J.D. Salinger Reviews/Pans Indiana Jones
Posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 by Peter Sciretta
Yes, legendary Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger is still alive, and no, he hasn’t seen a super exclsuive screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull…
Our friends at FilmDrunk have discovered something interesting in a letter written in 1981 by Salinger, which is now up for sale on eBay. Salinger might be one of the great writers of all time, but in this letter, he proves he would have been a horrible movie critic:
“Have seen no good movies, except The Last Metro, which wasn’t exactly indelibly fine, but Deneuve herself maybe was, or came close. [Boosh? –Ed.] I got hooked into seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, which might be excused for its unwitty, unfunny awful socko-ness if it had been put together by Harvard Lampoon seniors.”
Wait, did J.D. Salinger actually call Raiders of the Lost Ark “unwitty, unfunny awful”? Salinger received and rejected numerous offers to adapt The Catcher in the Rye for the screen, one of which came directly from Raiders director Steven Spielberg.
29th April, 1:19pm
hahaha awesome.
29th April, 1:33pm
Reads like a Hunter review to me.
Perhaps Hunter should write book(s).
29th April, 1:39pm
this Salinger guy has taste.
29th April, 1:40pm
Wait, did Slashfilm just diss J.D. Salinger?
29th April, 1:51pm
Nope, we dissed him as a critic of films, but as a writer he’s one of my favorites
29th April, 1:53pm
And Holden Caufield was a snooty, boring, whiney rich brat. He had nothing new to say to anyone who made it to adulthood.
29th April, 2:25pm
Someone needs a rotten tomato’s membership.
Anyone who has ever read Jonathan Rosenbaums review of “Arc” knows that J.D.’s critique holds water… genius here is of the same mind. That said even as you read the critique, which is 100% correct, it really is, you love Indy anyway faults and all.
29th April, 2:29pm
JFK: Ark, faults? Even Ebert gave it 4/4 stars
29th April, 2:32pm
“Two things, however, make “Raiders of the Lost Ark” more than just a technological triumph: its sense of humor and the droll style of its characters. This is often a funny movie, but it doesn’t get many of its laughs with dialogue and only a few with obvious gags (although the biggest laugh comes from the oldest and most obvious gag, involving a swordsman and a marksman). We find ourselves laughing in surprise, in relief, in incredulity at the movie’s ability to pile one incident upon another in an inexhaustible series of inventions.”
29th April, 2:49pm
Hmmm Catcher in the Rye, one of the most overrated books ever made. JD Salinger can fuck off. Can anyone who is not a hardcore Salinger fan even name one of his other books? Cause I sure as hell can’t.
29th April, 3:06pm
franny and zooey. also this post is absurd it’s like a someone meaninglessly ranting about how the hacks on a movie blog don’t have the creativity to actually go out and write a classic work of literature. or create a film even with the budget of michael bay. said blogs don’t really have any insightful criticism of films or any knowledge of the art. said blogs just kind of post any juno or dark knight news they find and rehash the opinions of other, better sites.
29th April, 3:11pm
…not a huge Salinger fan.
and another book of his was Franny & Zooey. So yes.
I think the review is awesome and just what you would expect from Mr. Salinger. I don’t believe one can do anything other than laugh at the absurdity of reviewing a review of from a reclusive author for a mainstream popcorn Steven Spielberg flick. One pointed out the melancholic frustration of adolescence. One wowed us with car chases, a professor who uses a bullwhip and a giant boulder. It’s the effective difference between blowing away and breaking down. One pushes you away, one brings you in. Both are pertinent, but completely different arenas.
29th April, 3:42pm
Its all in the actors and the character development (and pre-2000, the technical effects). Today’s movies typically lack character development, personality and/or chemistry, which is why so many fail. Some actors, like Ford and leBouf, or chemistry catalysts…they make any group of actors (no matter how good or bad) click. Three cheers to them for that. I’m looking forward to seeing both of them in this upcoming Indy film.
29th April, 4:05pm
I’ll reserve judgment until I read the book. In the meantime, the response was pretty gangsta.
29th April, 6:26pm
That’s right. He “would have been a horrible movie critic” because his opinion differs from yours. I love how you don’t even bother replying to his criticisms. He didn’t like a movie a lot of people like, so he must be stupid or insane. Right?
Love your logic about Ebert, too. He gave it four stars, so it’s stupid to even suggest that it has faults. Right? He also gave The Cell four stars; must be a flawless masterpiece.
29th April, 9:40pm
@Peter:
Sorry this is going to be kind of a long post. I thought you’d just go and read the review and that would be it but I’ll give you an excerpt here and a link to the rest instead.
It begins
“As the most gifted and congenial by far of the New Hollywood tyros, Steven Spielberg may be the only consummate master of the post-television movie spectacular-the blockbuster that’s diced out into bite-size narrative units like Chicken McNuggets (every structural hint of bone or body part processed out of existence, every juicy piece a separate unique experience, designed to vanish without a trace). Aspiring to the condition of continuous action as if that were a delirious state of grace-borne aloft by superbly timed jolts and impossibly narrow escapes, usually in three-to five-minute set piece doses- RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK all but bypasses character and logic for a string of stunning rides through separate portions of Disneyland, one right after the other, each one a visceral treat.”
“Consider Karen Allen here, a likable, resourceful actress who gets used like one of those convertible stage units in a play full of short scenes First she’s established (in a drinking bout) as one of the boys, then as some perfunctory variant of the mannish woman (Joan Crawford as Vienna in JOHNNY GUITAR) running a Nepalese saloon, then as a fluttery sort of captive heroine who clearly isn’t one of the boys, then as a background prop; whatever a given scene requires, she dutifully becomes The same principle holds (more or less) for everyone and everything else in the movie, from hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to villain Beloq (Pau1 Freeman) to the Ark of the Covenant to somebody’s pet monkey. Try to summon up a composite image anywhere, a feeling or idea that you can salvage when the movie’s over, and you’re mainly stuck with an arsenal of disconnected poses and disposable functions.”
Jonathan Rosenbaum Soho News. 10 June 1981
Rest can be found at… http://www.coldbacon.com/movies/raiders-rosenbaum.html
Granted he makes good points about its demerits as film but Indiana Jones exists foremost for the audience… as he points out… and therefore inconsistencies and creative disembowelment on screen can be overlooked.
I recommend voraciously reading more of the R-baum before you jump to conclusions about him being “smarmy” or “some dick who doesnt like Indy” so you can begin to get inside his method of critique, which I hasten to mention, is considerably more probing, objective, and in the end, liberated from the trappings that Eberts reviews are bound by. These are two film critics who happen to of worked in Chicago, one is far superior to the other because he labors to approach films as films NOT as products he must put a ribbon on every week so he can “blahblahblah”. One is a parser of cinema the other is more of a personality. But who can judge critics right? F*ck who wants to? I recommend Rosenbaums Non-fiction Manifesto “Movie Wars” I think you’ll really like it Pete. If that takes, and by the way I’ve seriously misread the intent of this site if you think it blows, follow that with “Placing Movies” it collects some of the best crit Rosenbaum has put out.
Don’t get me wrong I LOVE Indiana Jones and thats why I’m not below actually looking at the series as FILM rather than the Grand-dad of the popcorn movie and therefore irreproachable by anything other than blind awe; fodder to be taken no matter how abject it may be.
30th April, 1:40am
Yes, one of the most prolific creators of the cinema got dissed by the literary equivalent of a one hit wonder. Um, let’s see…he could be in the same company as Right Said Fred, Afroman, and Los Del Rio.
Haha! Most of you are crying BLASPHEMY! Is it really?
Okay, maybe a little. But, it gave you pause.
30th April, 7:20am
J.D. who? ;-)
30th April, 9:47am
j.d… what an asshole!
30th April, 10:23am
@ Name Required: you own