Re: documentary on salinger?

On Fri, Nov 08, 2002 at 09:51:18AM -0800, Kim Johnson wrote:

> this is offered by 'Films for the Humanities and
> Sciences'.
> anyone know anything about this? seen it?

If it's the one I know, it started as a BBC film and (I think) had a
new soundtrack recorded for the US broadcast.

The one I saw made me cringe a little, given how tawdry it was,
dredging the bottom, so to speak.

It's true that they spoke with some people who had rarely, if ever,
spoken before. One interesting interview was with Frances (Franny)
Glassmoyer, who was a schoolmate of JDS. She stayed in touch with him
after school by mail. Some say she was a name-model for Franny Glass.
She spoke wonderfully about Salinger.

There were others they spoke with as well, and all in all, they got to
a lot of previously inaccessible people. They also made a credible
thread between JDS and the horrors of World War II. They made Sgt. X
come alive and made it seem not far-fetched that JDS could have
suffered trauma in the field such that he would have been much like
Sgt. X and that he would have carried his wounds back into the
civilian world.

All in all, I watched it with great hesitation, and worry that it
would be embarrassing. In the end, I felt it was, and it made me a
little mortified on behalf of the creators.

Disclaimer: I had been contacted by the producers, and was interviewed
by them and supplied them with some background material. They used
some of the clips in some of the visuals that had voice-overs.
Luckily for me, they didn't use any of the footage we shot on Park
Avenue. I think I would have croaked from embarrassment had they run
anything I said. The whole enterprise made my skin crawl when I
watched it.

Just my 2 cents, so to speak.

--tim o'connor

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Received on Sat Nov 9 21:44:01 2002