry who lived in the shadow of the myth of J. D. Salinger".
On February 27, 2013, it was announced that Harvey Weinstein had acquired the documentary for theatrical distribution by his studio, The Weinstein Company, after being the only studio head to see the finished film after the 85th Academy Awards. The purchase is a seven-figure deal of $2 million. It does not include the television rights, which were sold to PBS' American Masters. The release date of September 6, 2013 was chosen for the film to be a candidate for the 86th Academy Awards.[4]
On June 13, 2013, The Weinstein Company released the first trailer for the film.[5]
The film will premiere on American Masters as the program's 200th episode in January 2014.[6]
On September 4, 2013, in an interview on Charlie Rose, Salerno revealed that the project initially started as a feature film, with Daniel Day-Lewis as his choice to play Salinger.[7]
The film holds a 30% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 67 critics' reviews, whose consensus is given as "A so-so documentary about a fascinating personality, Salinger has moments of insight but is too often bogged down by reenactments and a lack of attention to the man's actual writings."[8]
A. O. Scott of The New York Times opined that the film is "less a work of cinema than the byproduct of its own publicity campaign", calling it a "garish and confusing portrait", and saying that it is "full of hyperbole and speculation", and "does not so much explore the life and times of J. D. Salinger as run his memory and legacy through a spin cycle of hype". Scott thought the film's execution was sloppy in its craft, and took issue with the unsubtle manner in which Salerno emphasized Salinger's combat in World War II, arguing that it should have been done with more nuance, and with how the film tears down the wall of privacy that the reclusive Salinger built around his life, calling some of journalists and fans who staked out the locations frequented by the author "stalkers".[9]
References
- Jump up ^ "Salinger". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved September 8, 2013.
- Jump up ^ Fleming, Mike, Jr. (January 29, 2010). "Secret J.D. Salinger Documentary & Book, Now Revealed (Mike Has Seen The Film)". Deadline Hollywood.
- Jump up ^ Sperling, Nicole (February 4, 2010). "J.D. Salinger documentary: the top-secret film five years in the making". Entertainment Weekly.
- Jump up ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (February 27, 2013). "J.D. Salinger Documentary Acquired By Harvey Weinstein". Deadline Hollywood.
- Jump up ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (June 13, 2013). "Hot Trailer: 'Salinger'". Deadline Hollywood.
- Jump up ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (January 30, 2013). "Next Up For J.D. Salinger Docu: Film Distribution Deal To Follow S&S Book Pact". Deadline Hollywood.
- Jump up ^ "An hour with filmmaker Shane Salerno on his documentary about reclusive author J.D. Salinger.". Charlie Rose. PBS. September 3, 2013.
- Jump up ^ "Salinger (2013)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved September 12, 2013.
- Jump up ^ Scott, A.O. (September 5, 2013). "The Punishment for Being Publicity-Shy". The New York Times.
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