Thighs Wide Shut

Salinger
How To Lose Friends & Influence & Alienate People 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
PG-13 | 120 min

From the writer of Armageddon and the Shaft remake comes a documentary about the biography that he, Shane Salerno, co-wrote, about one of the most infamous and mysterious writers and persons of the the 20th century – Salinger, about… YOU GUESSED IT –  Jerome ‘Jerry’ David ‘J.D.’ Salinger 

We all vaguely know what JD’s been up to since he was last published in 1965 – self-imposed hermiting in Cornish, New Hampshire, questionable loving of way too young younger ladies, possibly working on unpublished stories – but what has he really been doing (is he drinking his own urine)?  There may not be a lot of knowledge or truth (nor analysis of his work) dug up in Salerno’s two hour long expose, but the hearsay said is here to say, and I for one ate up every inch of it!!! (although no mention of urine drinking ever pops up.  CRAP!!  or more like PEE!!)

For a man so privately guarded about his life and his work, and who was no fan of the Hollywood-ization takes on either, JD Salinger would hate every minute of this sleazy talking head documentary (filled with questionable interviewees – John Cusack???), but he’s dead and can’t do anything about it now, and if this five/nine years in the making doc is all we have to look at, then this is what we have to look at, and it works for me!  

What we’re mainly looking at is 30ish photographs of Salinger, and we see them over and over in the film (like the one above), and some we’ve never seen before – a bunch of WWII ones, including one of him actually writing Catcher In The Rye!!!  And a lot of talk – from former friends and lovers, that may not get us any closer to better understanding Salinger, but it’s about as close as we’re gonna get, unless his son (see below), and third and final wife ever have their say, which they probably won’t

You want a deep study on Salinger’s work – get a degree in comparative literature.  You want whatever dirt can be dug up on JD – see Salinger.  See it and hear how his upper class upbringing brought on his hate of materialism and phoniness.  See how the loss of his young love with Oona O’Neill (she moved on to bigger things – like Charlie Chaplin!!!) spurned him for life with the ladies (he didn’t seem to like it when girls became women).  See him at war (there’s actually a video clip of him in liberated France!!!), and how it permanently damaged his psyche and soul.  See him find happiness and inspiration in innocence and isolation.  See him seek adoration, but reject fame in the same breath.  See how others seeked him out for answers, only to find out that he didn’t offer or have any, and really just wanted to be left alone

Salinger’s death didn’t solve any of the myths and mysterious surrounding his life and his work.  This doc doesn’t either, but nothing truly can, cause only Salinger can answer for himself, although he himself said that nothing should be known about an author, and juss let the work speak for itself.  Maybe the answers will lie in those unpublished works, supposedly headed our way between 2015-2020.  Maybe they won’t.  They probably won’t.  Regardless, JD Salinger will always remain a closed book that we will want to re-read and over-analyze until we’ve finally caught that rye

Verdictgo:  Breast In Show

Revenge of The Literary Nerds:  Salinger’s son Matt is an actor, that you sorta know in his own right.  He played Captain America in the eponymous movie that no one saw, BUT he was also in Revenge of The Nerds, a movie that everyone in the 80s saw!!!  wonder if dad ever saw it, and was proud or found the movie phony, or he loved all the nude scenes like I really did when I was under 10 years old

Salinger catches eyes in limited release

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…