If he had only written Catcher In The Rye, author J.D, Salinger would still be one of the most fascinating figures in history. But there are far more secrets and mysteries swirling about the man, not the least of which is why he mysteriously stopped publishing in the 1960s and became a virtual hermit. Now writer/director Shane Salerno has been on a quest to uncover more about him, and the result is the documentary Salinger. The trailer has arrived courtesy of Yahoo.
Salinger features interviews with 150 subjects including his friends, colleagues and members of his inner circle who have never spoken on the record before as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has never been seen.
There are also contributions from the likes of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, novelist John Guare, Martin Sheen, David Milch, Robert Towne, Tom Wolfe, E.L. Doctorow, Gore Vidal and Pulitzer Prize winners A. Scott Berg and Elizabeth Frank talk about Salinger’s influence on their lives, their work and the broader culture. The film is the first work to get beyond the Catcher In The Rye author’s meticulously built up wall: his childhood, painstaking work methods, marriages, private world and the secrets he left behind after his death in 2010.
This promises to be a fascinating look at the life of a man who preferred to keep out of the spotlight, but generated so much impact that three assassins (or would-be killers) have attributed their actions to his work.
Salerno’s documentary arrives in the US on September 6. A UK date has yet to be announced, but we’re hopeful it will make its way over here soon after that.