The Killing of John Lennon

Label: The Works 825 145 4

Writer-director Andrew Piddington (Shuttlecock, The Fall) delves deep into the mind of Mark David Chapman in The Killing
of John Lennon. Jonas Ball makes his feature-film debut as Chapman, the crazed gunman who shot John Lennon on December 8,
1980. Basing his script on Chapman's own words from interviews, writings, court transcripts, and depositions, Piddington
retraces the events leading up to the shooting, which reverberated around the world. He goes back three months, showing
Chapman's dysfunctional relationship with his mother (Krishna Fairchild) and his inattentiveness to his wife (Mie Omori)
in Honolulu, where he was living after leaving his hometown of Decatur, Georgia.

Chapman soon becomes obsessed with J. D. Salinger's classic novel The Catcher in the Rye, seeing himself as fictional
character Holden Caulfield, who must root out the phonies of the world. By accident, he chooses former Beatle John Lennon
as his victim, ultimately reasoning that Lennon sings about imagining no possessions yet is a millionaire living in the
ritzy Dakota building in New York City, so he must be brought down. Chapman buys a gun, heads to the Big Apple, and starts
stalking the Dakota, gripping his copy of Lennon's comeback album, Double Fantasy. Through voice-over narration, dialogue,
and poignant one-person scenes, Piddington follows Chapman's dark, dangerous descent that results in cold-blooded murder.

The film is shot on location in Decatur, Honolulu, and Manhattan, at the exact spots where the actual events took place.
Ball gives a quirky, deeply felt performance, part Travis Bickle in Taxi, part Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy, part
Valerie Solanas in I Shot Andy Warhol, embodying Chapman, while Piddington manages to hold viewers in suspense even though
they know what is going to happen.

Sleeve Notes
The Killing of John Lennon is a chilling insight into the mind of Mark David Chapman, the 25 year old narcissist who
gunned down John Lennon outside his Dakota apartment in New York in 1980. Meticulously researched and filmed on actual
locations where events occurred, it is a gritty and imagistic examination of a celebrity stalker's mind leading up to
the kill and a look into his descent into madness and exorcism.

Independently financed and filmed over three years, The Killing of John Lennon is unflinching in its presentation of
the truth. It does not set out to condone or exonerate the shooting of Lennon or his killer's desire for fame.

Comments
Needless to say this is very sad to watch but has been made so well, which means that I think it is so good that you
could think that you are watching a fictional film, not one that's is based on what happened in real life.

But having said this there are a few relatively minor things that aren't right, which are that when John left the
Dakota on the evening of his murder to go to the recording studio there isn't a crowd of people wanting to get
autographs at the entrance, which there was. One of them being Chapman who was photographed by a newspaper reporter
receiving John's autograph.

When he returns from the studio at 10:52pm and is shot, he is not recorded as having said anything there or in the
police car on the way to St. Lukes Roosevelt hospital.

After the shooting he initially said "Help me!" and Yoko began to scream hystrically, "He's been shot, he's been shot.
Somebody come quickly."

In the police car he tells officer Bill Gamble that he is John Lennon, and in an attempt to keep John conscious Gamble
says "are you sure you're John Lennon?"

"I am," he says, becoming increasingly weak.

"How do you feel?" Gamble continues.

"I am in pain," John replies.

This sad story is also portrayed, though I don't think aswell, on the DVD Chapter 27