The Killing of John Lennon

Plot synopsis:
The film follows the travels and accounts of Mark Chapman (Jonas Ball) and gives the watcher an insight into his insane mind. It starts with him living in Hawaii and how he does not fit in with anyone including his job; family; friends etc. He says he is searching for a purpose in his life and that it has no direction. He seeks refuge in the public library where he finds the book, 'The Catcher in the Rye'. He becomes obsessed with the book and believes that he himself is the protaganist in the book, Holden Caulfield. He believes the ideas in the book reflect his own personal life and how he does not fit in anywhere and he reads it constantly.He then finds another book in the library about The Beatles singer John Lennon and begins a personal hatred for him. Not because of his music but because he thinks he is 'phony' (something Holden Caulfield believes most people are in The Catcher in the Rye'). He thinks that someone who writes a song about having no posessions and no money and in real life has everything, money, fame is particularly phony.In October 1980, Chapman travels to New York where John is staying at the Dakota Hotel and checks into another hotel... reliving the events in 'The Catcher in the Rye' and is prepared to kill John Lennon. However he goes to see a film that changes his mind all together and he appreciates his wife's love and travels back to Hawaii.But several weeks later, Chapman arrives back in New York and after being there for a few days, gets John Lennon's signature on the evening of December 8, 1980 as Lennon is leaving the Dakota Hotel to go to a recording studio. Chapman waits for Lennon to arrive back at his hotel when he does, Chapman pulls out a revolver and shoots Lennon in the back five times, killing him almost immediately. Chapman is soon arrested by arriving policemen, and does not attempt to flee or resist arrest as he feels that his reliving of 'The Catcher in the Rye' has concluded.At his trial, Champan rejects any insanty plea against his lawyers advice, and he pleads 'guilty' and his case is a reading from 'The Catcher in the Rye'. Chapman is given a 20-year-to-life prison term for the murder of John Lennon and taken away. The film ends with Chapman still in jail and hearing about his killing events having made world news headlines.

Tags: murder

Review:
I saw a finished cut, "straight from the Avid", but with at least partly a temp soundtrack.Plot summary: This is a dramatized telling of the events surrounding the murder of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman.
It answers some of the questions about Lennon's death that I still had ofter seeing "The US..." The challenge with this type of story is of course: how do you keep a movie interesting when the protagonist is so obviously not a very nice character.
I think, where "The Killing..." does.Director Andrew Piddington states in the opening titles "All of Mark David Chapman's words are his own." This is important to know, I think, because we get to hear Chapman's words during most of the movie.
As a film, "The Killing of John Lennon" is extremely well done.
I have a difficult time respecting this film because its emotional impact relies on one and only one factor, John Lennon's murder.
And if Sean Lennon or Yoko Ono said, "You're raping John's corpse," well, I don't see how the filmmaker or the company that might buy and release this film could deny that in fact their money is soaked with John's blood.The director himself was both arrogant and evasive at the Q&A after the movie.
Someone in the audience asked, "Do you think Chapman would be happy after seeing this film?" Instead of answering, the director said, "I don't think he will ever get out of prison, and if he does someone will shoot him immediately." I assume that he avoided a real answer because the real answer is, "Yes. He'd be ecstatic.
I've made Chapman very happy, that is for certain, even he never sees this movie." I did want to ask why he titled the film with "Killing" and not "Murder." He seemed the sort to enjoy a discussion on semantics.I support this director's right to do the wrong thing, and only wish he'd have either chosen to not exercise it or would have made some effort, even if it were a disclaimer at the end of the film to express an acknowledgment of the exploitation and perhaps make amends for it.
And the filmmaker should not want the profits, because it is not his skills that will draw an audience but John's name and the world's affection for him.I give this film a 4 because technically it earns a 7 and thematically earns a 1, which averages to 4..
The words of Mark David Chapman perfectly sums-up this Andrew Piddington biopic of the estranged murderer of John Lennon.
Not only does the film track Chapman's movements in the months leading up to the fateful event, but it also follows what happened to the killer from the moment he shot the infamous Beatle, right through to his committal into a psychiatric hospital.
The unknown Jonas Ball's portrayal of Chapman is splendidly subtle and disturbing and combined with the artful and experimental direction of Piddington, 'The Killing of John Lennon' makes for an aesthetically pleasing yet chilling examination into the mind of a killer who just wanted to be famous..
Despite its low-budget, this independent feature is a supremely well-made, handsomely filmed and fascinating psychological journey into Mark Chapman's twisted mindset, from his background in Hawaii till his dramatic encounter with John Lennon outside the Dakota building.Piddington largely based the film on Chapman's detailed diary entries and makes extensive use of voice-over, turning the film into an almost dream-like experience.
When looking carefully, some modern cars can be spotted and some modern neon signs, not around in 1980, but the photography is such, even these small anomalies don't matter at all.Newcomer Jonas Ball captivates completely as Mark Chapman, filled with narcissistic resentment and anger, desperately looking for a way out of Honolulu, destined to make some kind of claim to the outside world.
When he picks up a copy of J.D. Salinger's "A Catcher in the Rye", this becomes his everyday bible and its main protagonist, Holden Caulfield's, loathing of 'phoneys', leads Chapman to think Lennon is the biggest phoney of all.
One of the interesting things about Chapman's psychology is that he didn't have a lifelong obsession with John Lennon.
Jonas Ball gives a fearless portrayal of the overweight sociopath Chapman who, at just twenty-five years of age, felt so isolated from the rest of the world he began to fantasize about killing a celebrity.
Gunning down someone famous--in this case, former-Beatle John Lennon--would be Chapman's ticket to immortality, turning him into a prophet, a savior.
One assumes writer-director Andrew Piddington was hoping to show a portrait of the victim as well as of his killer, but when the filmmaker stages the murder scene--with bullets bursting through Lennon's chest in slow-motion--one has their doubts that anybody here had their priorities in the right place.
Complete with flashbacks, flash-forwards, flights-of-fancy, and quotes from Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye", one gets the feeling Piddington was trying to one-up "Taxi Driver" and its protagonist Travis Bickle (whom Chapman also quotes).
Jonas Ball who plays Mark Chapman in this film is just amazing, I don't know exactly how close to reality he plays this character but honestly, so what, he is intense, interesting, unique and a force on screen.
I think the film did a great job, no an amazing job of making everything feel real, like cameras were catching this all as it unfolded.
Re-enactment of the months leading up to the shooting of John Lennon in the life of Mark David Chapman using his own words and the actual locations.Stunningly made and extremely well acted film is the cinematic equivalent to being dropping into the mind of a mad man.
Through the use of words and images one can get a sense of what it may have been like inside the brain who killed John Lennon.
Running almost two hours the film simply begins to run out of steam as we watch the monotony of Chapman's life become monotony on screen.
This story traces the last three months of John Lennon's assassin Mark David Chapman, as he slips into the unreality of deciding he must kill John.
I know there have been films like this before, about serial killers and assassins, but why one about Lennon?
The last thing a Beatle fan needs to hear about is Mark David Chapman..
The film focuses on the deranged adult life of Lennon assassin Mark David Chapman and his daily fixation with the literary work "The Catcher in The Rye".
I do not think many Beatles fans will be twisting and shouting jubilantly with a viewing of "The Killing of John Lennon" but they should see it more as an objective narrative than a helter skelter fable.
People all over the world since fall of 1980 have been trying to forget the name Mark David Chapman, with the intention of not giving in to his wish to be remembered as a nobody who killed the biggest somebody.
Making movies about the incident as seen from Chapman's perspective certainly are not gonna help people forget, but personally I thought the film was fascinating.
Well we know that twenty-five year old Mark Chapman, flew from Honalulu to New York in the fall of 1980, with the intention of killing Lennon.
Up until the last twenty minute, the film makes it pretty clear about Chapman's motives, the ending feels more like a muddled mix of thoughts , which does actually make his sound crazy, whereas up till that point, the film successfully portrayed Chapman as a human being.
Killing of John Lennon, The (2006) ** 1/2 (out of 4) The first of two films looking at the murder of John Lennon in the past couple of years.
This one here tells the story of Mark Chapman (Jonas Ball) starting three months before the murder and a year afterwards.
I never did feel as if we were inside Chapman's mind no matter what crazy sayings were coming out of his mouth or how many times he read from The Catcher in the Rye. This here makes the first thirty-minutes really drag as we are seeing Chapman in Hawaii as he slowly comes to realize that it's his destiny to kill the ex-Beatle.
The most interesting part of the story being told happens after the 77-minute mark when Lennon is killed.
Besides, several scenes of this film are also largely inspired by Taxi Driver and Scorsese's camera-work in generalI gave 3 out of 10 because I reckon some technical skills (although it's largely overdone in my opinion, there is way too much editing in this movie)..
I will give the film credit for it's depiction of Lennon at the end, I found him strikingly life-like.If you really want to learn about Chapman, get one of the recognized books on the subject matter and delve deep.This film is an art-school project that reveals nothing and presents a superficial, unbelievable caricature of Lennon's murderer..
So seeing Jonas Ball as Mark David Chapman was both disturbing and refreshing ( for lack of a better word).
I speak, of course, of Mark David Chapman, the mentally disturbed 25-year-old who shot down the former Beatle in front of his apartment in the Dakota building on December 8, 1980.
The movie achieves its goal by restricting itself pretty much to Chapman's actual words, which flow forth mainly in the form of voice-over narration, as he comments on his thoughts and deeds.We're first introduced to Chapman in September of that year as a moody, darkly introspective near-loner (he was married at the time) living in Hawaii, who calls people he doesn't know with threatening messages, and becomes so obsessed with "The Catcher in the Rye" that he begins to fancy himself another Holden Caulfield, i.e., a uniquely insightful observer and commentator on people and life whom no one else seems to understand.
Chapman comes to see himself as fulfilling Holden's quest to "kill the fat man in the hotel" - only Chapman will take that act out of the realm of fiction and fantasy and make it a reality.Written and directed by Andrew Piddington, the movie, which has been shot largely at the actual locales, provides both a chillingly detached portrait of a man who was a self-described "nobody" until he "killed the biggest somebody on earth," and an unsensationalized account of his actions before, during and after the murder.
Jonas Ball, who is on screen virtually 100% of the time in this film, effectively captures the loser-like nature of what is essentially a nondescript pipsqueak with delusions of grandeur who's determined to make himself noticed by a world that's paid little or no heed to him up to this point.It is probably impossible for anyone to successfully get into a mind as warped and twisted as Chapman's.
I rented this film recently knowing very little about it other than it was some sort of character study of Chapman.
Don't get me wrong, I think a film about Lennon's murder provides for some interesting analysis of John himself, Chapman and the culture they shared.
Jonas Ball occasionally slips into character, but more often than not I get the feeling I'm watching an actor pull out all of his "I'm crazy" tricks.Dripping with self importance, the film does not hold a candle to any of it's fictional man-going-insane-withdrawing-from-society counterparts.
OK for a good part of the film I felt that we already know all this of Mark Chapman off the likes of many a documentation.
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.
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.
See, there would be a John Lennon look-alike with a phony Liverpudlian accent, and half the film would follow him around on his last day on earth.
The Mark David Chapman (Jonas Ball) in The Killing of John Lennon would probably disagree.
Despite the opening credit in Andrew Piddington's film that "All of Chapman's Words are His Own," his Chapman liberally quotes Taxi Driver and Apocalypse Now. Likewise, Piddington's direction liberally quotes Martin Scorsese, Francis Coppola, Oliver Stone, and Spike Lee.The Killing of John Lennon skips backwards and forwards in time quite a bit in the first two acts.
This final act ambles aimlessly through police interviews, psychiatric interviews, and scenes of Chapman in prison where his narration grow tiresome.The Chapman of The Killing of John Lennon sees himself as an agent of change.
With a dearth of material to keep viewers engaged, perhaps Piddington should have considered exploring the Hinkley parallels further.If you can imagine Fred Rogers ("Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood") impersonating Travis Bickle, you have a close approximation of Jonas Ball's performance as Mark David Chapman.
Ball is very even in his delivery, giving his Chapman much more of a sinister air.The Killing of John Lennon utilizes the multi-format approach popularized by Oliver Stone's JFK and Natural Born Killers.
Another reviewer mentions that anyone watching this film who doesn't care about John Lennon probably won't feel much.
I have a vivid memory of joining the world chorus of "oh no, John Lennon was murdered!" only because he died at the same time as my grandmother and I knew I was facing a three-hour drive to her funeral with nothing but Beatles songs coming out of the car radio.
The filmmaker explores these questions in this fact-based drama which examines several weeks in the life of Mark David Chapman, the man who murdered John Lennon.
The first time Chapman crosses paths with Lennon as he's leaving the Dakota, he asks the former Beatle to sign a copy of Double Fantasy, Lennon's new album; several hours later, Lennon returns home and he approaches him with a very different intent.The film is ultimately a flimsy character study despite that fact that all of Chapman's dialogue in the film was taken from his diaries or interviews he's given since his arrest and imprisonment as well as being a well-researched docudrama on the twisted mind of the 25-year-old killer.Jonas Ball's performance is commendable..
On the night of December 8, 1980, John Lennon, co-founder of The Beatles, was shot to death in front of his New York City apartment.
Ending his security guard shift in Hawaii, he flies to New York City with the full intent to killing John Lennon.
I saw "The Killing of John Lennon" at the Tribeca Film Festival.
I thought this movie would provide interesting insight into why Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon, but I felt like it missed the mark (no pun intended).First of all, at 2 hours, this movie is about 45 minutes too long.
There are long, drawn-out dreamlike sequences that were unnecessary - it would have far more interesting to learn about his relationship to his wife and to also include information such as the imaginary people Chapman heard and took guidance from.The film fails to capture the zeitgeist of the day - there are many instances where we see modern cars and signs (such as the logo for Planet Hollywood and current Broadway shows when the cab is driving through Times Square) and a general lack of it feeling like 1980.
I'm sure this was a decision to give the feeling that Chapman lived in his own world, but it ends up leaving the viewer feeling like they've missed something.I saw people checking their watches about an hour in the movie.
No. The subject of this movie murdered John Lennon in order to promote his own importance.
Well done, filmmakers, for validating his act.The above paragraph contains insufficient lines, so: The subject of this movie murdered John Lennon in order to promote his own importance.
Well done, filmmakers, for validating his act.The subject of this movie murdered John Lennon in order to promote his own importance.
I don't want to see a film about the man that killed him.
He was a psychopath obsessed with killing John Lennon who unfortunately got to do his ultimate deed.
Who wants to see a movie, let alone know that a film exists, about the guy who killed your husband or father?
Unfortunately, there really isn't much anybody can do now though, seeing as how the film has been out for nearly 4 years already, except just to urge film buffs and Lennon/Beatles fans to not give this film or any other film regarding Mark David Chapman any consideration, and instead consider the feelings of Lennon's relatives and pay tribute to John by simply listening to and enjoying the greatest thing he could have left behind, his music..