Salinger -- Film Review Mephistopheles -- San Francisco Opera Performance Review Blue Jasmine -- Film Review
Salinger
Directed
by Shane Salerno
This is an outstanding documentary about the life of J. D.
Salinger. I was impressed with how
comprehensive it is. They packed a lot
into two hours. Having said that, there
was only scanty information about Salinger's own childhood, family background,
and years growing up. They did point out
that Salinger's family was well to do, that he grew up in Manhattan, that he
was kicked out of numerous prep schools, that he went to a military school, and
so forth, but his relationships with his immediate family members are not
explored in great depth, particularly his sister, Doris, who is barely
mentioned, although they did remark that his mother approved of everything he
did, which I think was an important antecedent of the indefatigable self
confidence he had in himself and in his writing. The significance of this lack of exploration
of his childhood and developmental years within his birth family is that the
film emphasizes his experience in the military during World War 2 as being a
crucial influence on his later writing, and perhaps on his character as
well. I was surprised at how extensive
and significant his military experience was.
He landed in France on D-Day.
That was his initiation into combat.
He was one of the first to enter the concentration camp at Dachau. He was an intelligence officer who
interrogated prisoners and ex-Nazis after the war. He was hospitalized for PTSD. The film does make a compelling case that the
war experience strongly influenced the stories A Perfect Day for Bananafish and For Esmé -- with Love and Squalor. It also documents that Salinger was working
on The Catcher in the Rye during the
campaign against the Germans. I am not
so convinced that The Catcher in the Rye
has as strong a relationship to his war experience, nor his subsequent writing
about the Glass family. I think one has
to look into his childhood and his experience growing up in the upper middle
class American society that he came from for this. I was surprised to hear about his first
marriage to a young Nazi woman, Sylvia Welter, whom he interrogated after the
war -- very contrary to military rules at the time. The marriage did not last long. He brought her back to the United States,
introduced her to his family, and shortly thereafter broke up with her. Whatever became of her?
I was glad they included the interviews with his daughter,
Margaret, and with Joyce Maynard.
However, there is not a word from his son, Matthew, who differs markedly
with his sister Margaret's account of their family and of their father. Salinger's asceticism in only obliquely
alluded to, but the film does indicate that this was manifest in his character
from an early age. (See my article in
the Journal of Homosexuality for a
more extensive analysis of the sexual aspects of The Catcher in the Rye.1)
The
film offers extensive interviews with people who knew Salinger, who worked with
him, who were interested in him and wanted to know him. The film tends to be honorific in its
approach, which is OK, I guess.
Countless people of his own generation, and still today, resonate with
his characters and their sense of alienation and loneliness. Personally, my view of Salinger has evolved
over the years. I do not regard his as
favorably as I once did. I think I
understand him better now, and I see his limitations as a human being much more
clearly -- and they bear a relationship to his writing and the messages it
communicates.
What really got my attention was the list of forthcoming
publications at the very end of the film.
They are due to start appearing beginning in 2015 through 2020. The titles and subject matter look
fascinating. Salinger was indeed writing
during all those years of seclusion in New Hampshire, and the books are due to
be opened and the contents proclaimed on the housetops. When they are you'll be seeing more reviews
here. This film is an excellent overview
of Salinger's life, full of interesting interviews, well documented, highly
informative, and offering a positive, almost deferential attitude toward
Salinger and his work. While it does not
do everything, it does more than I expected about a person whom it has been
very hard to find out anything concrete for nearly half a century.
1. Ferguson, Michael
(2010) Book Review of The Catcher in the Rye. Journal
of Homosexuality 57: 810-818.
Mephistopheles
San
Francisco Opera Performance
September
14, 2013
The title of this opera is Mephistopheles.
Mephistopheles is supposed to be the Devil. But this is not about Mephistopheles or the
nature of evil. Mephistopheles becomes
little more than a tour guide in this opera.
It seems to be about Faust more than it is about anything, the aging
scholar who trades his soul to the Devil.
But it is not clear what he traded it for or what either of them got in
the bargain. This opera is a series of
disconnected, incomplete vignettes that do not form a coherent narrative or portray
any characters with clarity, or depth.
It is a mediocre work by a mediocre mind. I don't understand why they even staged this. The person who wrote this, Arrigo
Bioto, does not understand evil. This
opera reflects a typical religious ascetic mentality that associates evil with
the body, sex, and especially women, who are the inspirers and the objects of
lust. It is a celebration of
conservatism, pessimism, asceticism, and archaic religious nonsense. This man is not a deep thinker, not
insightful, has no interesting ideas or perspective, and no psychological
sophistication. I have an extremely low
opinion of him as an intellect.
I wouldn't say a word against the performance, however. The imaginative staging, the singers, the
chorus, the dancers, the costumes, the lighting and sets, create a brilliant
spectacle that saves this lumbering monstrosity from becoming a total quagmire. Unfortunately, all of this splendid display
is in the service of an insipid concept.
If you can just sit there and watch it for its visual brilliance,
without thinking too much about what it means or asking yourself what it is all
about, you might like it. The nudity,
the strip tease, the simulated sex, the dangling penises, are all interesting
to watch. If you don't get much chance
to see naked human bodies you might be titillated, but this lurid sensuality does
not save the story line, and it is done with a lightheartedness that underlines
the shallowness of the whole performance.
It is cartoonish. These are
caricatures rather than characters. It
is not interesting, and it becomes increasingly ridiculous and repulsive as it
goes along.
The ending is extremely confusing and idiotic. Faust, after making a bargain to sell his
soul to the Devil, ends up going to heaven.
Margherita, his lover, whose mother he poisons and whose child is
drowned in the ocean is executed (ascetics always blame women for sexual misadventures
and punish them severely). Mephistopheles is just a footnote to all of
this. He is a kind of master of
ceremonies, but is never a principal in the action.
The nature of evil could be an interesting subject and the
Devil could be a fascinating character for dramatic portrayal. This
opera does not do justice to either of these topics. Someone should write a different opera on
this subject. This one should fall into deserved
oblivion. It is quite long and slow
moving. There are two long
intermissions. There is not enough
substance to make it worth sitting through.
This art form needs an upgrade.
Blue Jasmine
Written and Directed
by Woody Allen
This film is outstanding.
It is the best Woody Allen film since Annie Hall. In fact, it may
be his best ever. These are iconic
characters whose struggles and disintegration capture the spirit of our own
time. This will become an American
classic in the tradition of Death of a
Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather, The Great Gatsby, Long Day's
Journey into Night. The story is
complex with many strands and subplots.
But it does not become a jungle.
Like a well written symphony, it is balanced, properly paced, and
modulated. The focus is maintained on
the two lead characters, Jasmine (Cate Blanchett) and her adopted sister, Ginger
(Sally Hawkins). Jasmine recalls Blanch
in A Streetcar Named Desire, an extremely
vulnerable woman whose comfortable affluent life is disintegrating and taking
her down with it. But the film goes
beyond being a psychological study of one woman, however representative of her
time and class she may be.
This film
makes a statement about the vacuousness and bankruptcy of the American money
culture, which has come to dominate our increasingly beleaguered middle
classes, who anxiously strive for success and status as defined by the
accumulation of wealth and its accoutrements.
Jasmine's husband, Hal, (Alec Baldwin) serves as an allusion to Bernie
Madoff and the rapaciousness of the Wall Street bankers and executives that
brought about the recent financial malaise that is still afflicting much of the
country. His crimes and dishonesty
destroyed not only himself and his wife, Jasmine, but also took away the hopes
and dreams and opportunities of numerous of lower class people with whom he
came in contact, such as, Ginger and Augie (Andrew Dice Clay). This illustrates the impact that the crimes
of the banks and finance world have had on everyday working people across
America: dimming their prospects and creating difficulties and obstacles and
burdens on their lives that will weigh them down for many years.
The central theme of the film is the arduousness
of the descent that many Americans are now experiencing in their lifestyle,
standard of living, and sense of well being: the emotional toll this is taking
on individuals, personal relationships, and families. A wide swath of the American population knows
that life used to be better in America -- much better -- not only as a
statistical abstraction, but in their own particular circumstances. And there is a connection between that
general degradation in the quality of life in America and the unfettered
pursuit of wealth without bound by this class of voracious, unscrupulous
hustlers in the finance world who effect a superficial garb of legitimacy.
The film does offer a ray of hope in the straightforward
honesty and simple workaday lifestyle of Ginger and Chili (Bobby Cannavale). Although they are both flawed people, their
flaws turn out not to be fatal to their human bonds and their psychological
balance. There is a vibrance and
vitality in their sharing of simple pleasures and daily concerns that leaves
one with a feeling that they might be able to go on and create a workable life
together. But they are clearly
vulnerable and the stability and the hopes that they share today could easily
be derailed by the intrusion of the collapsing lives of those in the upper
tiers of society represented by Jasmine.
The film is a dismal tragedy, but there are many comic aspects to it
that provide a lighthearted feel that allays the overall grimness and prevents
it from becoming dreary or oppressive to watch.
It ends on a note of ambiguity in a minor key. Go see it.
It is a classic portrayal of key trends in contemporary American
life.