Has anybody here seen this film?
It was rather controversial at the time it was made in Beatle-fandom; controversial in the sense that a good many people felt that a film about Mark David Chapman is a horrible idea because it gives him what he wanted in 1980 -- attention. Another controversy is that Lindsay Lohan, who plays someone that Chapman meets in New York in December 1980, said that she had Sean Lennon's blessing to be in the film, while Sean Lennon denied giving his friend any such permission.
I haven't seen it, not for the reasons of "controversy" above. If anything, the "controversy" would make me
more likely to see it. Did Chapman do a terrible thing by murdering John Lennon? Yes. But that doesn't make him the "Worst Murderer Evah!" which is how he's often viewed. Pretending that he doesn't exist now doesn't take away the events of December 8, 1980. Rather, the reason I haven't seen it is far more practical -- I didn't know it had been released, and I'm not even sure if it's on DVD. It hasn't been on my radar, not the way
Backbeat was fifteen years ago or
Across the Universe was two years ago.
Here's the thing. If Chapman had a shot a New York cabbie on December 8, 1980, he would have done his time and been paroled, probably a decade ago. He would be living somewhere in quiet anonymity, trying to cobble a life together. Unfortunately, because it was Lennon he shot, Chapman will probably never set foot outside prison again; not to protect society from him, not because he's a danger to society, but to protect him from society, because society is a danger to
him.
If so, you may have noticed: John himself is played by an actor named Mark Chapman.
Mark Lindsay Chapman, yes. Twenty years ago he looked a
lot like Lennon. Ian Hart's another.
Not, in and of itself, weird, since this person is a veteran actor, but isn't it just about 100 kinds of tacky to have anyone - especially someone as famous as John Lennon - be played by somebody who has the *same name* as the person who freaking KILLED HIM?
Not really. It's just a name. He is, as you say, a "veteran actor," and he was cast as Lennon in a John & Yoko biopic twenty-five years ago.
In fact, the actor was originally going to star as Lennon in an earlier film (made in the 80's I think) but Yoko put the stop to it as soon as she found out his name. I wonder why she didn't do that this time...
The reason? Yoko didn't have anything to
do with this film. How could she get Mark Lindsay Chapman bumped from a film she wasn't involved in -- and probably wishes hadn't been made?
