Dec 10, 2009
Why Catcher in the Rye isn’t a movie.
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Letters of Note posts a 1957 letter from Salinger cordially, yet resolutely, explaining why he’ll (probably) never sell rights to his book.
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(via Wesley Hill)
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Compelling reasons why good books seldom make good movies.
I love the closing line: “My mail from producers has mostly been hell.”
When I think of Catcher as a movie I think of DiCaprio in “The Basketball Diaries”. Who knows, he still looks so young he might be able to pull off a good Holden.
He’s right, of course. It’s barely coherent, let alone interesting, as a story, if you take the personality of the narrator away. The whole Catcher experience hinges on dramatic monologue. Soliloquy, though it can be engaging in small bursts in the theatre, is grim in film.
Agreed. It’s very refreshing to know there is at least one author who isn’t a total sell-out
If the part had to be cast, though, I’m thinking Adam Brody.
Well, he certainly convinced me that it would be a bad idea.
I love this book but agree it would be a horrible movie. I hope they never make one; I really think it would be awful without Holden as he is in the novel.
I wonder what if he might feel less vehement if he could see the way today’s film makers work. Creativity in the film industry has increased so much since 1957.
While I disliked Catcher in the Rye (it probably deserves a reread), I’m glad to see an author stick to his guns on this point.
90 years until it enters the public domain (well, in the US).
Perhaps the only time I’ve liked how long copyright lasts.