We remain the same: who was Salinger?

The small work of JD Salinger is a legend with a cause.

And his retirement from public life, due to misanthropy or not expecting anything good from it, fueled to delirious extremes the eagerness of publishers to find something new to bear his signature and the perpetual and frustrated expectation of successive armies of admirers to know something of his hermit existence.

He did not publish any more books (perhaps he did not write them, or he burned them, or they remain hidden under seven keys) and he never appeared in the media again.

There is no news of their private relationships.

He decided to be swallowed up by the earth.

More information

• The Berlinale gets tangled up in its past

• The intimate Salinger is discovered in New York

I have little memory of the plot of his stories, condensed into

and

, but I know they were unsettling and sad. And like millions in any time and place I fell in love with his only novel,

, with that boy full of uncertainty, curiosity and desire, so estranged from the adult world, so understandable and moving. I did not read it again. Just in case. The space that it keeps in my memory is precious. It gives you chills to think that the idiot who shot cold John Lennon was the same, that he identified to the delirium with that Holden Caulfield who only longed to be something as lyrical as the Catcher in the Rye.

Dreams of a Writer in New York

collects the testimony of Joanna Rakoff, a girl with literary ambitions whose first job in New York, at the agency that represented Salinger, consisted of responding for a year to the letters sent to her by her admirers and related to these over the phone. All this under the tutelage of Salinger's wise, elegant, and very lively literary agent. We only see him from behind, in the distance, in the shadows. We also hear his voice. In other words, we still have no idea what his life was like when he retired from the world. His personality floats and permeates the story, but our data remains as it was at the beginning.

The Canadian director Philippe Falardeau does not venture thesis on such an enigmatic and fascinating character. In return, he recreates the loves, heartbreaks, reunions, doubts and discoveries of that young woman so eager to learn. And the truth is that they do not interest me too much. The tone is friendly and urban, although what they tell me does not leave a trace. I'm waiting for Salinger all the time, but his presence is only ghostly.

Margaret Qualley, the main character, was a most curious actress to me in her brief but memorable appearance in

, playing the disturbing and smiling teenager from the Charles Manson gang who pretends to act as sex bait with the distrustful Brad Pitt. That girl is the daughter of the beautiful and distinguished Andie McDowell. And you can see the caste and style that the girl has inherited. And of course, it is always a pleasure to see and hear that great lady and eminent actress that is Sigourney Weaver. Although the plot and the situations of this movie are soon forgotten.

opposite happened to me with

Fortunately, a cinema with a scent from another era, which had the professional and personal relationship of the legendary editor Max Perkins with the volcanic writer and character Thomas Wolfe.

Also showing up were Francis Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

And it is very likely that the intelligence, understanding, discussions and advice of that editor helped the magnificent literature of these.

Dreams of a writer in New York

Directed by: Philippe Falardeau.

Performers: Margaret Qualley, Sigourney Weaver, Douglas Booth, Colm Feore.

Genre: drama.

Canada, 2020.

Duration: 101 minutes.