In this blog post, we’ll examine a proofread and edited analysis of the film ‘Finding Forrester’ that connects it to J. D. Salinger to reflect on the evolution of modern literature and the meaning of “pure literature.”
Speculation that the film ‘Finding Forrester’, which was released recently and generated much buzz, was modeled after Salinger stems precisely from this context. This is because Salinger, like Forrester, is known to have severed ties with the secular world and chosen a life of seclusion due to his aversion to a vulgar world rife with pretense. In the film, Forrester is drawn back into the real world through a chance encounter with a young Black boy, to whom he passes on his creative techniques. Salinger, however, spent most of his life in seclusion and isolation, cut off from the world.
‘Finding Forrester’ is a film that, through its connection to Salinger, offers much food for thought on the present and future of literature. In this film, the writer who turned his back on dazzling fame and suddenly vanished from public memory appears to symbolize Salinger—who disappeared from the literary world by retreating into seclusion out of a loathing for falsehood and pretense.
Like Salinger, William Forrester—who became a legendary author after writing a single great novel—has lived a life cut off from the outside world, secluded in an apartment in the South Bronx for the past 40 years. He never goes out and even has his groceries delivered. Over time, the neighborhood where he lives has transformed into a black slum, a development that can be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the contamination of purity and the encroachment of popular culture—things Salinger detested.
Forrester lives alone, completely isolated in the heart of a predominantly Black inner-city neighborhood. His seclusion can be seen as a symbolic act driven by disillusionment with a commercialized and hypocritical reality, as well as a means to protect the purity of literature from pseudo-writers and lowbrow readers. Meanwhile, like Salinger, he gradually becomes an eccentric old man increasingly detached from reality.
Then one day, Jamal Wallace, an aspiring Black writer, appears before him. Having stumbled upon the reclusive Forrester while playing ball, Jamal gradually draws the elderly writer back into the real world. It is highly symbolic that the catalyst for the stubborn white old man Forrester to break through the shell of his rigid self and re-enter the outside world is a Black boy and an athlete. To Forrester, who embodies an outdated ideal of a writer, the fact that Wallace is Black or an athlete might seem like qualities far removed from those of a writer. However, in today’s changing times, such elements can actually become new possibilities that revitalize and expand literature. Moreover, the fact that Wallace is a pure and sincere boy serves as a crucial catalyst for transforming the experienced and stubborn old man.
In that sense, if Forester is a writer in the modern (modernist) sense, Wallace can be considered a writer in the postmodern sense. Contemporary writers do not necessarily have to be white, nor do they have to be recluses isolated from reality, nor do they have to be beings devoted solely to literature. In a postmodern context, they may be people of color, ordinary people living their daily lives, or even basketball players. One of the scenes that symbolically illustrates the relationship between the two—representing modernism and postmodernism—is the process in which Wallace retypes Forrester’s work on a typewriter and then reworks it to make it his own. This scene, which prompts reflection on the issues of original and copy, original work and parody, ultimately becomes the catalyst for a plagiarism controversy sparked by accusations from another modernist author.
On the day he takes the reclusive Forrester out for the first time, Wallace brings him to a sports stadium teeming with people. Amid the chaos, Forrester gets lost and feels dizzy. Considering that the name “Forrester”—though spelled differently—etymologically evokes the image of a “man of the forest,” this scene serves as an apt metaphorical device illustrating the sense of being lost in a maze and the nausea felt by traditional literary writers amidst today’s multimedia environment and the deluge of popular culture.
However, Forrester is not a character who clings solely to literary fiction. When Jamal finds a popular magazine in his apartment and asks why he reads such things, Forrester offers a meaningful reply: “Do you only eat your meal and skip dessert? Popular magazines are just like dessert.” Nevertheless, the sight of Forrester riding his bicycle alone among speeding cars seems to symbolize the fragile state of literature today, which has been sidelined by the tide of the times. Of course, this scene can also be interpreted as revealing the dignified demeanor of a traditional writer. The typewriter that appears throughout the film can be seen as a symbol of outdated writing methods supplanted by computers, or interpreted as the symbolic pride of literature that rejects the conveniences of modern civilization. The news at the end of the film that Forrester has passed away from cancer evokes nostalgia for literature, which is gradually losing its foothold in these rapidly changing times, while also prompting us to reflect on the noble life of an artist who devoted himself solely to literature.
Before his death, Forrester sets aside his conviction to never appear in public and shows up at the school to recite a piece of writing in order to help Wallace gain recognition as a writer. Of course, what he recited was not his own work, but Wallace’s. The scene in which Forrester sets aside his purity and isolation to recite the young aspiring writer’s work in public and champion him seems to symbolize the ultimate reconciliation and mutual recognition between traditional and modern literature, highbrow and popular literature, and Modernist and Postmodernist literature. In contrast, Mr. Crawford—who represents the kind of pseudo-writer and failed modernist author that Forrester despises—becomes a literature teacher at an institutionalized school, denying Wallace’s literary merit and envying the young aspiring writer’s talent. However, in the end, it is not rigid, institutionalized literary education that prevails, but rather the personal guidance of a master like Forrester.
On his deathbed, Forrester bequeaths the key to the apartment where he had lived in seclusion to Wallace. At that very moment, the past and the present, tradition and innovation, come to understand and reconcile with one another, and the history of literature is passed down from one generation to the next. Wallace, too, does not abandon literature for the sake of commercial gain. When he faces expulsion for allegedly plagiarizing an older author, the school offers a deal: if he wins enough athletic competitions, they will overlook his literary transgressions. Wallace could have given up literature and remained a hero on the field. However, he deliberately misses a free throw to reject the offer and ultimately succeeds in having his literary talent recognized.
In this way, ‘Finding Forrester’ is an outstanding film that draws parallels with the reclusive author Salinger to offer a profound reflection on the challenges facing modern literature in the age of popular culture, commercialism, and new media. However, the statement in the original text that “Salinger still shows no signs of emerging from seclusion” is no longer accurate as of this writing. Salinger passed away in 2010 and continued to live in seclusion in New Hampshire until the very end of his life. Therefore, when we revisit this film today, we can say that Salinger’s life—unlike Forrester’s—remains a literary legend and a symbol of modern literary history, as he never returned to reality. The interpretation that he—who agonized over the loss of innocence—was, in that sense, a writer with modernist tendencies remains valid. Furthermore, his choice to ultimately reject the postmodern era, in which innocence is severely shaken, can be read not as the life of an individual unable to return to reality, but rather as the resolve of a writer who upheld his own literary convictions to the very end.
