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Chapter 27

Jared Leto, Lindsay Lohan

            We turn them into rock stars. Splash their names across our front pages. Whole sections of bookstores are devoted to their exploits. Year in and year out our, their stories are among the most popular on our television sets and in our movie theaters. Their names rank among the most famous in American history. Jesse James, Billy the Kid, John Wilkes Booth, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Lee Harvey Oswald, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, John Hinckley; all repugnant, violent little men who brought the world only pain and suffering. We celebrate them and their kind. Yet, maybe we should ask ourselves if making these people a part of our popular culture is a good thing to do. Mark David Chapman wanted to be famous and he became such one December evening in 1980 by pulling a revolver out and murdering singer John Lennon outside the Dakota apartment building in New York City. Five bullets put him into the history books. Should he be? John’s widow, Yoko Ono, has expressed concerns about this film making Chapman more famous than he already is. Former Beatles band mate Paul McCartney has asked people to boycott this film. Many of John’s family and friends worry that this film will add to the violent ethos of this country and might help convince a mentally disturbed individual that they too can become famous by killing someone famous or opening fire in a mall or school. There is a bit of truth to this concern. There is something about film that transforms the most loathsome act into something larger than life.

            Chapter 27 is a tale of Chapman’s last days in the Big Apple before he killed the singer. The title comes from the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, a story about an alienated youth who sees the world as being filled with fakes and phonies. Mark came to identify with the protagonist, Holden Caulfield. There are only 26 chapters in the novel. This assassin saw himself living out the next chapter of Holden’s story.

Mark David Chapman was an overweight, mentally ill individual whose obsession with John Lennon dated back to his childhood where he would retreat to his room after being made fun of by other children and pretended that he was king over little people who lived in his wall. He performed concerts for them. Pretending to be Lennon, he delighted these creatures in his walls with Beatles songs. During his teenage years, he experimented with drugs and rebelled against his parents, even running away from home at one point. Yet, Mark had a life changing experience at 16. He found Jesus. He cut his hair, cleaned up his act, and passed out religious tracts at school. His new found faith came into confrontation with his old hero when John Lennon stated that the Beatles were more popular than his Lord and Savior.

            Mark and a friend played music together in Christian nightclubs and churches. He delighted his audiences by changing the lyrics of John’s song ‘Imagine” to “Imagine John Lennon is dead.” Around the same period he read Salinger’s novel and became deeply involved in the YMCA movement, even getting a job with the organization when he graduated from high school. Like Holden, Mark would save children by being the catcher in the rye. While he thought of himself as a failure, he was generally liked by the children he worked with. Yet, the young man suffered severe depressions and even tried to kill himself on a couple of occasions. Once he had hooked a hose to the exhaust of his car. He awoke to a Japanese fisherman knocking on his car window. When he went to check as to why his suicide attempt failed, he found the hose had melted around the pipe and the fisherman was nowhere to be found. Mark believed the Japanese gentleman was the real Jesus. In the midst of his downward spiral the little people in his walls from his childhood returned. Then, he read a biography about Lennon and was furious. While claiming to be about peace and love, Lennon was a millionaire. He hadn’t given his money to the poor. He was one of the phonies in Salinger’s novel. Mark decided he was going to New York and kill the former Beatle.  At that exact moment, John had returned to making music after a five-year hiatus. Mark bought a gun and headed to New York in late October. He knew John lived at the Dakota and cased the surrounding area. Mark had one little problem. He did not have bullets for his gun and New York’s Sullivan Law forbade their sale. He called a friend in Georgia and went down there to retrieve them. He returned to New York on November 10th. Yet, while watching the film Ordinary People, he realized that he had a wife and family that loved him and the demons seemed to be gone, but not for long. A few weeks later, he was heading back to New York.

            On December 6th, he checked into the YMCA that was just blocks from his victim. While walking to the Dakota with John’s newest album under his arm, he bumped into two women, Jude Stein and Jerry Moll, who told him they knew Lennon and he often chatted with them. He gave up on spotting John and left for his room at 5 p.m. Fifteen minutes later, Lennon returned home. Mark had a bad night, having to put up with the sounds of homosexual sex in the room next to him.  Outraged by the sin on the other side of the wall, he thought about killing the gentlemen next door, but instead checked out the next day and moved over to the Sheraton Centre. He then bought a new copy of The Catcher in the Rye as he had left his at home. Leaving the bookstore, he spied John Lennon’s image on the cover of Playboy magazine. Reading the magazine, he realized that when Holden came to New York at the end of the novel, he had called an escort service and then merely talked to the call girl. Chapman did the same thing. She left his room at 3 in the morning. On December 8th, Mark awoke, listened to his Christian music and read the Gospel of John. In pencil, he wrote the name “Lennon” after “John” in the Bible. He then picked up his album, the book, and the firearm and headed to the Dakota. He chatted with the doorman and became so engrossed in his conversation that he failed to notice Lennon get out of a taxi and walk into the building. Angry, he waited for his next opportunity. Jude Stein showed up and Chapman offered to buy her lunch. Returning to his spot, Jude introduced him to 5-year-old Sean Lennon who was out with his nanny. Later that day, Mark finally spotted Lennon and Yoko Ono. He stood dumbstruck before Lennon. The former Beatle was extremely generous with him, signing the album and asking if he wanted anything else before getting into his waiting limo and whisking away. He walked back to his motel room, praying to God for the strength not to kill John. The voices in his head won. He returned at 8 p.m. Less than 3 hours later, Lennon returned home from his recording studio. Mark called out for the Beatle. Lennon turned as Chapman crouched into the firing position. Four out of the 5 bullets he fired slammed into John.  The music that made the world much more bearable died on a dark New York street. Chapman, given 20 years to life, spends his days as an evangelical Christian in the protective unit at Attica Prison.  He has been denied parole four times. 

            Chapter 27, based on Robert Rosen’s book Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon, is the better of two movies out about the assassination of Lennon.  The other is director Andrew Piddington’s The Killing of John Lennon.  If it was not for the subject matter, I would say Jared Leto deserves consideration for an Academy Award as Chapman. Lindsay Lohan shows the talent she had before sniffing half of Peru up her nose and forgetting to wear her underwear.  I am not going to advise anyone to see this movie out of respect for John, his family, and friends.  Too many little men have become heroes and legends for their petty little acts.  I am hoping a century or two from now that the name Mark David Chapman means nothing to anyone but that the world is living out John’s imagination. Pray for peace and remember to love…

Verdict: Out of Respect for John Lennon, Don’t See This Movie