Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — “I was nobody until I killed the
biggest somebody on earth.
That quote from Mark David Chapman neatly sums up his
rationale for killing John Lennon outside the former Beatles New
York apartment building on Dec. 8, 1980. Chapman, a pathetic
loser so obsessed with “The Catcher in the Rye that he
sometimes called himself Holden Caulfield, escaped obscurity by
gunning down one of the worlds most famous people.
“The Killing of John Lennon, a potent, unnerving
docudrama written and directed by Andrew Piddington, explores
Chapmans twisted mind in his own words. All of Chapmans
dialogue and voiceovers come directly from interviews or court
documents, all the characters are real and all the incidents
depicted actually occurred.
But what really sets the film apart from other true-crime
stories is the emphasis on mind over matter. Piddington is less
interested in what Chapman did than why he did it.
Of course, Chapmans motives made sense only in his warped,
madhouse vision of reality. Even though he liked Lennon and
admired the Beatles, Chapman decided that the man who dreamed of
“no possessions in “Imagine was a phony because he owned
luxury homes, farms and a yacht. This made Lennon his prime
target, though he did have a backup list that included Jackie
Onassis, Johnny Carson and George C. Scott.
`Taxi Driver
Piddington follows Chapman (intensely played by look-alike
Jonas Ball) in the months leading up to the killing, from his
dead-end life in Hawaii, where he quits his security job and
withdraws from his wife, to New York, where he apes the movements
of Caulfield in “Catcher. A loose cannon in an explosive city,
Chapman is an owlish, mop-headed version of another crazed would-
be assassin — Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver.
Chapman, who was 25 at the time, visited New York in
November with the intent of killing Lennon but mysteriously
changed his mind after watching “Ordinary People, a film about
a suicidal teenager and his dysfunctional family. “My rage
against John Lennon was defeated, he later recalled. “The
volcano was capped.
The anger soon resurfaced and Chapman returned to New York
determined to complete his murderous mission. The details of that
fateful day are meticulously recreated — the personal mementos
Chapman neatly arranged on a desk in his hotel room, his chance
encounter with a photographer who ended up taking pictures of
Lennon giving his killer an autograph hours before the shooting,
and Chapmans cool reaction after the murder, when he quietly
read “Catcher while waiting for the cops to arrive.
The film doesnt end there. We see Chapman interrogated by
police, driven to a mental hospital in a bulletproof vest,
questioned by a clueless shrink and eventually sent to prison,
where he remains in solitary confinement today after being denied
parole four times.
In the end, Chapman gained the recognition and fame he
sought. Only he knows if it was worth it.
“The Killing of John Lennon, from IFC Films, is playing
in New York. Rating: ***
What the Stars Mean:
**** Excellent
*** Good
** Average
* Poor
(Rick Warner is the movie critic for Bloomberg News. The
opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this story:
Rick Warner in New York at
