LOS ANGELES, June 18 — Enigmatic American author J.D. Salinger is the subject of a thrilling documentary—at least if its theatrical trailer is to be taken at face value.

Just as Salinger became a secretive recluse, so Shane Salerno appears to be writing, directing, and producing a film that, for now, is all about unanswered questions.

Film actors Martin Sheen, John Cusack, Danny De Vito and Ed Norton appear in the trailer, as does typically white-suited writer Tom Wolfe.

Together, they invite viewers to explore Salinger’s character and lasting legacy, how his World War II experiences formed him as a man, and the troubling relationship between firebrand novel The Catcher in the Rye and a number of high-profile shootings.

Salerno has writing credits on “Armageddon,” “Shaft,” the relaunched TV series “Hawaii Five-0” and Oliver Stone’s adaptation of “Savages,” but it was the documentary he made when still a teen, “Sundown: The Future of Children and Drugs,” that brought him into the limelight when it was aired courtesy of the “Larry King Show” in 1991.

“Salinger” is currently expected to make a September 6 debut, while a biography entitled “The Private War of J.D. Salinger” and co-written by Salerno and David Shields (“Heroes,” “How Literature Saved My Life”) is due the same month.

“The myth that people have read about and believed for 60 years about J.D. Salinger is one of someone too pure to publish, too sensitive to be touched.

“We replace the myth of Salinger with an extraordinarily complex, deeply contradictory human being,” wrote Salerno in a January 2013 statement about the book.

“Our book offers a complete revaluation and reinterpretation of the work and the life.” – AFP-Relaxnews