Kaffeine Buzz
reviews independent and foreign films,
in addition to reporting the latest buzz behind
Colorado's film festivals.
The Killing of John Lennon
(Andrew Piddington)
“I was Mr. Nobody until I killed the biggest
somebody on earth.”
Sure, it’s the tagline of the new film,
“The Killing of John Lennon.” But
it was line in the film that rang loud in my head,
because it speaks volumes about the state of mind
of Mark David Chapman. The man who would use his
.38 caliber to shoot John Lennon dead the night
of December 8, 1980 just outside the Dakota in
New York City.
The film goes back three months prior to that
date, taking us into Chapman’s world through
his own words, a narration taken from his journals
and statements. It as if he’s giving us
his own biography, a camera pointed from the inside
out instead of the other way around.
We learn that after being raised in Georgia,
he now lives in Hawaii as a graveyard shift security
guard. One also imagines what his childhood was
like, as he spots his mom picking up men 30 years
her junior while on the beach, or seeing Chapman’s
internal fantasies of shooting his own father
in the head. And then there’s the almost
possessive relationship he has with his submissive
wife.
In the true spirit of independent film, the art
house flavor appears during when Chapman goes
into his fantasy world, as he did when he re-discovered
what would soon be his driving force of destiny,
the 1945 novel, The Catcher in the Rye. It’s
as if he’s been reborn in a religious experience.
It’s at this time that you forget that
this is a feature film and Jonas Bell isn’t
really Mark David Chapman. You’re so pulled
in, it’s like you’re in the story,
an accomplice of sorts.
At the beginning of the movie, he makes a retrospective
statement, “You can’t find your identity
by looking for it.” In his case, and in
his mind, his identity would be found within the
identity of John Lennon. The more he found out
about Lennon, the more the hypocrisy angered him.
A man who sang about and imagined living free
and with nothing, had houses, a ranch, and a huge
area of the Dakota in New York City.
Chapman pushes aside his wife and the concerns
of his mother, and set out for New York City,
just like his hero of the story, Holden Caulfield.
Now, his aimless life had a purpose. He would
repeat his anthem, “The phony must die,
said the catcher in the rye. The phony must die,
said the catcher in the rye,” as the cinematography
mimicked the cells that fired off in his brain.
Although it’s clear that Chapman was off
his rocker, he was calculated and precise in how
he carried out his plans. He almost mocks two
young girls he chats up in front of the Dakota.
As they walk away, he impersonates their future
surprise at learning how such a nice guy could
have killed John Lennon.
When the time finally came, time stands still
as Chapman is almost outside of himself, whispering,
“It was like I was in a movie.” The
only thing he didn’t say was, “and
I was the star.” He didn’t run. He
stood still, holding The Catcher in the Rye up
to the night sky in the same way a preacher would
while leading his ministry.
He would become the star after his arrest, as
he manipulated everyone around him, including
himself, believing that he had become a hero in
his own time, spurning all to read his bible by
J.D. Salinger.
John Lennon’s last interview took place
on December 8, 1980 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ulghD5JkmU),
the day he would meet his fate, and it was as
if he had a premonition. His recorded voice explains
the difficulty of being a pop star, where he didn’t
feel like he could be himself. Listening to him
speak, “One cannot be absolutely oneself
in public. I tried to retain myself throughout
it, but not being always successful at that. It
became like being a politician.”
Like being a phony. But we know that people in
those positions don’t really have any other
choice, and some have chosen to make themselves
less available to the public by living in more
remote parts of the country other than Los Angeles
or New York.
In the film, the filmmakers used another clip
of Lennon’s where he boasted about the fact
that he was able to walk on the streets of New
York and no one would bother him, at least not
the way fans had in his homeland of England. And
it was this openness he had that would eventually
lead to his death.
The life of a celebrity has become a much larger
part of our culture since 1980. At the same time,
we have a generation of children on prescription
drugs for a variety of emotional issues, who will
eventually grow up to be adults. And some of those
have not waited to grow up to take another person’s,
or several people’s lives. It’s a
scary predicament if one really thinks about it
for more than a moment.
