I am not the author of this clip; I only acted as the cameraman here. But the backstory is fascinating. Our friend Garik Chernyakhovsky, a fellow Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute graduate, lived in the US. He was a co-director for Vyacheslav Polunin’s “Slava’s Snowshow,” and when we were in America, he managed to get us two complimentary tickets for the show on Broadway.
Later, he called us—or rather, our relative Yevgeniy Mamut, an Oscar winner—with a request to film any footage at all from Cornish, where J.D. Salinger lived. Garik was directing the series “Walks through Broadway” for the Kultura channel. As he put it, we just lived “the closest.” In reality, “closest” meant about 400 km away. So, on January 1, 2009, we hit the road.
Salinger was famously reclusive in those woods, but once, while we were launching a helium balloon with a birthday greeting for the film, a car drove by. There was a man with a large beard inside. It seemed to me that he was laughing. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to film the car. I was too focused on the balloon—we only had one shot at it, no second takes. I just stood there, mesmerized, watching him. He was driving very slowly. Salinger passed away exactly one year later. If anyone knows whether he wore a beard toward the end of his life, I would be grateful to know.
P.S. As it has just come to light, AI has uncovered memoirs from the writer’s daughter and several residents of Cornish, confirming that Salinger did indeed wear a beard in the final years of his life. It was definitely him. Now, I am certain of it.