The Killing of John Lennon

"I was nobody until I killed the biggest somebody on Earth"




This Saturday will be December 8th, the date that John Lennon was tragically gunned down outside his apartment building twenty-seven years ago. This Friday, December 7th, is the UK release date for The Killing of John Lennon, a film about Mark Chapman (Lennon's assassin) and the process in which he carried out his deplorable deed.

After reading a few reviews, I know that the film features a voice-over from the Chapman character, and the words spoken are straight from the real Chapman's journal. Some of the phrases include "loneliness has followed me my whole life", and "Travis was right, one day a real rain will come." It's been well documented that Chapman was an obsessive reader of The Catcher in the Rye, but the influence of Taxi Driver is clearly evident; which is interesting.

The writer/director is Andrew Piddington, who I am unfamiliar with. It won't be a pleasant experience, I'm sure, but I will be seeing this one.


Anyone else interested in this film? What are your thoughts?

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This is the first time I've heard about the film. Being a huge Lennon fan, it was a very sad day when he died but I always thought this would be an interesting film. Do you know if/when it will be released in the states?

It's scheduled for January 2nd on limited release.

I'm a huge Lennon fan too. So even though the story of a crazed man planning and executing an assassination has been seen before, this will no doubt be much more distressing knowing it actually took place, and with Lennon being the inspirational icon that he is.

I will probably check it out.

For the record, I am a Paul fan. I like Lennon's stuff, but I disagree with a lot of his ideology.

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It's ironic, I think, that fans of Lennon will flock to see this film while I, who never was a Beatle's fan, will avoid it because I hate to think of a sick puke like Chapman profiting from murder. Not that it would put money in his pocket, but it does gratify his motivating desire for fame. Real justice in this case would be people saying "Mark who?" when they hear Chapman's name.

Besides, I've already heard the police blotter facts of the killing. I really don't give a fat rat's patootie what Chapman was supposedly thinking "in his own words" leading up to the crime. The guy is a loser--let's move on.

I'm not going to deny what Chapman did. I do know his name, rufnek, simply because he is the man who shot John Lennon. Let's face it, he is already famous. He is also globally hated.

I despise him for what he did. But people like me read about his case to maybe try and get their head around why someone would kill a man that was loved by so many. I know there's no way to understand a psychopath, but still, Lennon is someone I have come to admire, his whole life intrigues me, and his murder is no different.

I was thinking what exactly happened to John Lennon. He was a famous singer right? I was wondering what was on the mind of that killer. Does this movie will show the real story behind Lennon's death?

Like the idea of happiness being a warm gun?

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

I will attempt to illustrate, by focusing on what many consider to be a song that sort of represents the "definitive" Lennon:

Imagine - J Lennon (RIP)

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one


I used to love this song, I really did. Then I really started contemplating the ideas behind the lyrics, and decides the sing is terrible, and here is why. It is just ridiculous, or, perhaps I am just a short-sighted dolt. When considering what he is trying to say, it just keeps occurring to me that this dude was sort of a pseudo-fascist. Take this line for instance.


I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

I can only take that as "Once you start thinking like I(we) do, the world can be as one." I mean, I see this all the time today, people speaking with a forked tongue.

On one hand I will have a person tell me that they, and everyone on the planet, should be treated equally, which is a valid and noble concern and goal, to be sure. However, in the same breath, they then demand that everyone recognize how diverse people are, and that some people are more enlightened than others and they should be treated as such.

This last section in italics is what irks me. People want to be recognized as being special, enlightened, forward thinking, like-minded, exceptional... you get the point, and yet when faced with a situation in which these people feel they are being slighted for being different or off-kilter with society, they throw a nutty, and cry discrimination.

Imagine, to me, is the quintessential anthem of this ideal. A calm, pleasant campfire ditty rife with pretentious superiority.

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger

Come on! No possessions?? I live in the northeast, and without possessions or, like FOOD, I would die, quickly. Community is great, but forced sharing within a community is NOT. Anyone who doubts this should track some some information on THE Ranch. which was one of the larger communes back in the late 60s and early 70s, and, is still around today, although almost derelict.

When talking to the people who grew up and lived there almost their entire lives, They are ALL very quick (and clearly bitter) to shoot down the whole "tribal sharing" method the commune attempted to proliferate. This style of living eschews the concepts of meritocracy, and attempts to champion "sharing of everything, to promote goodwill and cooperation between humans."

What actually occurs is something very different, with a good percentage of the people attempting to stay "in the system" they are attempting to develop, but, those with less skill or with underhanded (or worse) aspects to their nature introduce a contaminant to the system that invariably breaks it down and destroys it. People from Lennon's generation, including my father, who was at the front of the march in his VW Microbus, have seen this happen time and time again. It doesn't work, just ask the people who have tried.

Without a societal system that recognizes merit as part of the contribution to society, which allows for specialization, and expansion of societal knowledge as a whole, the society will break down once it reaches a certain size that is no longer manageable in a tribal paradigm.

I know, I know...Lennon was saying we should IMAGINE what it would be like if everyone got along. The thing is, it's not something that is possible, and most of the people that love and live by the sort of ideals in Imagine don't see it as a dream, but as a blueprint for life, which is unfortunate, because the blueprint is inherently flawed, and breeds pretentiousness and superiority.

Live and LET LIVE, says I.

When you guys started about Lennon's songwriting, I felt the urge to fisk the lyrics of Imagine, but decided not to. Now I see Sedai has done part of it for me. Couldn't agree more with what he said.

The line that irks me most (sorry if I'm contributing to the off-topic discussion...) is the "imagine there's no countries" line. Far from being open-minded and tolerant, the line is borderline fascist. No countries means one set of laws (unless Lennon thinks we should imagine a world with no laws, too). One set of laws means forcing every culture and religion (whoops, nevermind...we're supposed to be imagining there's no religion) to constrain itself to the one law. But last I checked, there's a lot of reasonable disagreement as to what should and should not be a law. Cultural diversity and cultural tolerance cannot coexist under one set of laws.

Of course, some might say this all takes the words too seriously. It's just a song, right? But a lot of people have heard it and identified with the ideas in it, even though they're a complete mess. It's widely regarded as culturally significant. It clearly aspires to be more thought-provoking and serious than your standard pop song, so I don't think we should dismiss it as one.

'Tis a pity that such a lovely melody was wasted on such nonsense lyrics. I think I'll go edit it so the piano just loops over and over again and listen to that.

So, to sprint all the way back to the topic of the thread: I might see this if it a) is getting strong word-of-mouth and b) doesn't look like a Lennon lovefest. I realize it's inevitable that anyone who passes away before their time is going to be canonized as a pop culture saint, but Lennon was by many accounts a fairly messed up dude, so I don't think I could stomach 2 whole hours of revisionist fawning.

Im a beatles fanatic, i really want to see film, im just curious how did lennon died and what are the causes of his death....is it political or just pure grudges on him....thanks for the info...

I have a couple of thoughts, and I'm not real Gung Ho on doing anything other than playing Devil's Advocate and mentioning something different than the last two posts. "Imagine" is basically a song written and sung during the Viet Nam War. It's essentially an anti-war song and trying to discuss the reasons people go to war (acquisition of land, patriotism, religion, lack of things). If you get rid of the reasons, you get rid of the war. Now, true, this is an idealistic approach, but if you don't look at the causes of something and try to do away with them, you're never going to know if you'll succeed in making an attempt to "kill" war.

As far as the "no possessions" line, that's straight out of the New Testament. "Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." (Matthew 19:21) I'm just wondering if anybody who believes in Heaven thinks that there will be countries there? What do you think you will have in Heaven besides a "Brotherhood of Man" with God.

To me, "Imagine" just tries to "preach" a peaceful view of Heaven on Earth. I'm not going to attack it because everything humankind gets its hands on or thoughts around becomes corrupt. It's talking about living a life higher than basic human desires. Jesus and other spiritual leaders preached the same thing. "Imagine" certainly isn't damning anybody if you don't "join us". The request is just not go to war with us.

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I have no problem with this. But as I said, people still take it quite seriously today. Its scope is clearly a bit more ambitious than the Vietnam War. Heck, I still see bumper stickers with its lyrics on them.

"If thou wilt be perfect," I believe, is the relevant bit. We're not perfect, and if we ever will be, it sure won't be on this Earth. But, admittedly, the "no possessions" line doesn't bug me a whole lot. The degree to which it does bug me is the degree to which I'm assuming it refers less to Christian charity, and more to forced redistribution of wealth. But that admittedly involves some reasoned speculation on my part.

I don't think there'll be countries at all, but that's easy to swallow if you're ruled over by a mind of infinite intelligence and understanding. It's people trying to play the role of God that results in suffering, and dooms ideologies like Communism which, let's face it, has a striking similarity to the ideology in these lyrics. We could spell John's last name L-E-N-I-N and they would still seem appropriate.

I can't lay claim to any definitive, objective interpretation of the lyrics, but to me, they say a lot more than "hey, peace is nice. Imagine it were peaceful all the time!" I could be wrong, to be sure, but it seems to fancy itself as a lot more than just another peace anthem.

I'll handle the sarcasm on this site, Chris, and don't you forget it!

You are the voice of reason 'round here!

Good discussion!

Yeah, won't be seeing this. I am a fan of John Lennon, I actually like his solo work more than what he did with the Beatles (he did soooo many songs besides "Imagine" that are unfairly forgotten, by the way. His debut solo cd, Plastic Ono Band helped me through some really rough times) and I can't imagine wanting to see a two hour film about the guy that killed him. Also, I get a Napoleon Dynamite vibe from the guy in the picture.

"What are you gonna do today, Napoleon?"
"Kill John Lennon, GOSH!"

So let me see if I understand you correctly.. Sed and Chris, you guys do NOT like socialism?

Well, my daughter does have this on her bedroom wall.



It's my fault for exposing her to all those Commies.

I may have given the wrong impression, and I want to interject quickly.... I think John Lennon was a GREAT songwriter, as far as gift for melody, structure, and most importantly, creativity were concerned. I just disagree with a lot of his politics, and a lot of his lyrics. I have nothing against him musically, and I consider him a genius in many ways. The man was one of thje major creative minds behind the Beatles, after all. That said, I think Paul was also an incredible songwriter, and a master at syncopation and counter-point. His rhythmic mastery, as well as clear brilliance in melody and structure is what puts him slightly over the top for me, musically.

I saw The Killing of John Lennon last week. Here are my thoughts from another thread...

Chapman wanted to be famous....this film is helping that. So is chapter 23.

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