Take one light-hearted, happy-souled, dreamer who wanted to give peace a chance and introduce him to an angry, confused disturbed young man man fifteen years his junior. Add an obsession to the death and a .38 gun. You get 'The Killing of John Lennon', told in Mark David Chapman's own words, from when he first flies to New York 'because I want to travel' to his reading from 'The Catcher In The Rye' in a court where he stands guilty of murder. Forget the blockbuster idea. If you want to label it, it's indie, art house fayre. It took three years for the money to be raised to make it. Very few special effects, filmed on location. Lots of close ups of hands and feet and faces, along with shots shown over and over again.
It is not an easy film to watch, it was as if the happenings on screen had reached out and wrapped me up so much so a day after seeing it it am still stunned and my brain is full of it. The killing itself, along with other notable scenes, of close ups of Chapman behaving in a disturbed, disturbing way, leafing through a magazine full of pictures of Lennon, flipping through 'The Catcher In The Rye', holding it to his face, sitting rocking violently on his bed, dancing around to the Beatles music while his mostly unaffected wife Gloria stands in an adjoining room with her hands flat to her ears, writing 'John Lennon' in the signing book at work, holding a heavy gun and pretending to shoot people outside the window of the Hawaii gun shop, fantasising about shooting two gay men in the next room at the YMCA in New York, his obsessive behaviour after getting his copy of 'Double Fantasy' what turned out to by John and Yoko's last album signed by John, and all to a calmly spoken track of Chapman's own thoughts.
The killing of John Lennon itself; the DVD itself has a fifteen certificate because it 'contains strong violence and language'. I have watched many scenes in films that contain violence and language, but the killing was truly horrendous; so bad I found myself speaking out loud, over the roars from the gun and Lennon's body being bloodily torn apart, 'good god, that's enough now!'
After being arrested, he had a bullet proof vest wrapped around him to be hustled through the waiting press; as the police captain in charge said, 'This man just killed John Lennon. There ain't gonna to be an Oswald on my watch'. A moment of peace in a toilet, and the captain asked Chapman why he did it. He answered that he liked John Lennon. Helplessly, the captain added, 'so did I'. In fact, whenever he was asked why he did it he almost literally always gives a different answer. I believe he did it for the fame, he was sick of having a wife and a job and living in one of the most beautiful places on earth,living an ordinary life; he needed to be noticed.
Today, Chapman is in Attica state prison, in solitary confinement for his own safety, in a room six yards by ten yards. He has been turned down for parole four times so far. But don't pity him. He has never once expressed an apology for what he has done. He's only fifty-four now. If released, it's just possible he might get an obsession with another great person to notch up his fame level again. Chapman might be locked away, he probably would never be released, but he's alive. John would have been sixty-nine, a venerable, well respected old gentleman of rock, rich in memories, like Paul McCartney perhaps even still making music.
All that wiped out because a sad, pathetic little oddball nonentity wanted to be noticed.
It is not an easy film to watch, it was as if the happenings on screen had reached out and wrapped me up so much so a day after seeing it it am still stunned and my brain is full of it. The killing itself, along with other notable scenes, of close ups of Chapman behaving in a disturbed, disturbing way, leafing through a magazine full of pictures of Lennon, flipping through 'The Catcher In The Rye', holding it to his face, sitting rocking violently on his bed, dancing around to the Beatles music while his mostly unaffected wife Gloria stands in an adjoining room with her hands flat to her ears, writing 'John Lennon' in the signing book at work, holding a heavy gun and pretending to shoot people outside the window of the Hawaii gun shop, fantasising about shooting two gay men in the next room at the YMCA in New York, his obsessive behaviour after getting his copy of 'Double Fantasy' what turned out to by John and Yoko's last album signed by John, and all to a calmly spoken track of Chapman's own thoughts.
The killing of John Lennon itself; the DVD itself has a fifteen certificate because it 'contains strong violence and language'. I have watched many scenes in films that contain violence and language, but the killing was truly horrendous; so bad I found myself speaking out loud, over the roars from the gun and Lennon's body being bloodily torn apart, 'good god, that's enough now!'
After being arrested, he had a bullet proof vest wrapped around him to be hustled through the waiting press; as the police captain in charge said, 'This man just killed John Lennon. There ain't gonna to be an Oswald on my watch'. A moment of peace in a toilet, and the captain asked Chapman why he did it. He answered that he liked John Lennon. Helplessly, the captain added, 'so did I'. In fact, whenever he was asked why he did it he almost literally always gives a different answer. I believe he did it for the fame, he was sick of having a wife and a job and living in one of the most beautiful places on earth,living an ordinary life; he needed to be noticed.
Today, Chapman is in Attica state prison, in solitary confinement for his own safety, in a room six yards by ten yards. He has been turned down for parole four times so far. But don't pity him. He has never once expressed an apology for what he has done. He's only fifty-four now. If released, it's just possible he might get an obsession with another great person to notch up his fame level again. Chapman might be locked away, he probably would never be released, but he's alive. John would have been sixty-nine, a venerable, well respected old gentleman of rock, rich in memories, like Paul McCartney perhaps even still making music.
All that wiped out because a sad, pathetic little oddball nonentity wanted to be noticed.