This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 16, 2010 - Here's a short list of actors who never played Holden Caulfield: Marlon Brando, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Anthony Perkins, Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Dreyfuss, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jake Gyllenhaal, Toby McGuire, Jesse Eisenberg, Robert Pattinson. I thank my good fortune to have never seen a movie trailer with the words: "Michael Cera is Holden Caulfield." And I like Michael Cera.
And no director -- from Elia Kazan to Mike Nichols to Robert Altman to Stephen Spielberg to Jane Campion to Paul Thomas Anderson to Wes Anderson -- have lent their cinematic vision to an adaptation of "The Catcher in the Rye" from page to screen. And that has been all to the good.
With the recent passing of J.D. Salinger, the enduring qualities of his singular novel and his most cherished character have been much praised, which is wholly remarkable considering how novels have been steadily devalued -- those quaint, archaic anachronisms -- in our frenzied culture. Certainly, much of the praise has been evoked out of wisps of nostalgia. Salinger's death nudged Holden back into our consciousness, where he lives as memory: an iconic ghost, not only of a much-beloved fictional character, but of our former selves.
My fellow middle-aged friends with whom I came in contact the week of Salinger's death all -- at least all the men -- spoke affectionately of Holden and "Catcher in the Rye," all recalled the grip Salinger's troubled, brilliant, obnoxious, saintly, foul-mouth protagonist had on us as teenagers, and how present he suddenly felt, years after our adolescent anguish had dissipated. (An anguish -- again, mostly among men -- that is never quite erased.)
I fell for Holden at about the same time I fell for the movies. This was the 1970s when movies were astoundingly provocative and mind-blowing. Well, "Catcher in the Rye," published in 1951, was still astoundingly provocative and mind-blowing to a teenager in the '70s encountering it for the first time.
In my private, self-delusional fantasies, I figured that I could adapt the novel to a screenplay, could hitchhike to New Hampshire, knock on the recluse's door and be accepted. Heck, Salinger could just take one look at me and see that I knew, that I lived, the heart and soul of the book. And I'm sure he'd agree with me that Richard Dreyfuss was right for the part (I got this notion from seeing "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz." Yes, Dreyfuss was already too old to play Holden, but actors are nearly always too old for the teenage roles they play. So what.)
I know I'm not the only one who ever had this fantasy, and I'm sure there are a lot of "Catcher in the Rye" screenplays in desk drawers and hard drives -- where I hope they stay.
One of the reasons for Holden's undiminished power is that the Holden we carry in our heads is our own, each one of us carries our vision of him. Holden is not Brando or Redford or Dreyfuss or DiCaprio. "The Catcher in the Rye" is the greatest, most popular book never adapted to the screen. Salinger made sure of that -- and we can imagine the enormous pressures exerted on him by the Hollywood machine to relinquish Holden over the years. But Salinger was nothing if not fiercely determined; and, because of that, Holden maintains his power. He is impalpable, uncinematized, lovingly preserved in the imaginations of generations of readers. And, as I've just been re-reading the book, a character who transforms -- becomes more disturbing than lovable, more obnoxious than insightful, more a mixed-up teenager than a holy fool.
But he is never Michael Cera. Even though I like Michael Cera.
Now that Salinger's dead, I doubt the fortress he's built around his creations will stay steadfast. And with the adaptation of "Catcher in the Rye," the book and Holden will be diminished. Holden will take a collective form and shape, and thus lose his hold on our imaginations. I realize this isn't a certainty. I don't think of Jay Gatsby and have Robert Redford immediately come to mind. But if I were to pick any romantic ideals to preserve and protect, I'd pick J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield.
After all, Salinger begins his novel with a put down of Hollywood. Holden is being treated for his nervous breakdown in California, not far from where his screenwriter brother, D.B., lives. A former short-story writer, D.B. is now, says Holden, "out in Hollywood ... being a prostitute." And if Holden's disposition toward the movie business isn't plain enough, he adds, at the close of the very first paragraph of the novel: "If there's one thing I hate, it's the movies. Don't even mention them to me."
Hollywood, don't tread on Holden.
The Lens is provided by Cinema St. Louis.