tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-213002462024-03-18T22:09:22.395-05:00Chapter 27The #1 source of information on "Chapter 27" the movie and its connection to "Chapter 27" in "Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon" by Robert Rosen... Bonus Coverage: “The Killing of John Lennon”Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-32601233427894425832008-10-02T14:02:00.002-05:002012-10-19T12:33:17.569-05:00Blog Post #27: The End (For Now)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBvGKm9aeTOjJVZutqBtDowKj6dsrcviC0iu2cZVAj-g4uU9qUTKv5br98k-PRsxPQ2hCcztVkr2-Cw15pdCEQoj5VF03ooCQhB0iy8iAyipmSwCTCf-JrazFFeaYeLJFvqLUFQ/s1600-h/IMG_0159.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5252634553134704018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBvGKm9aeTOjJVZutqBtDowKj6dsrcviC0iu2cZVAj-g4uU9qUTKv5br98k-PRsxPQ2hCcztVkr2-Cw15pdCEQoj5VF03ooCQhB0iy8iAyipmSwCTCf-JrazFFeaYeLJFvqLUFQ/s400/IMG_0159.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Author, Valparaiso, Chile, October 19, 2005.</span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books">By Robert Rosen</a></span><br />
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Though I didn’t plan it this way when I began on January 21, 2006, this post, the 27th, will be my last. For the time being, I’ve said just about everything I care to say about <span style="font-style: italic;">Chapter 27</span>, the film about the murder of John Lennon, starring Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as Jude, a Lennon fan.<br />
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If something more should happen, say director J.P. Schaefer drops by my house for a smoke and a friendly cup of coffee, or some porn company releases <span style="font-style: italic;">Chapter 69</span>, starring Ron Jeremy as Chapman and Lohan reprising her role as Jude, I will of course write about it here. But for now I’m moving on to other projects, though will continue to write about movies, politics, and culture on <a href="http://maiscottandrosen.blogspot.com/">Maiscott & Rosen</a>.<br />
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I am, of course, aware that the <span style="font-style: italic;">Chapter 27</span> DVD was released in the US on September 30, 2008. Some may have noticed that this was Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the Jewish year 5769.<br />
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Allow me to show you what happens if you add those numbers together, using the formula provided in <span style="font-style: italic;">Cheiro’s Book of Numbers</span>—a system, incidentally, based on the Hebrew alphabet: 5+7+6+9=27=9<br />
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This, I submit, is just one more example of the filmmakers’ utilizing the information about numerology they gleaned from my John Lennon bio, <span style="font-style: italic;">Nowhere Man</span>.<br />
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Before I sign off, I want to again thank all the people who’ve been reading this blog, posting their comments, and sending me e-mail. I will continue to respond to all comments and e-mail.<br />
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And I especially want to thank everybody in the media—notably at <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-just-in.html">Mojo</a></span> magazine, <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/noticia.html?nid=35588&cat=6">Proceso</a></span> magazine, and <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://free.vindy.com/">The Louie Free Radio Show</a></span>—who’ve supported me over the years and who took the time to point out the obvious: that the title <span style="font-style: italic;">Chapter 27</span> came from “Chapter 27” of <span style="font-style: italic;">Nowhere Man</span>.<br />
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What follows below are links to, and the dates of, the previous 26 postings. Consider it a handy reference guide.<br />
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1. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/01/roots-of-chapter-27-including-chapter.html">The Roots of Chapter 27 (Including “Chapter 27” Itself)</a> —January 21, 2006<br />
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2. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">John Lennon’s Bible and the Occult Significance of 27</a> —February 5, 2006<br />
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3. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/program-note.html">Program Note</a> —February 8, 2006<br />
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4. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/perfect-9-for-yoko-ono-on-_114010245728710315.html">Perfect 9: For Yoko Ono on her 73rd Birthday</a> —February 16, 2006<br />
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5. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/astute-readers-aspiring-censors-and.html">Astute Readers, Aspiring Censors, and IMDB: The Chapter 27 Page</a> —February 26, 2006<br />
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6. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/03/27-i-missed.html">The 27 I Missed</a> —March 25, 2006<br />
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7. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/04/27the-unluckiest-number-in-rock-n-roll.html">27—The Unluckiest Number in Rock ’n’ Roll</a> —April 26, 2006<br />
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8. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/05/all-he-was-saying-was-give-me-job.html">All He Was Saying Was “Give Me a Job!”</a> —May 15, 2006<br />
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9. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/06/why-dont-those-chapter-27-people-make.html">Why Don’t Those “Chapter 27” People Make a Film About John Lennon Instead of Mark David Chapman?</a> —June 9, 2006<br />
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10. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/07/el-captulo-27-y-chapter-27.html">El Capítulo 27 y Chapter 27</a> —July 17, 2006<br />
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11. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/08/killing-of-john-lennon.html">The Killing of John Lennon</a> —August 16, 2006<br />
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12. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/08/25-years-ago-chapman-sentenced-to-20.html">25 Years Ago: Chapman Sentenced to 20 Years to Life</a> —August 20, 2006<br />
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13. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/09/letters-to-chapter-27_05.html">Letters to Chapter 27</a> —September 5, 2006<br />
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14. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/10/october-9-time-out-for-peace.html">October 9: Time Out for Peace</a> —October 5, 2006<br />
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15. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/11/karma-and-dogma-of-december-8.html">The Karma (and Dogma) of December 8</a> —November 18, 2006<br />
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16. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/12/annual-report-to-my-readers-state-of.html">Annual Report to My Readers: The State of Chapter 27</a> —December 18, 2006<br />
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17. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/01/critiquing-critics.html">Critiquing the Critics</a> —January 26, 2007<br />
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18. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/02/with-enemies-like-this-who-needs.html">With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?</a> —February 6, 2007 <br />
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19. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-are-they-going-to-do-for-encore.html">What Are They Going to Do for an Encore, Burn the Book?</a> —February 12, 2007 <br />
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20. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/02/gift-to-dying-movie.html">A Gift to a Dying Movie</a> —February 19, 2007<br />
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21. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/03/bring-on-next-bad-numerology-movie.html">Bring on the Next Bad Numerology Movie</a> —March 1, 2007<br />
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22. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-saw-film-today-oh-boy.html">I Saw a Film Today, Oh Boy</a> —May 2, 2007 <br />
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23. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-just-in.html">This Just In…</a> —November 7, 2007<br />
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24. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2008/02/lost-chapter.html">The Lost Chapter</a> —February 1, 2008<br />
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25. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2008/03/byoc-bring-your-own-context-or-my-long.html">BYOC (Bring Your Own Context) or My Long-Awaited Review</a> —March 26, 2008 <br />
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26. <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2008/04/rosen-corvelay-exchange.html">The Rosen-Corvelay Exchange</a> —April 29, 2008</div>
Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-19305444270102416862008-04-29T08:56:00.005-05:002008-04-29T09:32:04.937-05:00The Rosen-Corvelay Exchange<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGEAIaWh25FBj_wacMxdDJxvDccKcHpkQGl9T_hvgHMef9FlWLx6Wz3ANqX8Lh5NZI073zRru2Ye3eLHYc34jgIyqNcFb7bBjYbzrra9SDrdR61_zOm0seRRvFsnksBBoIxSJhg/s1600-h/Key+Passage.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGEAIaWh25FBj_wacMxdDJxvDccKcHpkQGl9T_hvgHMef9FlWLx6Wz3ANqX8Lh5NZI073zRru2Ye3eLHYc34jgIyqNcFb7bBjYbzrra9SDrdR61_zOm0seRRvFsnksBBoIxSJhg/s400/Key+Passage.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5194666687052619170" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:";font-size:12;" >The key passage in <i>Nowhere Man</i> that explains the meaning of “Chapter 27.”</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />A few weeks ago I appeared on the Louie Free Radio Show to discuss the connection between <i>Chapter 27</i>, the movie, and “Chapter 27” in my John Lennon biography, <i>Nowhere Man</i>. On the show, which was broadcast locally in Ohio and over the Internet, I said that <i>Chapter 27 </i>is a mistitled, dispiriting film lacking in context; that writer/director Jarrett Schaefer stole the title from “Chapter 27” in <i>Nowhere Man</i> but didn’t explain what the title meant; that the film does feature three good performances (Jared Leto as Chapman, Lindsay Lohan as Jude, and Judah Friedlander as Paul Goresh); and that<i> Chapter 27</i> is not, as <i>Premiere</i> magazine suggested, “the most godawful, irredeemable film to yet emerge in the 21st century.”</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />I also spoke about how the producers’ cynical attempt to capitalize on the controversy surrounding the film succeeded mostly in infuriating people who loved John Lennon, and sparked a counterproductive boycott that generated even more headlines.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >My radio interview, which I advertised on IMDB, as well as on numerous blogs and websites, prompted a listener who calls himself “Mr. Art Corvelay” (a name he lifted from a <i>Seinfeld</i> episode) to post a comment on IMDB. Below are an edited version of his comment and my response.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />The interview will be available in the Louie Free archives until May 7. To listen, click <a href="http://free.vindy.com/archives.php">here</a>, then click on April 16, part 1. The interview begins a little before the halfway point.<br /><br />***</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />Dear Mr. Rosen,</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />I listened to the interview on the Louie Free Show and I just have one simple question: Have you even read the book <i>Let Me Take You Down: Inside the mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Shot John Lennon</i> by Jack Jones? Because if you had, then you would realize that J.P Schaefer’s film isn’t mistitled and that he didn’t “steal” the title <i>Chapter 27</i> from your book; he took it from Jones’s book and he correctly credited him.</span><span style="color:black;"></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />He probably read your book, and I know he didn’t mention the numerological implications of Chapter 27 and the number 9, but it’s obvious if you read <i>Let Me Take You Down</i> that he basically adapted the first part of that book into a screenplay.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />Here’s a quote from <i>Let Me Take You Down</i> that I think you might find quite interesting:<i> </i>“He inserted the cartridges into the five empty slots in the cylinder of the gun. Still watching himself in the mirror, Chapman held the loaded pistol aloft in his right hand and snapped the chamber shut with a flick of his wrist. ‘The Catcher in the Rye of my generation,’ he announced to his looking glass image. ‘Chapter Twenty-Seven.’”</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />You will find this passage in chapter 3: “The Catcher Gone Awry,” page 21.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />I hope this information clears things up a bit.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />Regards,</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br />Mr. Art Corvelay</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />Dear Mr. Corvelay,</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />Of course I read the Jack Jones book <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>. I said so in</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" > my blog posting of February 26, 2006, “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/astute-readers-aspiring-censors-and.html">Astute Readers, Aspiring Censors, and IMDB: The Chapter 27 Page</a>.” Allow me to quote:</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />“As one astute reader of this blog pointed out, <i>Nowhere Man</i>, my John Lennon biography, is not the first book to mention chapter 27. That honor, if I may use such a word, belongs to Jack Jones’s Mark David Chapman bio, <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>, which I used for my own Chapman research and credited accordingly.”</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />The problem with <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>, as I’ve said before, is that the passage you quote is the only mention of Chapter 27 in the book. Jones never shows how the number 27 numerologically connects Chapman to Lennon. In fact, as it says in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapter_27">Wikipedia</a>:</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />“<i>Let Me Take You Down</i> provides no information on the numerological meaning of Chapter 27, and fails to show how Chapter 27 played into the heart of Lennon’s obsession with numerology, Cheiro, the number 9, and all its multiples.”<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >It was this omission that inspired the entire Chapman section in <i>Nowhere Man</i>, which includes “Chapter 27.”<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >For two years I’ve been asking: If <i>Chapter 27</i> is based on the Jones book, why isn’t the film called <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>? How is a passing mention of Chapter 27 on page 21 of a 281-page book—a phrase that’s never explained, and that most readers have forgotten by the time they reach the end of the book—the basis for their title?</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />Obviously, Jones didn’t think <i>Chapter 27</i> was the correct title. That’s why he called his book<i> Let Me Take You Down</i>. It’s a good title that everybody understands, even if they don’t get the double meaning. (It’s the first line of the Lennon song “Strawberry Fields Forever.”)</span><i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />Let Me Take You Down </span></i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >should have been the title of this movie<span style="color:black;">. And I’d suggest that Jack Jones is as pissed off about the title as I’d be if some production company had bought for a pittance the rights to <i>Nowhere Man</i> and called their film <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>.<br /><br /></span></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" >I’d also suggest that it was only after </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Jarrett Schaefer read <i>Nowhere Man</i>, and understood the full metaphorical and numerological meaning of Chapter 27, that he considered using it as a title—perhaps believing that enough people were familiar with <i>Nowhere Man</i> that it required no further explanation.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />That’s why I believe I should have gotten credit for the title, and that’s why I believe that by calling the film <i>Chapter 27</i>, the producers—who seem to lead the league in generating bad karma, if nothing else—cheated two writers out of appropriate recognition for their work.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Incidentally, the scene you quote from the Jones book isn’t even in the movie. If it were, then the title, <i>Chapter 27</i>, would at least make sense on some level.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />I might also add that the British music magazine <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-just-in.html"><i>Mojo</i></a> and the Spanish-language newsweekly <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/noticia.html?nid=35588&cat=6"><i>Proceso</i></a> have both said that the title <i>Chapter 27</i> comes from “Chapter 27” in <i>Nowhere Man</i>, which goes into great detail about numerology and 27, the “triple 9,” a number of profound importance to Lennon. And anybody who’s read <i>Nowhere Man</i> agrees—because it’s self-evident. Chapter 27 is at the forefront of my Chapman story.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />And finally, I should point out that the Spanish-language version of the film is called <a href="http://www.lahiguera.net/cinemania/pelicula/2476/"><i>The Lost Chapter</i></a> (<i>El Cap</i></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >í</span></i></span><i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" >tulo Perdido</span></i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" >) and the Czech version is called <i><a href="http://www.csfd.cz/film/226487-zavrazdeni-johna-lennona-chapter-27/gallery/">The Assassination of John Lennon</a> </i>(</span><i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Zavraždění Johna Lennona</span></i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" >)—because the movie never explains what “Chapter 27” means.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />So, I’d invite you, Mr. Art Corvelay, to read <i>Nowhere Man</i> as well as this blog. I think you’ll find them edifying.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />Yours truly,</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br />Robert Rosen</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />PS: I never said they based the screenplay on <i>Nowhere Man</i>. I only said they stole the title from <i>Nowhere Man</i> and grafted it onto a film that has little to do with “Chapter 27.”</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;color:black;" ><br /><br />PPS: Thanks for listening to the interview. I hope you enjoyed Mary Lyn Maiscott’s cover of the old Lennon-McCartney tune “You Can’t Do That.”</span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-52805278371840881292008-03-26T19:11:00.007-05:002008-04-18T09:21:22.248-05:00BYOC (Bring Your Own Context) or My Long-Awaited Review<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLufMrPRnKr2deLA7XYOOdRSx45lu0NVMTN9Rbr_U0_DkRpWCBnfXZxpyCVjCRsY0MBAFzzocyYXjPg1aq0xoYZsP6rInvZeisN81BpYhxF1H4-pT9_Tyhq6NgpVVQg0OcIM167g/s1600-h/2008_chapter_27_001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLufMrPRnKr2deLA7XYOOdRSx45lu0NVMTN9Rbr_U0_DkRpWCBnfXZxpyCVjCRsY0MBAFzzocyYXjPg1aq0xoYZsP6rInvZeisN81BpYhxF1H4-pT9_Tyhq6NgpVVQg0OcIM167g/s400/2008_chapter_27_001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182208441378135746" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark David Chapman (Jared Leto) holds a copy of <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> close to his heart.</span><b><span style=""><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Chapter 27</span></span></b><span style=""><br />84 minutes<br />Written and Directed by </span><span style="">Jarrett Schaefer<br /></span><span style="">Starring Jared Leto, Lindsay Lohan, Judah Friedlander, and Mark Lindsay Chapman<br />From U.S.</span><span style=""><br /><br />The first thing you have to do if you want to understand <i>Chapter 27</i>, the film about the assassination of John Lennon, is read <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>, J.D. Salinger’s classic novel of disaffected youth, originally published in 1951. The book, narrated in the pitch-perfect adolescent voice of hypocrisy-hating Holden Caulfield, is what “inspired” Mark David Chapman to murder Lennon—because he believed that the reclusive, super-wealthy rock star who sang “Imagine no possessions” was, in the words of Holden, a “goddamn phony.”</span><span style=""><br /><br />Throughout the film, Chapman refers to the book, quotes from it, and imagines and acts out scenes from<i> </i>it. But unless <i>Catcher</i>’s fresh in your mind, you often won’t know that that’s what he’s doing. For example, the scene in the coffee shop where Chapman (Jared Leto) asks Jude (Lindsay Lohan) to run away with him is a direct steal from chapter 17 of <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>—which I didn’t realize till I reread the book after I saw the movie.</span><i><span style=""><br /><br />Catcher </span></i><span style="">also partially explains the film’s title, an essential bit of information that writer/director Jarrett Schaefer has neglected to share with his audience. Schaefer does give some indication that the title <i>Chapter 27</i> is a reference to the Salinger novel. And he does show some pages from <i>Catcher</i> in the opening sequence, focusing on chapter numbers 9 and 26. But he doesn’t make explicitly clear that <i>Catcher</i> ends on chapter 26 and that Chapman, who saw himself as the reincarnation of Holden Caulfield, believed that if he shot Lennon five times in the back, then he’d write chapter 27 in the ex-Beatle’s blood. That, at least, is how I explain it in my own Lennon bio,<i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books">Nowhere Man</a></i>, which is the second book you have to read—because it’s the only book that explains how the number 27 karmically links Chapman to Lennon.</span><span style=""><br /><br />Anybody who’s been following this blog already knows that, according to <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-just-in.html"><i>Mojo</i></a> magazine and the Spanish-language newsweekly <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/noticia.html?nid=35588&cat=6"><i>Proceso</i></a>,<i> </i>Schaefer expropriated his title from <i>Nowhere Man</i>’s “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/01/roots-of-chapter-27-including-chapter.html">Chapter 27</a>.” In that section I show </span><span style="">how 27, </span><span style="">“the triple 9,”</span><span style=""> was a number of profound importance to the ex-Beatle, who was obsessed with numerology, <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html"><i>Cheiro’s Book of Numbers</i></a>, and especially number 9 and all its multiples. (Lennon was born on October 9.)</span><span style=""><br /><br />Perhaps if </span><span style="">Schaefer </span><span style="">had </span><span style="">made this numerological connection, it would have given his film a deeper and more chilling resonance.</span><span style=""> But choosing instead to </span><span style="">completely ignore</span><span style=""> information that was essential to understanding both the title and the meaning of his story, he simply left it up to the</span><span style=""> audience to supply their own context, which might be asking a little too much of contemporary moviegoers.</span><span style=""><br /><br />This lack of context may partially explain the hundreds of <a href="http://www.premiere.com/moviereviews/4479/chapter-27.html">vicious reviews</a> that have appeared since <i>Chapter 27</i> premiered last year at Sundance. And it may also explain why, despite the presence of two major stars, the film faced such epic difficulties finding a distributor.</span><span style=""><br /><br />But let there be no doubt that amidst this fundamental confusion one extraordinary performance emerges: Jared Leto as Chapman. He doesn’t just play the character, he inhabits him. Famously (and perhaps insanely), Leto packed on 60 pounds for the role—in one scene the camera sensuously caresses his rolls of fat. And he is riveting as the murderous nerd who speaks in an absurdly creepy southern-accented whisper and is onscreen for virtually every frame of the film. To watch him is a claustrophobic experience, like being trapped in a room for 84 minutes with a socially awkward psychopath.</span><span style=""><br /><br />It’s up to Lindsay Lohan, in her small but appealingly energetic role as Jude, a Lennon fan (based on a real person) who befriends Chapman before realizing there’s something wrong with him, to express the discomfort and repulsion you feel in the presence of the aspiring killer.</span><span style=""><br /><br />She has some help from Judah Friedlander as Paul, based on paparazzo Paul Goresh, who, with a well-timed jolt of energy, alleviates the often crushing sense of being a prisoner of Chapman’s consciousness. Best known for his comedic work on <i>30 Rock</i>, Friedlander efficiently portrays the slightly sarcastic regular guy from Jersey who photographs Lennon (</span><span style="">Mark Lindsay Chapman</span><span style="">) signing Mark David Chapman’s copy of <i>Double Fantasy</i> hours before the murder.</span><span style=""><br /><br />But again </span><span style="">Schaefer</span><span style=""> doesn’t give his audience enough background or context to fully understand who these people are and why they’re doing what they’re doing. You do learn that Chapman’s a Beatles fan from Hawaii, who appears to have a wife back home. (Chapman’s wife was Japanese, like Yoko Ono, but that’s not mentioned.) The movie’s confined to the three days—December 6-8, 1980—leading up to the murder, and in that time frame it’s almost impossible for </span><span style="">Schaefer</span><span style=""> to show what drove an unemployed security guard to such delusional depths of insanity that he twice traveled 5,000 miles to assassinate a celebrity in the name of Holden Caulfield.</span><span style=""><br /><br />It would have been helpful, for example, to know about the “Little People,” the imaginary civilization that populated Chapman’s head and the walls of his room since he was a child, and whom he depended on to guide him in his decision-making; to know that when Chapman was a teenager, he played the guitar and dropped a lot of acid; to know that in Hawaii he attempted suicide and spent time in a mental institution; and to know that he was compelled by a desire to transcend his own insignificance and steal Lennon’s fame and identity. And it would have been especially illuminating to see Chapman, in his Honolulu apartment, listening to Beatles music in the middle of the night, begging Satan for the power to kill Lennon and chanting, “The phony must die, says the Catcher in the Rye.”<br /><br /></span><span style="">I wrote about all this in<i> </i>the seven final chapters of <i>Nowhere Man</i>, “The Coda,” where the concept of “Chapter 27” is at the forefront of the story and where I probed the meaning of what Chapman did.</span><span style=""><br /><br />Jack Jones also wrote about it in <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>, the book credited with “inspiring” <i>Chapter 27</i>. Though this worthwhile biography fails to explain the numerological implications of Chapter 27 or show how it played into the heart of Lennon’s obsession with the number 9, it does, indeed, plumb the ooze of Chapman’s mind, from his lunatic point of view, detailing everything you could possibly want to know about the killer’s voyage to the depths of the “bottomless pit” (see <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>, chapter 24, or <i>Nowhere Man</i>’s “Chapter 27”).</span><span style=""><br /><br />And director Andrew Piddington covered some of this material in that other Chapman movie, <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-saw-film-today-oh-boy.html"><i>The Killing of John Lennon</i></a>, which delves into Chapman’s background and graphically depicts the actual murder in a way that <i>Chapter 27</i> doesn’t approach.</span><span style=""><br /><br />All this contextual criticism is not to say that <i>Chapter 27</i> is a “lousy”—if I may borrow a word from Holden—movie. It’s not. It’s just a dispiriting and mistitled one. And now that I’ve seen it, I think I finally understand what Jarrett Schaefer was thinking, at least as far as the title goes. He probably found artistically irresistible both the concept of Chapman writing chapter 27 in Lennon’s blood and the idea of Lennon and Chapman being linked by a mystical number. Because he’s an inexperienced filmmaker, he probably thought he could graft a cool title onto a movie that had little to do with that title, and just leave it at that. He probably thought most people would either get it or wouldn’t care. And he probably believed on some level that the author of <i>Nowhere Man</i> didn’t really exist. Well, he was wrong. And though I’m sure it wasn’t his intention, I’d like to thank him for inspiring this blog.<br /><br />***<br /><br /></span><span style="">I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention that I knew well two of the people depicted in <i>Chapter 27</i>: John Lennon’s assistant and my former writing partner, Fred Seaman (Matthew Humphreys), and Fred’s aunt and Sean Lennon’s governess, Helen Seaman (Le Clanche DuRand). I must commend Humphreys, in his brief scene with Chapman, for neatly capturing the contemptuousness that Seaman routinely displayed to anybody he found “beneath” him (like the fans who hung out at the Dakota). But I must also point out that in the very creepy scene where Chapman meets Sean, Helen, an earth mother from the Bronx, is portrayed as an impeccably dressed upper-crusty English lady.<br /><br />***<br /><br /></span><span style="">This review with a different photo also appears at <a href="http://thelooseleafreport.blogspot.com/">The Looseleaf Report</a>.<br /><br />***<br /></span><span style=""><br />My April 16 interview on the Louie Free Radio Show is now archived and will remain in the archives until May 7. On the show I talk about <i>Chapter 27</i> and its connection to “Chapter 27” in my Lennon bio <i>Nowhere Man</i>. </span><span style="">If you’d like to listen, click <a href="http://free.vindy.com/archives.php">here</a>. </span><span style="">Then click on </span><span style="">“</span><span style="">Part 1</span><span style="">”</span><span style=""> under April 16. The interview begins a little before the halfway point.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span> <b><span style=""><br />Chapter 27 Premiere Dates</span></b><span style=""><br /><br />MARCH 28<br />- New York, NY - Angelika Film Center</span><span style=""><br /><br />APRIL 4<br />- Los Angeles, CA - Nuart Theatre<br />- Irvine, CA - Edwards University Town Center 6</span><span style=""><br /><br />APRIL 11<br />- Madison, WI - Sundance Cinemas</span><span style=""><br /><br />APRIL 18<br />- Dallas, TX - Angelika Dallas<br />- Houston, TX - Angelika Houston<br />- San Antonio, TX - Bijou at Crossroads<br />- San Francisco, CA - Sundance Kabuki</span><span style=""><br /><br />APRIL 25<br />- Philadelphia, PA - Ritz at the Bourse</span><span style=""><br /><br />MAY 2<br />- Washington, DC - E Street Cinema<br /><br />MAY 9<br />- Boston, MA - Kendall Square Cinema</span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-72637267243662124142008-02-01T10:45:00.000-05:002008-02-01T11:01:16.401-05:00The Lost Chapter<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDyM9eZucXkGPSlRkybCaAHmvWQloeaf4ftd7u3lUK18-4_R8jH5tvFnc5L5qDXs_2NJiltZTDrN6ZmaELMUd0F6FfRufOjSe6olMBWiGjUfJiV6Igl3UzCGU2JBFI-ptbxknr_w/s1600-h/Capitulo+27.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDyM9eZucXkGPSlRkybCaAHmvWQloeaf4ftd7u3lUK18-4_R8jH5tvFnc5L5qDXs_2NJiltZTDrN6ZmaELMUd0F6FfRufOjSe6olMBWiGjUfJiV6Igl3UzCGU2JBFI-ptbxknr_w/s400/Capitulo+27.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5162038761621328738" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Opening page of “Chapter 27” in the Spanish-language edition of </span><i style="font-weight: bold;">Nowhere Man</i><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Acknowledging one of the fundamental flaws of <i>Chapter 27</i>, the film about the murder of John Lennon, starring Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as Jude, a Lennon fan, the distributors of the movie’s Spanish-language version have changed the title. In Latin America and Spain, <i>Chapter 27</i> is being called <a href="http://www.lahiguera.net/cinemania/pelicula/2476/"><i>El Capítulo Perdido</i></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">, which translates as “The Lost Chapter” or “The Missing Chapter.”</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />As I’ve been explaining in this blog for the past two years, and as <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/11/this-just-in.html">the media</a> has said as well, <i>Chapter 27</i>’s writer/director Jarrett Schaefer ripped off the title of his film from “Chapter 27” in the Chapman section of my John Lennon biography, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books">Nowhere Man</a></i>. But he did so only half understanding what that title means, or perhaps understanding what it means but seeing no need to fully explain it.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Schaefer’s film does explain that “Chapter 27” is a reference to the missing chapter of J.D. Salinger’s classic novel of disaffected youth, <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>, which ends on chapter 26, and which “inspired” Chapman to murder Lennon. (Chapman, as I said in <i>Nowhere Man</i>, believed he was going to write chapter 27 in Lennon’s blood, and then literally disappear into the pages of the book after he shot the ex-Beatle.) But the film does not explain that 27 is also “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">the triple 9</a>,” which “karmically” connected Chapman to Lennon because it was a number of profound importance to the ex-Beatle, who was obsessed with numerology, <i>Cheiro’s Book of Numbers</i>, and especially number 9 and all its multiples. (Lennon was born on October 9.)</span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Nowhere Man</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is the only book that explains this numerological connection. And I’ve often wondered why Schaefer didn’t call his movie <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>, the perfectly adequate and understandable title of the Chapman biography he based the movie on. Why did he use a title that he doesn’t explain, or credit, and that is only understandable to people who’ve read <i>Nowhere Man</i> or this blog?</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Apparently, the Spanish-language distributors couldn’t answer this question, either.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />They also had to contend with the fact that the Spanish-language media has been <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2005/10/09/a08n1esp.php">analyzing</a> <i>Nowhere</i> <i>Man</i> since it was published in Latin America in 2003, and that upon learning that <i>Chapter 27</i> was being made, <a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/noticia.html?nid=35588&cat=6">immediately said</a> that that title came from <i>Nowhere Man</i>.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />So, the distributors changed the title to one that made more sense and didn’t require any outside reading to understand.</span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Chapter 27</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is scheduled for theatrical release in the U.S. next month, and I will post my review here as soon as I see it.</span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-34806842225164991292007-11-07T14:02:00.001-05:002007-11-07T15:05:11.443-05:00This Just In…<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5qKNURW8NhFPRVTVnsDMct8rqkTl_W1gTPLMUSoqli_zWvIiMaDWI8P1WXOfKbDAKu6oAWBgjKBkmZzN-Ytml9lE4LsUi3pvnaO9UWV0PbR8klreZJw6cyctjzPpwYjlRMl5qUw/s1600-h/Mojo+2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5qKNURW8NhFPRVTVnsDMct8rqkTl_W1gTPLMUSoqli_zWvIiMaDWI8P1WXOfKbDAKu6oAWBgjKBkmZzN-Ytml9lE4LsUi3pvnaO9UWV0PbR8klreZJw6cyctjzPpwYjlRMl5qUw/s400/Mojo+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130176751443117458" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZinELptCsKLTFzg6lCaUgPlVZCeFHf7QtQHcrmqocaUJNPXsopdhk87F7fMLVasl9fS2k96N0f37xcfCvzxiLyJ8XeN3faTobEXlq63Rdt50SGpXtDQCqO09s1Ae7EnwXKIFwA/s1600-h/Mojo+1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZinELptCsKLTFzg6lCaUgPlVZCeFHf7QtQHcrmqocaUJNPXsopdhk87F7fMLVasl9fS2k96N0f37xcfCvzxiLyJ8XeN3faTobEXlq63Rdt50SGpXtDQCqO09s1Ae7EnwXKIFwA/s400/Mojo+1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5130176463680308610" border="0" /></a><span style="">In a piece titled “The Movie Camera Turns on John Lennon’s Murderer,” the December issue of the British music magazine <i>Mojo</i> acknowledges the truth of what I’ve been saying in this blog since January 2006: The title of the film <i>Chapter 27</i>, starring Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman, and Lindsay Lohan as Jude, a Lennon groupie, could only have come from “Chapter 27” of my Lennon biography <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books"><i>Nowhere Man</i></a>.</span><span style=""><br /><br />Both <i>Chapter 27</i> and another film about Chapman, <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/05/i-saw-film-today-oh-boy.html"><i>The Killing of John Lennon</i></a>, are, according to <i>Mojo</i>, scheduled for release in England on December 7, 2007, the day before the 27<sup>th</sup> anniversary of Lennon’s assassination.</span><span style=""><br /><br />Crediting <i>Nowhere Man</i>—“Rosen’s compelling account of Lennon’s lost Dakota years”—with being the first “extended extrapolation of the uncanny numerological connections” between Lennon and his killer, deputy editor Andrew Male writes: “Following a labyrinthine series of legal ding-dongs with the Lennon estate, the book finally emerged in 2000 complete with a coda, a </span><span style="">‘Chapter 27’</span><span style=""> which connects the numerological meaning of 27—</span><span style="">‘the triple 9,’</span><span style=""> of profound importance to John Lennon—with Chapman’s belief that killing Lennon would allow him to disappear into the unwritten chapter of J.D. Salinger’s <i>Catcher in the Rye</i>.”</span><span style=""><br /><br />The article also notes that <i>Chapter 27</i> does not fully explain its title; that an online petition group has been trying to pressure movie theaters not to show the film; and that <i>The Killing of John Lennon</i>, an independent film written, directed, and financed by Andrew Piddington and starring Jonas Ball as Chapman, is the superior movie.<br /><br /></span><span style="">(According to recent press reports, <i>Chapter 27</i> is scheduled for theatrical release in the U.S. in March 2008, and Peace Arch Entertainment, the film’s producer, has just signed an agreement with Genius Products Inc. to distribute the DVD in North America.)</span><span style=""><br /><br />Finally, the <i>Mojo</i> article points out that the price of <i>Nowhere Man</i> in the U.K. is £9.99—a triple 9 that not even I ever noticed before.</span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-77186354324560500892007-05-02T20:05:00.000-05:002007-05-02T20:22:59.173-05:00I Saw a Film Today, Oh Boy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisXdSIqZBIfIYXMqkoBa3nBICG1D3z8XYKROLqKYkRMuElIMXXP9Wz0AWRVaE_QluqyEGOx0hPlmPsNkrnWbf30SJmfrse1QFI5PTUYLLj2HnFzFOz4e6TeRkVy_MUpKRn6FKlGQ/s1600-h/jonashawaiiproj.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisXdSIqZBIfIYXMqkoBa3nBICG1D3z8XYKROLqKYkRMuElIMXXP9Wz0AWRVaE_QluqyEGOx0hPlmPsNkrnWbf30SJmfrse1QFI5PTUYLLj2HnFzFOz4e6TeRkVy_MUpKRn6FKlGQ/s400/jonashawaiiproj.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5060135122769947026" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mark David Chapman (Jonas Ball) in his Honolulu apartment.</span></span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Killing of John Lennon</span><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">112 minutes<br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Written and Directed by Andrew Piddington<br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Starring Jonas Ball<br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">From U.K.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let’s get this out of the way right now for the legions of Beatles fans who believe that this movie should never have been made. These fans, as I understand it, are outraged not only that the movie exists, but that it’s being shown at film festivals and that it’s been getting glowing reviews since it premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival last August.<br /><br /></span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Killing of John Lennon</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">, which made its U.S. debut this week at New York’s <a href="http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/">Tribeca Film Festival</a>, is not meant to please Beatlemaniacs. It’s not meant to be in “good taste.” It’s not even meant to be entertainment in the traditional sense of the word. It is, rather, a difficult, disturbing, and at times nauseating movie to watch, even if you never cared about the Beatles or Lennon, even if you weren’t yet born on December 8, 1980, and even if you have little sense of who Mark David Chapman—played with chilling accuracy by Jonas Ball—was, what he did, and why he did it.<br /><br /></span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Why did Chapman do it?</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Because he was an emotionally disturbed and probably insane individual. He wanted to steal Lennon’s fame, his identity. He saw himself as the reincarnation of Holden Caulfield, the hypocrisy-hating narrator of J.D. Salinger’s classic novel of disaffected youth, <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>. Chapman thought Lennon was a phony who deserved to die for misleading a generation. And, as I said in my own John Lennon biography <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books"><i>Nowhere Man</i></a>, he thought that if he killed Lennon, he’d write Chapter 27 of <i>Catcher</i> in Lennon’s blood—<i>Catcher</i> ends on Chapter 26—and literally disappear into the pages of the book.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Most of this is very well explained in the movie.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">But let me make one other thing really clear, too: Writer/director Andrew Piddington has chosen to show the act of murder in graphic slow motion. Chapman’s five bullets, fired at close range, are seen tearing apart Lennon’s flesh amidst a shower of blood, in the archway of the Dakota, as the ex-Beatle and his wife, Yoko Ono, are returning from a recording session.<br /><br /></span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">So what is this filmmaker up to?</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> Piddington has said that he wants his movie to generate “controversy, adverse criticism, and scorn.” Well, that may be his marketing plan, so to speak. But he’s also said that it was his intention to put on-screen an unflinching presentation of the truth as seen through Chapman’s eyes, as he goes from his dead-end job as a security guard in Hawaii to the aftermath of the murder and his solitary confinement in Attica. Piddington accomplishes this by basing his impressionistic and at times surreal screenplay on the murderer’s journals, statements he made to the police and psychiatrists, interviews, depositions, and court transcripts. The director says that there’s nothing in the script that he didn’t corroborate three times.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">That’s an almost impossible standard to employ for any work of journalism, especially for a documentary-like feature film shot on a miniscule budget of $500,000. But it perhaps explains why a number of well-known events and crucial bits of information are missing from the movie. They include:<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapman’s belief that his head and the walls of his room are populated by a civilization he calls the “little people.”</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapman, on his flight to New York from Georgia, sees Lennon on the cover of the November 1980 <i>Esquire</i> magazine, and after reading the article describing the ex-Beatle as little more than a rich businessman, becomes even more enraged by Lennon’s “phoniness.”</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapman meets John’s son Sean and his governess in front of the Dakota.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapman, in his hotel, reads the January 1981 <i>Playboy</i> interview with Lennon and learns that sometimes he hires fans off the street to work for him.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapman asks Lennon for a job as Lennon autographs his record album.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Chapman, on the morning of the murder, sees Mia Farrow walk in front of the Dakota and takes that as yet another sign that he should kill Lennon. (Farrow played Rosemary, who gives birth to the devil in the Dakota, in the film <i>Rosemary’s Baby</i>.)</span></li></ul><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The absence of this information is, in the scheme of the film, a piddling criticism that takes nothing away from Ball’s uncannily realistic portrayal of Chapman. And only people intimately familiar with the story (like me) would notice it’s missing.</span><br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Killing of John Lennon</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">, shot on location in New York, Honolulu, and Decatur, Georgia, is a minor miracle of genuine independent/guerrilla filmmaking and should be commended as such. It couldn’t have been easy for Piddington to shoot in front of the Dakota, and that’s undoubtedly why many scenes that in real life took place on the sidewalk directly in front of the building were staged down the block or across the street. And, presumably, it was beyond the limits of Piddington’s budget to shoot the crowds of Lennon fans that haunted the Dakota daily, their numbers swelling after Lennon released <i>Double Fantasy</i>, the album that marked his return to the public eye after five years of seclusion<i>.<br /><br /></i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">And even with its numerous anachronisms—the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, modern subway turnstiles, and the occasional 21<sup>st</sup> century car—the film doesn’t look cheap; it looks real, and real scary. If anything, <i>The Killing of John Lennon</i> serves as an illustration of the problems associated with low-budget filmmaking and how they can be creatively overcome by a determined and talented filmmaker.<br /><br />***<br /><br /></span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Killing of John Lennon</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is playing at the Tribeca Film Festival on Fri., May 4, 5:30 PM, at the Pace University Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts (3 Spruce Street between Park Row and Gold Street). This review, as well as reviews of other films from the festival, can be found at <a href="http://thelooseleafreport.blogspot.com/">The Looseleaf Report</a>.</span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-46661703286126173282007-03-01T09:27:00.000-05:002007-03-01T09:45:07.328-05:00Bring on the Next Bad Numerology Movie<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3vMzlNuZDD5b4YLb6eR19BbcIQF6Y6GHwabCfETqVdnLHEmP64kE7y6qXOcWfcqGGgYw0Trr26nWKlHESLk1je_91jXsMl9YVEs2Xr1w5Y_zng2IywSPgg7PZUsi5_2GeZmk7Ww/s1600-h/The+Number+23.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3vMzlNuZDD5b4YLb6eR19BbcIQF6Y6GHwabCfETqVdnLHEmP64kE7y6qXOcWfcqGGgYw0Trr26nWKlHESLk1je_91jXsMl9YVEs2Xr1w5Y_zng2IywSPgg7PZUsi5_2GeZmk7Ww/s400/The+Number+23.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5036963080999305874" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: bold;">Jim Carrey in <i>The Number 23</i>, a numerology movie that fully explains its title. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Christine Loss/Courtesy of New Line Cinema</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ten days ago I called the <i>Howard Stern Show</i> in response to a <a href="https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=21300246&postID=5710391966044731042">comment </a>that Stern’s soundman, Fred Norris (or somebody pretending to be Norris), posted here inviting me to speak on the show about the <i>Chapter 27</i> boycott. The intern whom I chatted with had never heard of <i>Chapter 27 </i>or any boycotts. But he did say that somebody would “check it out” with Norris. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />As the show has yet to return my call, I can only assume (until proven otherwise) that “Norris’s” comments about my previous two postings are forgeries. By all appearances these notes are an attempt by the publicity junkies at Boycottchapter27.org to scam their next media fix. Because it’s become increasingly clear that, aside from the boycotters themselves, the only people who care if <i>Chapter 27 </i>is picked up for theatrical distribution in the United States are the filmmakers, the Peace Arch Entertainment stockholders, and a handful of hardcore Jared Leto fans. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />The “15 minutes” of fame allotted the boycott and the film have expired. If anybody’s still talking about <i>Chapter </i>27 a few months from now, they’ll probably be saying, “The boycott was better than the movie.” Already, bloggers and critics have moved on to trashing the next numerology movie, <i>The Number 23</i>, which, unlike <i>Chapter </i>27, at least goes to the trouble of explaining its title. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Yet, as the boycotters assume their rightful place as a footnote to the history of bad films about numbers, they refuse to see the obvious: <i>Chapter 27</i> hasn’t been picked up for distribution not <i>because</i> of their headline-generating assault on free expression, but <i>despite </i>it—which is an indication of just how fatally flawed the film must be. If I were to venture a guess as to why nobody’s yet expressed a willingness to bring<i> Chapter 27 </i>to a theatre near you, I’d say: Probably because Lindsay Lohan’s limited to 10 minutes of screen time, and no distributor believes a mass American audience is going to shell out 11 bucks each—the current price of a ticket in Manhattan—to look at a fat Jared Leto play a despicable character, no matter how transcendent his performance might be. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Meanwhile, over at the Peace Arch Entertainment business <a href="http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_P/forumview?bn=13724">forum</a>, disgruntled PEA investors, as reasonable and well-mannered a group of people as you’ll find on any board in cyberspace, have been analyzing <i>Chapter 27</i>’s aesthetic and financial problems. Though they’re deeply disgusted by the toxic ignorance of the boycotters’ spam-like postings on their site, they think that the boycott itself is a joke that, if anything, has been helping the film—just not enough to put it over the top. And they predict that somebody will eventually pick up <i>Chapter 27</i>—but only after the hype dies down completely and a distributor can get it for a song. For their sake, I hope they’re right. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">As for Me</span> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />This blog, now in its 14<sup>th</sup> month, has been an interesting, and at times creatively rewarding, experiment—my first serious foray into cyberspace. I started it because I believed that <i>Chapter 27</i>’s writer/director Jarrett Schaefer had ripped off my title and possibly my concept from the Chapman section of my John Lennon biography, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books"><i>Nowhere Man</i></a>. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Beatles expert Roberto Ponce, one of Latin America’s foremost cultural critics, agreed that this was most likely the case. In a story about the film, “<span class="articulostitulo"><a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/noticia.html?nid=35588&cat=6">Mark Chapman, el Asesino de Lennon</a>,”</span><span class="articulostitulo"> (Mark Chapman, the Assassin of Lennon)</span> which ran in the December 9, 2005 issue of the prestigious Spanish-language newsweekly<i> Proceso</i>, Ponce, quoting extensively from <i>Nowhere Man</i>, explained how Chapter 27 is a metaphor for the murder—that Chapman wanted to write Chapter 27 of <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> in Lennon’s blood—and how the number 9 and all its multiples <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">numerologically</a> connected Chapman to Lennon. </span><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br /></span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Then, in a story that ran in the <i>New York Post</i>, and was picked up by the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,182316,00.html">Associated Press</a>, on January 20, 2006, “Ono Tries to Halt Filming of Movie About Lennon’s Killer,” the writers Mandy Stadtmiller and Mary Huhn referenced <i>Nowhere Man</i> to explain the movie’s title. Why?<i> </i>Because <i>Nowhere Man</i> is the only book that fully explains it. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Disappointingly, Schaefer was either too amateurish or too ignorant to fully explain the meaning of Chapter 27—he completely ignored both the numerology angle and the metaphor of writing the missing chapter of <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> in Lennon’s blood. All he did was “borrow” an obscure title to graft onto a film that has little to do with Chapter 27. Had he fully explained the title, and shown how it numerologically connected Lennon to Chapman, I suspect <i>Chapter 27</i> would be a more interesting movie. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /><br />Of course, everything I’ve written here is little more than educated guesswork—I’ve not yet seen the film. (I only feel as if I had.) Like everybody else who’s interested, I’ll see it when it’s released, in whatever form it’s released in. Then, as promised, I’ll post my review. For now, however, I’m going to take a little vacation from blogging and go someplace tropical. We’ll see where things stand when I get back.</span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-57103919660447310422007-02-19T09:50:00.000-05:002007-03-02T10:45:00.353-05:00A Gift to a Dying Movie<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Q4hHakwKjDMPJF1dyaj_6ZwY1fRgH_AUHnlwEF6K2ln_FhJPUIJlNLcJxGlDugG8Cc_gBztRHUfKGu0srSiMiIz-cDCxle00fpm8djEnAwo646JzLjOcZZySIvNDN7W_qd_3fw/s1600-h/JL.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9Q4hHakwKjDMPJF1dyaj_6ZwY1fRgH_AUHnlwEF6K2ln_FhJPUIJlNLcJxGlDugG8Cc_gBztRHUfKGu0srSiMiIz-cDCxle00fpm8djEnAwo646JzLjOcZZySIvNDN7W_qd_3fw/s400/JL.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033257963423349474" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b>I thought that I heard him laughing. <o:p></o:p></b><b><span style=""><br /></span></b><span style=""><span style="font-size:78%;">Detail from photo in <i>Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon</i>, Quick American Archives 2002. ©AP/Wide World Photos</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /><b><span style=""></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Anybody who’s been reading this blog knows that I’ve spent the past few weeks trying to figure out how a seemingly clueless organization like Boycottchapter27.org engineered a PR coup that was the equivalent of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight pulling off The Great Train Robbery. How were they able to inject into a high-profile <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/494069p-416141c.html">gossip column</a>, with impeccable timing, news of their boycott and then have that story flashed around the world in a variety of languages?</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><ul><li><span style="">I suggested that they were a well-financed creation of <i>Chapter 27</i>’s producers, Peace Arch Entertainment.</span><span style=""><br /></span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="">I suggested that they were evil PR geniuses who’d formed a maverick agency and were drumming up business with an ugly but effective postmodern publicity stunt.</span><span style=""><br /></span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="">I suggested that they were a group of George Bush-style, ex-frat-boy publicity-hounds—who were fond of saying: “You’re either for the boycott or you’re for murder.”</span><span style=""><br /></span></li></ul><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">But in my reverie, I’d overlooked the primary rule of solving any mystery: The simplest, most obvious answer is usually the right one. It’s now pretty obvious that Boycottchapter27.org is as misguided and naive as they appear to be. Ignoring the well-documented history of what happens when somebody tries to censor or repress in any way an “offensive” movie or other work of art, they handed executive producer John Flock a gift on a silver platter: a nasty, ongoing, headline-generating boycott for a movie of questionable quality that from the very beginning was in deep trouble with critics and fans and that has still not been picked up for theatrical distribution in the U.S. Flock, of course, accepted the gift graciously…and allowed his real public relations specialists to do what they’ve been doing so remarkably well for the past year: They put <i>Chapter 27</i> back in the news, long after it should have died a natural death.</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">The boycott was a five-star success—for Peace Arch Entertainment. Even Yoko Ono loved it. Apparently forgetting that she’d coached Sean Lennon’s (former) BFF Lindsay Lohan in her role as Jude, a Lennon groupie who befriends Jared Leto’s Chapman a few days before the murder (Lohan says Ono gave her “the confidence” she needed to play the part), the reigning Queen of Media Manipulation told <i>Entertainment Weekly</i>, of the two thousand people who’d signed the boycott petition, “It’s very sweet of them. John would have thought so, too.”</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Ono—whose spokesman, Elliot Mintz, is also on Paris Hilton’s payroll—understands perfectly well that all publicity is good, free publicity is better, and free, sympathetic publicity is best of all. She knows that two thousand people, in the scheme of things, is a miniscule number, and if the boycott accomplished anything, it probably made 200,000 people who couldn’t have cared less about the movie very curious to see it. And if John Lennon is paying attention somewhere, I think he’s laughing his balls off at the sheer absurdity of it all. (I’m finding it pretty funny myself, and I haven’t even seen the movie yet. Note to John Flock: Please send screener. Maybe I can help.)</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Howard Stern Show</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">One thing that did surprise me about the boycott was a <a href="https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=21300246&postID=3970983321400565600">comment</a> that a reader posted about my last piece, “What Are They Going to Do for an Encore, Burn the Book?” That the comment was typical of the ridicule and innuendo that people associated with Boycottchapter27.org tend to post in response to anybody who disagrees with them wasn’t surprising. That it came from Fred Norris—who I later learned is a soundman and on-air personality on <i>The Howard Stern Show</i>—was astonishing.</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Stern, whom I’ve listened to enough to respect and occasionally admire, is a veritable free-speech martyr, and it’s mind-boggling that anyone who works on the show and makes his living pushing the bounds of “good taste” could support a boycott that’s trying to repress a legitimate artistic endeavor, no matter how offensive he might find it. Norris, apparently, has learned little about the concept of free expression in the 28 years he’s been with Stern, and it makes me wonder if he’s ever read the Boycott <i>Chapter 27</i> blog, which, last time I looked, seems to have transformed itself into an educational site, burying their hate speech under piles of academic verbiage that nobody’s ever going to read.</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Correction</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">I’d said in response to Norris’s derisive comments about <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books"><i>Nowhere Man</i></a> that the book was a bestseller in four countries and three languages. Actually, it’s <i>five</i> countries; I’d forgotten that we’d killed in Colombia, too. (For the record, Fred, the other countries are the U.S., England, Mexico, and Japan. And though it sold out in Chile as well, there weren’t enough copies in print for it to technically qualify as a bestseller.)</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; font-weight: bold;"><span style="">A Final Word (I Hope) on the Boycott</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">People attempt to repress or censor works of art out of hate, fear, ignorance—and a deep-seated belief that they alone have been divinely anointed to judge the quality and intent of works that, more often than not, they haven’t seen. But these boycotts always fail, because their instigators ignore one of the most fundamental laws of human nature: The best way to get people to look at something is to tell them they can’t look.</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">And Now a Relevant Word from My Wife</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">My wife, Mary Lyn Maiscott, blogs for <i>Vanity Fair</i>. Today she posted the following on their Oscar site, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/blogs/oscars/2007/02/jackie_earle_ha.html">Little Gold Men</a>:</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Jackie Earle Haley’s Monster Performance</span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Quick plea: If you haven’t done so already, go see <i>Little Children</i>. Though I went for the reliable and wonderful Best-Actress-nominated Kate Winslet (who should get a special award for her willingness to forgo any discernible makeup), I was particularly moved by Jackie Earle Haley, nominated for Best Supporting Actor. In contrast to the somewhat cartoonish men (husband, lover) in the life of Winslet’s character, Sarah, Haley portrays neighborhood pedophile Ronnie as a complex, perplexing man, whose conflicting feelings and urges emanate from the large blue eyes in his cavernous face. Some of the best art shows us the humanity of people that society often deems monsters, and, though it</span><span style="">’</span><span style="">s extremely unlikely Haley will win the Oscar—what with Eddie Murphy’s perfect, pumped-up <i>Dreamgirls</i> performance—his portrayal of a tormented sex offender who loves his devoted mother and tries to pursue a “normal” life puts him in the Charlize Theron/Kevin Bacon/Jared Leto line of commendable, risk-taking actors. This film refuses to be predictable and pat in other ways as well; note the diverse reactions to a pedophile in the midst of a family-oriented suburban neighborhood. It also pulls the rug out from under us just as we’re about to—hey, just go see the movie.</span></p>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-39709833214005656002007-02-12T09:27:00.000-05:002007-02-14T11:37:05.386-05:00What Are They Going to Do for an Encore, Burn the Book?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_J6VZ52MNyvy_KvZU5IMoDXUlE5rQ8Iv_ou333jJKyT-SWLnQbrJrAGoeR9WViPnGWAbWe5QT9ovBwqJlh7iq466GPr75DtjOB2XyWVws23NYbKF61lqRUGKeOGLaQ1h9bHwuHg/s1600-h/Catcher+Cover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_J6VZ52MNyvy_KvZU5IMoDXUlE5rQ8Iv_ou333jJKyT-SWLnQbrJrAGoeR9WViPnGWAbWe5QT9ovBwqJlh7iq466GPr75DtjOB2XyWVws23NYbKF61lqRUGKeOGLaQ1h9bHwuHg/s400/Catcher+Cover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5030654594766682834" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Long before Mark David Chapman was autographing copies in his jail cell, </span><i style="font-weight: bold;">The</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><i style="font-weight: bold;">Catcher in the Rye</i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> was a perennial bestseller.</span><br /><br />***<br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br />In my previous posting “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/02/with-enemies-like-this-who-needs.html">With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?</a>” I suggested that to generate publicity for their film <i>Chapter 27</i></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >—starring Jared Leto as Mark Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as Jude, a Lennon groupie—</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Peace Arch Entertainment created and continues to finance Boycottchapter27.org. Such a tactic is hardly farfetched. With the notable exceptions of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson, the Golden Rule of Hollywood is: All publicity is good, no matter what they say. Press coverage means interest, and interest means distribution deals and ticket sales. Any time the government or any group attempts to boycott or censor a work of art (and I use the term “art” in the broadest possible sense), everybody wants to find out for themselves what all the fuss is about. So they run to see it. It never fails. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />The classic example, which I cited a year ago in one of my first postings, “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/astute-readers-aspiring-censors-and.html">Astute Readers, Aspiring Censors, and IMDB: The <i>Chapter 27</i> Page</a>,” is Richard Nixon’s 1972 attack on <i>Deep Throat</i>. The week the Watergate scandal broke, Nixon, in an attempt to distract the country, ordered the FBI to shut down every theatre showing the film, confiscate the prints, and arrest the filmmakers and actors on obscenity charges. The result: a mediocre porn flick, shot in a week for $25,000, became the 11<sup>th</sup>-highest-grossing film of 1973, with earnings of over $600 million, and Linda Lovelace became the world’s first porno “superstar.”<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >I also pointed out that long before Mark David Chapman was autographing copies of <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> in his prison cell, the book was a perennial best-seller, thanks in part to the high school principals all over America who’d been banning it for 29 years.<br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >And in 1999, of course, there was Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to shut down the “Sensation” exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum because one of the paintings, Chris Ofili’s “Holy Virgin Mary,” was partially composed of elephant dung, and the former New York mayor found it offensive. The result: 170,000 people, the most that had come to the museum in a decade, showed up to look at the painting. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />Publicity is not an easy thing to come by. A person’s name (or the name of an organization) does not end up in a high-profile gossip column by accident. In general, if you want to see your name in boldface, you have to pay a well-connected PR firm between $3,000 and $10,000 per month to pull the required strings; some authors have been known to spend their entire advance on a month of PR—with no guarantees. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />That the <i>Chapter 27</i> boycott was the lead item in a gossip column in the <i><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/494069p-416141c.html">New York Daily News</a> </i>just as <i>Chapter 27 </i>was being buried under an avalanche of less-than-kind reviews following its Sundance premiere, and that the story was then flashed around the world, seemed too well timed, and far too sophisticated a result for an organization whose blog, at best, rises to the level of coherent hate speech. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />So I raised the question: Is Boycottchapter27.org an arm of Peace Arch Entertainment? </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >The people behind Boycottchapter27.org were not happy with this, and, predictably, they responded with an invective-and-innuendo-filled <a href="http://www.boycottchapter27.org/2007/02/accusations-by-man-who-stands-to-profit.html">diatribe</a> that questioned everything from my sexual orientation to my research methods. But they didn’t answer the question.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" > </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />So I went to their blog and asked them flat out: Are you now taking, or have you ever taken, money from Peace Arch Entertainment, or any individual or corporate entity affiliated with Peace Arch Entertainment? A simple yes or no will suffice. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />They said no, they weren’t taking money from Peace Arch Entertainment. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />Whether this is true or not I can’t say. Though, for the time being, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are who they say they are and what they seem on the surface to be: a loosely knit coalition of Chapman-hating businessmen and lawyers, apparently based in Pompano Beach, Florida, who have a lot of free time, who have money to burn on PR, who want to destroy Peace Arch Entertainment as punishment for having made <i>Chapter 27</i>, and who routinely respond on their blog and elsewhere with hateful (and often incoherent) rants to any suggestion that their boycott is ill-conceived or counterproductive, or that people, if they’re so inclined, should just go see the movie and make up their own minds about it. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />Since their boycott began a year ago, <i>Chapter 27</i> has: </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /></span><ul><li><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Had its world premiere at Sundance. </span></li></ul><ul><li><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Received excellent reviews in <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2007/01/24/sundance_4/index1.html"><i>Salon</i></a>, <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film/reviews/article_display.jsp?JSESSIONID=F2zmZCl9cLKmNp0vCTvN3s94wY68j7CyQbLXbpmlpQMCsQ1C12nl%21-1180288597&&rid=8718"><i>The Hollywood Reporter</i></a>, and <a href="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20010506,00.html"><i>Entertainment Weekly</i></a><a href="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20010506,00.html"></a>, the <i>EW</i> review a direct response to the “sour buzz” the boycott had helped create. </span></li></ul><ul><li><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Had its European premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. </span></li></ul><ul><li><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Been picked up for theatrical distribution in Europe, Asia, and South America. </span></li></ul><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >And as the controversy continues to fuel the fire, it certainly looks as if, despite the overwhelmingly savage reviews, <i>Chapter 27</i> will reach a mass American audience, even if it’s only in select “art houses” and on DVD—because people are curious and they want to see it. </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />So why then are these presumably successful businessmen and attorneys boycotting the film if their boycott is doing the exact opposite of what they claim to want? Why are they breathing life into a movie that most critics have written off as a vanity project lacking in insight? </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />They could be completely delusional, I suppose. Or they could be a newly formed PR agency, drumming up business with an ugly but effective postmodern publicity stunt. (They did offer to <a href="https://www2.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=26209613&postID=3061664747837384976&isPopup=true">boycott my next book</a> for $5,000.) Or more likely they’re just a couple of ex-frat boys into publicity for publicity’s sake: they enjoy reading about themselves in the tabloids, and that’s all there is to it.</span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-75760229768004711222007-02-06T11:18:00.000-05:002007-02-06T11:42:34.899-05:00With Enemies Like This, Who Needs Friends?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC4e_qRHA46QdAy-TTrNo2fwriwv9OgFZzZa5Shvk2ZPVLlTRBuyB8oAXeRNEYbA2iVthevgT5-ifyiEMNIIQcYdU0u2VmQU11NROEBNjPNZxQj3u0a3mtoteOFftpH_-jvUNG9Q/s1600-h/Imagine+There%27s+No+Audience.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC4e_qRHA46QdAy-TTrNo2fwriwv9OgFZzZa5Shvk2ZPVLlTRBuyB8oAXeRNEYbA2iVthevgT5-ifyiEMNIIQcYdU0u2VmQU11NROEBNjPNZxQj3u0a3mtoteOFftpH_-jvUNG9Q/s400/Imagine+There%27s+No+Audience.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5028456583353299106" border="0" /></a><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >So much has been written about <i>Chapter 27</i> since I posted “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2007/01/critiquing-critics.html">Critiquing the Critics</a>,” I’ve pulled the sampling of reviews that originally appeared at the tail end of that piece (and that I was adding to every day) and I’ve posted them </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >at the end of this piece</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >—for the purpose of putting into perspective some of the events that have been swirling around the film since it premiered at Sundance two weeks ago.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />The first <i>Chapter 27</i> reviews to appear, with the notable exception of </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >the one in </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" > <a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2007/01/24/sundance_4/index1.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Salon</span></a>, were negative in the extreme. Led by Roger Friedman of <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246226,00.html">Fox News</a>, they were the critical equivalent of a stomping and chain whipping administered by the Hell’s Angels. It seemed as if the bad reviews had opened an insurmountable lead. But then, spurred on by high-profile publicity about the <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/494069p-416141c.html"><i>Chapter 27</i> boycott</a>—which created a backlash to the backlash—the film rallied in the second half. Critics writing for such magazines as <i>Entertainment Weekly</i> and <i>The Hollywood Reporter</i> liked it, and put <i>Chapter 27</i> back in the game. </span><br /><br />Of the 12 reviews I’ve discussed so far (including the excerpts and links to the 10 posted below, one of which does acknowledge the overlooked numerology angle), the score is as follows: <ul><li>Thumbs Down: 8<span style=""> </span></li></ul> <ul><li>Thumbs Up: 3</li></ul> <ul><li><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >Thumbs Sideways: 1 </span></li></ul><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >In other words, though the bad reviews still hold a substantial lead, thanks to the <i>Chapter 27</i> boycott, there’s a controversy brewing that’s keeping the film in the news, and that will—if I were to place a bet—lead to theatrical distribution.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />The boycott publicity, in fact, was so well orchestrated that I began to wonder if Peace Arch Entertainment, the film’s producers, were funneling money to Boycottchapter27.org. If so, how much, and is there a reduced rate for independent journalists? Because if their prices aren’t too high, I’d like to hire them to organize a boycott of my next book. To steal a line from <i>Hogan’s Heroes</i>: “With enemies like this, who needs friends?”</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />One thing that both the critics and boycotters seem to be overlooking is that if the filmmakers have proven anything, it’s that they’re determined and probably a little crazy. And even if Jared Leto has to sit in a mailroom stuffing DVDs into envelopes, and Jarrett Schaefer has to type the address labels and seal the flaps with his personal spit, they’re going to find a way get <i>Chapter 27</i> into the hands of its audience.</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" ><br /><br />In any case, here are excerpts and links to 10 <i>Chapter 27</i> reviews:<br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Owen Gleiberman of <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20010506,00.html">Entertainment Weekly</a> </span>says: </span><span style="">“The film may tell you little about Chapman that you didn</span><span style="">’</span><span style="">t already know, but Jared Leto, who gained 65 pounds for the role, disappears inside this angry, mouthbreathing psycho geek with a conviction that had me hanging on his every delusion.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span class="author"><span style="">Duane Byrge</span></span><span style=""> of <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film/reviews/article_display.jsp?JSESSIONID=F2zmZCl9cLKmNp0vCTvN3s94wY68j7CyQbLXbpmlpQMCsQ1C12nl%21-1180288597&&rid=8718"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Hollywood Reporter</span></a> says: </span><span style="">“Jared Leto is mesmeric as the bloated, deranged Chapman. It’s a brilliantly measured performance, evincing the tale of a madman through his own awful rhyme and reason.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Dennis Harvey of <a href="http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932588.html?categoryid=31&cs=1"><span style="font-style: italic;">Variety </span></a>says: “<i>Chapter 27</i> peers into the mind of a real-life, insane killer and finds almost nothing of interest.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Scott Weinberg of <a href="http://www.cinematical.com/2007/01/28/sundance-review-chapter-27/">Cinematical.com</a> says: “I know it has <em>something</em> to do with J.D. Salinger’s <em>The Catcher in the Rye</em>, but any other specifics are lost beneath waves of babble, tedium and pretense.”<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Ty Burr of the <a href="http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2007/01/27/with_deals_done_focus_returns_to_the_films/?page=2"><span style="font-style: italic;">Boston Globe</span> </a>says: </span><span style="">“</span><span style="">Writer-director Jarrett Schaefer never convincingly explains the demons that drove Chapman. The result is an unpleasant act of cinematic rubbernecking that celebrates a deserved nonentity.</span><span style="">”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Kevin Polowy of </span><a href="http://www.cinematical.com/2007/01/24/dakota-special-hounddog-and-chapter-27/"><span style="">Cinematical.com</span></a><span style=""> says: “Most of the ‘action’ takes place as Chapman waits and waits (and waits) for Lennon outside of his famous Dakota Building apartment in Manhattan, with an occasional argument between the voices in the assassin</span><span style="">’</span><span style="">s head to stir things up a bit.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Nick Marshall of <a href="http://www.cyndigreening.com/2007/01/chapter_27_strictly_by_the_boo.html">Cynematik</a> says: </span><span style="">“J. P. Schaeffer played it too safe.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><a href="http://www.comingsoon.net/blog/2007/01/review_chapter_27_1.html">Comingsoon.net</a> </span><span style="">says: “<i>Chapter 27</i> is worth seeing for Leto’s performance and the remarkable transformation that he went through to become Chapman, but the film isn’t that strong otherwise, and its slow, meandering pace tends to be its undoing.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Eric D. Snider, who reports derisive audience laughter during at least one scene, writes on his <a href="http://www.ericdsnider.com/blog/2007/01/24/sundance-diary-day-6-3/">blog</a>: </span><span style="">“There’s no insight, no analysis, nothing. Just Jared Leto talking to himself for 90 minutes.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Jeremy Mathews, writing on <a href="http://www.filmthreat.com/print.php?section=reviews&Id=9564">Filmthreat.com</a>, </span><span style="">says: “<span class="storybody"><i>Chapter 27</i> relies on the concept that following an insane person around for three days will provide you with great insight into his character. But if all the character in question does is make <i>Catcher in the Rye</i> references and speak in an annoying whisper that’s supposed to be sinister, it doesn’t really offer any insight into why he killed John Lennon.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">***</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">While we’re on the subject of reviews, here’s a link to a one about <i>Nowhere Man</i> that was published in the Fall 2006 issue of the <a href="http://www2.oakland.edu/oujournal/files/11_let_me_take_you_down.pdf"><span style="font-style: italic;">Oakland University Journal</span></a>. “Let Me Take You Down in a Cyn Sandwich: The Profoundly Paradoxical Mind of John Lennon,” by Brian Murphy, Emeritus Professor of English, compares <i>Nowhere Man</i> to six other Lennon books: Cynthia Lennon’s <i>A Twist of Lennon</i> and <i>John</i>, Yoko Ono’s <i>Memories of John Lennon</i>, Fred Seaman’s <i>The Last Days of John Lennon</i>, Elizabeth Partridge’s <i>John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth</i>, and Marion Winik’s <i>Above Us Only Sky</i>.</p> <span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" >It’s a very good introduction to the ever-expanding genre of Lennon biographies.</span> <br /><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12;" > </span>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-22872843846330549112007-01-26T14:34:00.000-05:002007-02-06T11:50:10.575-05:00Critiquing the Critics<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_USwSp9WHJLZu5sJ-Os-CqNGXsKMtM_zUjIijLZMlR_VDvAoUHthx_fA65fPuQAV4Ks6Xm7EDFt1wuAROi-s6YunZp2BpD7x-mknYtaqnxJ6Ib0jpEmVnZeJRhw0PUUn7dDPkMA/s1600-h/Ono+Geffin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_USwSp9WHJLZu5sJ-Os-CqNGXsKMtM_zUjIijLZMlR_VDvAoUHthx_fA65fPuQAV4Ks6Xm7EDFt1wuAROi-s6YunZp2BpD7x-mknYtaqnxJ6Ib0jpEmVnZeJRhw0PUUn7dDPkMA/s400/Ono+Geffin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5024425325395108434" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">Yoko Ono and David Geffen (right) emerge from Roosevelt Hospital just before midnight on December 8, 1980, moments after learning that John Lennon had died. From <span style="font-style: italic;">Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon</span>. </span></span><span style="">©</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">AP/Wide World Photos</span></span> <span style=""><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""><span style="font-style: italic;">***</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">I was not among the critics at </span></span><span style=""></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="">Sundance this week who saw the much anticipated premier of <i>Chapter 27</i>, the film about the murder of John Lennon, written and directed by Jarrett Schaefer, and starring Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as Jude, a Lennon groupie. Like most people, I’ll have to wait until it opens in theatres (or goes straight to DVD). Then, I’ll post my review here.</span></span><span style=""><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">In the meantime, like most people, I’ve been reading the reviews and trying to figure out if <i>Chapter 27</i> is an artistic travesty or a minor masterpiece. Keeping in mind that even great critics have their prejudices and agendas, and that no review should be taken at face value, I’m going to examine two diametrically opposing <i>Chapter 27 </i>reviews, and see what, if anything, can be learned.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">The critique that’s been getting the most attention is the superficial hatchet job written by Roger Friedman of Fox News, who’s had it in for the film since he read the script last year and wrote a piece called “<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183177,00.html"><i>Chapter 27</i>: A New<i> Springtime for Hitler</i></a>,” </span><span style="">a reference to the Nazi musical from the Mel Brooks movie and play <i>The Producers</i>, put on for the purpose of defrauding investors by staging the biggest bomb ever seen on Broadway.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Friedman’s awkwardly titled review, “<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,246226,00.html">John Lennon Murder a Bore in New Film</a>,” </span><span style="">predictably describes <i>Chapter 27</i> as “exploitative…dull, unimaginative, repetitive and without any redeeming cinematic qualities,” and points out that “most of the audience struggled to remain awake during the film’s lethargic 90 minutes.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Friedman also says that Schaefer did no research, not even making clear what <i>Chapter 27</i> means. This, of course, is what I’ve been wondering about since I started keeping this blog a year ago. Did Schaefer blatantly rip off the title after reading the section called “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_robertrosen_archive.html">Chapter 27</a>” in my Lennon biography <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books"><i>Nowhere Man</i></a>, and did he then use my research and reporting to fully explain in the movie that Chapter 27 is not only a reference to <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i> ending on Chapter 26, but also to “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">the triple 9</a>,” a number of profound importance to Lennon, who was obsessed with numerology, <i>Cheiro’s Book of Numbers</i>, and particularly number 9 and all its multiples?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Apparently, he didn’t do the latter. Judging by this and other reviews (which also comment on the film’s slow pace), it seems that Schaefer probably did rip off the title, but did so only half-understanding what it meant. (Or perhaps understanding what it meant but seeing no need to fully explain it.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">This is a serious flaw. Even if Chapman himself was unaware of how Chapter 27 numerologically connected him to Lennon, when Schaefer chose <i>Chapter 27</i> as his title, it became his obligation as a storyteller to find a way to make the audience aware of its significance. He could have done it many ways—say, a scene where Jude and Chapman stand in front of the Dakota discussing Lennon and number 9, with the sign for 72<sup>nd</sup> Street (27 reversed) visible in the background. (The Dakota is on the corner of 72<sup>nd</sup> Street and Central Park West.)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Frankly, I’ve never understood why Schaefer didn’t call the film <i>Let Me Take You Down</i>, the perfectly adequate and understandable title of the Chapman biography he drew the plot from, but which fails to show how Chapter 27 plays into the heart of Lennon’s numerology obsession—an omission that inspired the entire Chapman section in <i>Nowhere Man</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Friedman makes one other interesting point in his review: He says that without permission from <strong><span style="font-weight: normal;">J.D. Salinger,</span></strong> the film lifts “wholesale” passages from<b> </b>his novel <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>. He wonders if the litigious Salinger will sue.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">But Friedman’s use of the word <i>wholesale</i> is questionable. I suspect that after much legal wrangling, Schaefer limited his “borrowing” to fragments of not more than 25 consecutive words, which, arguably, stays within the limits of “fair use.” I say <i>arguably</i> because the precise meaning of “fair use” is open to interpretation, and Salinger’s lawyers may, indeed, be frothing at the mouth.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">But does Salinger, who recently turned 88, really want to put his remaining energies into suing the producers, Peace Arch Entertainment, especially when he despises publicity and probably doesn’t need the money?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">I don’t know. But I do know that the people responsible for <i>Chapter 27</i> are very good at getting publicity, and a lawsuit brought against them by J.D. Salinger (or his estate) would keep the movie in the public eye for years to come.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Andrew O’Hehir, who writes for Salon, had a take on <i>Chapter 27</i> so dissimilar to Friedman’s you’d think he’d seen a different movie. In his thoughtful and generally evenhanded review, “<a href="http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2007/01/24/sundance_4/index1.html">Inside the Mind of the Man Who Murdered a Beatle</a>,” </span><span style="">O’Hehir provides the filmmakers with at least two lines they could use as advertising blurbs:<br /></span></p><ul><li><span style="">“Leto’s portrayal of [Chapman] is both merciless and sympathetic.”</span></li><li><span style=""></span><span style="">“Schaefer’s movie creates its own highly compelling world.”</span></li></ul> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Which is to say that O’Hehir liked the movie. In fact, he thinks it serves as an example of what filmmaking is all about, which is fair enough. But curiously, he makes no effort to explain what the title means, nor does he say if the film itself does—indicating that he either thinks the title is irrelevant, or everybody already knows what it means.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="">Unfortunately, he’s wrong on both counts. As I’ve been saying for the past year, the only people who fully understand the meaning of Chapter 27 are those who’ve read this blog or <i>Nowhere Man</i>.</span></p>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1166449720228843522006-12-18T08:17:00.000-05:002006-12-18T17:54:08.630-05:00Annual Report to My Readers: The State of Chapter 27<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6775/2144/1600/612860/Chapter%2027a.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/6775/2144/400/812802/Chapter%2027a.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I just had to look, cause I wrote the book: The opening page of <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books">Nowhere Man</span>’s</a> “Chapter 27,” originally published in 2000.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Now that <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, starring Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman, and Lindsay Lohan as Jude, a Lennon groupie (and Chapman’s girlfriend), is set to make its world premiere at the <a href="https://festival.sundance.org/2007/index.aspx">Sundance Film Festival</a> in January, I’ll take this opportunity to address a question that many readers of this blog have been asking: Why, at this late date, have the film’s producers, Peace Arch Entertainment, not yet acknowledged that the title of their movie was inspired by “Chapter 27” in my John Lennon bio, <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>?<br /><br />Since Peace Arch, a Toronto-based company, has thus far been unwilling to provide an answer, I can only conclude that they’ve picked up through their L.A. office a touch of a parasitic virus that’s reached epidemic proportions in the area. The most common symptom of this “Hollywood Flu”: The infected corporation or individual acts as if it’s their birthright to incorporate into any film project whatever material they want without acknowledging its source, especially if the source is in no position to wage a costly and difficult legal battle—which means just about anybody who doesn’t have the financial resources of, say, Yoko Ono. In the most virulent cases, entire plots, characters, ideas, and screenplays are ripped off wholesale.<br /><br />Perhaps the most notorious known outbreak of Hollywood Flu occurred in 1988, when Paramount studios helped themselves to columnist Art Buchwald’s script idea, and turned it into the Eddie Murphy vehicle <span style="font-style:italic;">Coming to America</span>. So blatant and obvious was this unauthorized “borrowing” that Buchwald was able to sue Paramount, and receive a settlement reported to be over $1 million.<br /><br />Compared to this, Peace Arch expropriating my title barely registers as a minor felony—and one that I couldn’t take legal action against even if I wanted to, as titles can’t be copyrighted. But it’s not the title itself that I feel I should be credited for. My contention has always been that if not for “Chapter 27” in <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>—which remains the only book that explains the numerological significance of 27, and shows how it karmically connects Mark David Chapman to John Ono Lennon—this film would not be called <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>. <br /><br />I believe I should be credited for my extensive research and reporting, which gives the title a spooky meaning and resonance that goes far beyond a 26-year-old madman’s inscrutable reference—uttered moments before a judge sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison—to writing the missing chapter of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span> in Lennon’s blood. <br /><br /><a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_robertrosen_archive.html">“I feel like a bloodied prizefighter in the 27th round,”</a> Chapman told a hushed courtroom, after reading from <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span>, and offering J.D. Salinger’s words as his confession, his final statement to the world.<br /><br />Should media scrutiny of the connection between <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> ever reach the point that Peace Arch or their oddly anonymous screenwriter and director, Jarrett Schaeffer, are forced to respond to any questions about the source of their title, I assume they’ll say that they’ve never heard of <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>. The most charitable interpretation of such a claim, however, is that Schaeffer had failed to do some very basic research about the subject of his movie. And it’s worth noting that since I began keeping this blog a year ago, in response to the first flurry of <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> publicity, the inherent truth of my contention that the film’s title was inspired by <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> remains unchallenged—because it’s self-evident to anybody who’s read the book.<br /><br />Strangely enough, the only thing I’ve had to defend here is my contention that Peace Arch should be allowed to make, and profit, from <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, and that rather than boycott the film (and help the producers make even more money), people who feel the need to publicly express an opinion about it should see it first. <br /><br />I’d also like to answer another question, which I’m sure many of my readers have been wondering about: Who, besides Yoko Ono’s attorneys and people affiliated with <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, is reading this blog?<br /><br />I keep my endlessly entertaining <a href="http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=home">site meter</a> set on “private” because I prefer (for obvious reasons) not to share any information that a corporation might use to put together, or refine, a precision-targeted online marketing campaign. But I will say this much about my readers: Though modest by the success-is-a-million-hits-a-day-standards of the Internet, the number of people who log on here is surprisingly large for a blogger who posts about once a month on a blog dedicated solely to the uncredited connection between a book with a cult following and a movie that hasn’t been released yet. <br /><br />These people comprise the core audience for <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, as well as those who feel most fanatical about boycotting it. They’re the ones who want to know every scrap of information about the movie and the people who made it. They’re the ones who are going to line up to see it (or picket it) at a theatre on the all-important opening weekend, rather than wait for it to be released on DVD. A vast majority of these people—who include a number of professional journalists and writers, and at least one radio talk-show host—are either bloggers themselves, or active, if not compulsive, Internet posters, particularly on sites like MySpace, IMDB, Amazon, Wikipedia, and a variety of bulletin boards. <br /><br />Looking at last 100 visitors on the site meter’s world map feature, I can also report that the eastern half of the United States is saturated with readers at this moment (as it usually is), and that there are a few hits, like distant constellations, scattered in places like Australia, Peru, and England. As for the precise location of my most regular visitors, let me put it this way: Qué pasa, New York? Wassup, Mexico City? Buenos días, London! Cheers, Santiago! Qué tal, Toronto? Good morning, Buenos Aires! Te amamos, Chicago! How’s it going, Madrid? Muchas gracias, Mountain View! Hola, Helsinki! Hello, Ohio! Hasta la vista, Ft. Worth! Abrazos y besos, L.A.—and get well soon! (Can I interest anybody at Peace Arch in buying some precision-targeted advertising space?) <br /><br />It’s also not terribly surprising that the two most popular individual postings on this blog are <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">“John Lennon’s Bible and the Occult Significance of 27”</a> and <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/04/27the-unluckiest-number-in-rock-n-roll.html">“27: The Unluckiest Number in Rock n’ Roll.”</a> More than 30 percent (though I’d have preferred to say 27 percent) of my readers—including virtually every one of the approximately 400 visitors I’ve gotten from India—arrive on one page or the other courtesy of Google searches on numerology, usually having to do with the number 27.<br /><br />I say it’s not surprising because readers have been telling me for years that their favorite chapter in <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> is “The Book of Numbers,” which explains Lennon’s obsession with numerology and Cheiro. Apparently, people all over the world share with Lennon a fascination with the occult in general and numerology in particular, and this, in part, is responsible for keeping <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> in the public eye for seven years. <br /><br />I can only wonder if Peace Arch will harness the energy of this global fascination to market <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>—and if they do, I can only wonder if they will at last acknowledge the source of their very curious title.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Happy holidays and thanks to everybody for reading!Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1163868325409821092006-11-18T11:08:00.000-05:002006-12-09T09:53:43.213-05:00The Karma (and Dogma) of December 8<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/Havana%20Lennon%20a.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/Havana%20Lennon%20a.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>John Lennon statue in El Parque de los Rockeros, Havana, Cuba. © 2006 Victoria Looseleaf<br /><br />***<br /><br />Why is this day, December 8, the 342nd (3+4+2=9) day of the year, different from all other days? Because on this day, strange energies (or <span style="font-style:italic;">karma</span>, as John Lennon would have called it) seep through a small tear in the fabric of the universe, upsetting the established order of human activity. Things happen on December 8 that don’t normally happen; people who veritably ooze powerful and/or twisted vibrations leave, or come into the world. It’s not only the day of the Immaculate Conception—according to Catholic dogma, the Virgin Mary became miraculously pregnant with Jesus Christ, cleansing us all of original sin—but <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/04/27the-unluckiest-number-in-rock-n-roll.html">Jim Morrison</a>, founder of the Doors who died in 1971 at age 27, was born (as were <a href="http://www.greggallman.com/index.php">Greg Allman</a>, now 59, <a href="http://www.anncoulterisbrainless.com/book.html">Ann Coulter</a>, 45, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O'Connor">Sinéad O’Connor</a>, 40).<br /><br />And, of course, 26 years ago, on December 8, 1980, John Lennon was assassinated in the archway of the Dakota by a deranged fan who’s now the subject of two movies, <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/08/killing-of-john-lennon.html">The Killing of John Lennon</a></span>, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in August, and the upcoming <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, whose title was inspired by “Chapter 27” in my Lennon bio <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books">Nowhere Man</a></span>. In that book’s first chapter, “John Lennon’s Diaries,” I give my personal account of that still-reverberating night that changed so many things.<br /><br />In my previous entry I wrote about my friend Louie Free, a radio talk-show host broadcasting on WASN 1500 AM out of Youngstown, Ohio, and on the <a href="http://free.vindy.com/">Internet</a>, Monday-Friday, 7 A.M.-Noon Eastern time. On December 8, 2000, the 20th anniversary of the murder, and a few months after the publication of <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>, I received, courtesy of Free, an especially memorable demonstration of how the transformative power of John’s sprit continues to flow through that tear in the universe—because that day it seemed to be flowing directly, and with unusual force, into Free himself, inspiring him to push the limits, just as Lennon once did.<br /><br />Though I already knew that Free was not your ordinary talk-show host—our first conversation a few months earlier, a scheduled 15-minute chat, had turned into a spontaneous four-hour marathon—I wasn’t prepared for his asking me to read on the air the last chapter of <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>, the one that follows “Chapter 27.”<br /><br />“I’d love to, Louie,” I said from my desk in New York, speaking on the phone, our conversation broadcast live. “But there’s words in there I can’t say on the radio.”<br /><br />“Just read it,” he answered. <br /><br />This is what I read:<br /><br />Dakota: A Fantasy<br /><br />New York City, Wednesday, January 9, 1980, 2:07 P.M.—John Lennon inhaled deeply from his joint of Thai weed, the second of the day, thick enough to be a spliff. Sitting in the “bogus position” on his bed, the quote from <span style="font-style:italic;">The National Enquirer</span> stuck in his brain, rattling about: <span style="font-style:italic;">“If I hadn't made money honestly, I’d have been a criminal. I was just born to be rich.”</span> And his mind reeled backwards through the years. He saw himself in Liverpool, in the Cavern Club, in 1961, leather-clad and sweating, playing to a lunchtime audience, the women shrieking, grabbing at him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">But what if fucking Brian had never walked in? What if it just never bloody happened? Imagine me stuck in Liverpool at 21, going nowhere fast, drinking meself into a fucking stupor every night. I’d be mugging bloody seamen down by the docks for a couple of extra quid. Yeah, right, some fucking genius. I’m lucky I didn’t go mad and fucking kill someone. It could have happened. But it didn’t and instead I’m doing me time in a gilded prison.</span><br /><br />***<br /><br />A few weeks later, Louie told me that one of his listeners had, indeed, informed the Federal Communications Commission that I’d said “fucking” four times on the air, and that the FCC had sent him a letter asking him to respond to the charge. <br /><br />Free’s response: <span style="font-style:italic;">It was necessary for Mr. Rosen to say “fucking” four times in order for him to maintain the artistic integrity of his work.</span><br /><br />That the FCC served any purpose other than keeping America’s airwaves safe for the homogenized “purity” of corporations like Clear Channel was news to me. So, it came as quite a shock that they accepted Free’s audacious explanation at face value and, for reasons that I may never fully understand chose not to impose a crippling fine, or to do anything but let the matter drop, and allow Louie Free to remain a vital voice in the ever-shrinking field of free-form independent radio.<br /><br />This year I’ll be making my traditional December 8 appearance on “<a href="http://free.vindy.com/">Radio Free Ohio</a>” at 10 A.M. Eastern time. Since the final two hours of the show are now broadcast only on the Internet, Louie and I are at liberty to say or do anything we want, without fear of censorship, fines, or government interference of any kind. So please tune in. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Louie Free Show</span> is always a good place to get a blast of instant karma. And on a day like this I’d think we can all use one.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Additional Program Notes</span><br /><br />My December 8 appearance on <span style="font-style:italic;">The Louie Free Show</span> is now archived. To listen to it, click <a href="http://free.vindy.com/archives.php">here</a>, then click on “Part 1” under Dec 8.<br /><br />On Monday, November 20, I made an unscheduled appearance on <span style="font-style:italic;">The Louie Free Show</span> to talk about this blog. Click <a href="http://free.vindy.com/archives.php">here</a>, then click on “Part 1” under Nov 20 to listen to the show. (It’s about three quarters of the way into the show.)<br /><br />On Thursday, November 30, at 3:30 P.M. Eastern time, <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.looseleafreport.com/">The Looseleaf Report</a></span>, an L.A.-based cable TV show, will rerun their interview with me, originally recorded in February 2003. In New York City the show will be broadcast on Time Warner Cable, channel 56, and streamed on the Internet. To watch it online, click <a href="http://www.mnn.org/">here</a>, and then click on TW 56 / RCN 84. (Windows Media Player is required.)<br /><br />***<br /><br />Para mis lectores que hablan español, aquí es el capítulo:<br /><br />El Dakota: Una Fantasía<br /><br />Ciudad de Nueva York, miércoles 9 de enero de 1980, 2:07 p.m. John Lennon inhaló profundamente de su pitillo de mota tailandesa, el segundo del día, lo suficientemente grueso para su un churro. Sentando en la “posición espuria” en su cama, la cita del National Enquirer golpea su cerebro vivamente: <span style="font-style:italic;">“Si yo no hubiera hecho dinero honestamente, hubiera sido un criminal. Yo nací justamente para ser rico.”</span> Y su mente vuela hacia atrás, a través de los años. Se ve en Liverpool, en el Club La Caverna, en 1961, vestido de cuero y sudando, tocando para una audiencia a la hora del almuerzo, el chillido de las mujeres enloquecidas con él.<br /><br />¿Pero qué si el maldito Brian nunca hubiera entrado? ¿Qué si esto nunca hubiera sucedido? Me imagino estancado en Liverpool a los 21, bebiendo como un cosaco en un jodido estupor cada noche. Sería un maldito marinero gruñón, que baja por los muelles por un par de libras extras. Sí, claro, algún genio de mierda. Soy afortunado porque no me volví loco y no maté a alguien. Esto podría haber sucedido. Pero no sucedió, y en lugar de eso estoy pasando mi tiempo en una prisión dorada.<br /><br />English version from <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon</span><br />Quick American Archives, 2002<br />© 2000, 2002 Robert Rosen<br /><br />Versión español desde <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man: Los Últimos Días de John Lennon</span> © 2003, Robert Rosen. <br />© 2003, de la traducción, Rene Portas<br />© 2003, <a href="http://www.editorialmondadori.com/ficha_libro/ficha_libro.asp?Ident=29033">Groupo Editorial Random House Mondadori</a>, S.L. <br />Barcelona, España<br />© 2003, Editorial Grijalbo, S.A. de C.V.<br />México, D.F.Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1160071701329008632006-10-05T12:53:00.000-05:002006-10-05T13:08:21.360-05:00October 9: Time Out for Peace<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/Lennon%20Profile.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/Lennon%20Profile.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Detail from <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.editorialmondadori.com/ficha_libro/ficha_libro.asp?Ident=29033">Nowhere Man</a></span> cover, Random House Mondadori, 2003. John Lennon, May 26, 1967. © Hulton Deutsch Collection/Corbis<br /><br />***<br /><br />I just wanted to remind anybody who’s reading this blog that October 9 is John Lennon’s birthday, and that he would have been 66 had he lived. Last year, on October 9, I was in Mexico City, speaking out for peace as I believe Lennon would have, telling the media that Lennon’s birthday should be recognized as an international day of peace, and that everybody had to do whatever they could to overcome language barriers and distance barriers to communicate with each other and to work together. Because if we didn’t, then something unimaginably cataclysmic was going to happen. <br /><br />Also, using a phrase that should be included in every tourist guide, I told the “men of the press,” <span style="font-style:italic;">en español</span>: <span style="font-style:italic;">George Bush no es Estados Unidos; Estados Unidos no es George Bush.</span> Please click <a href="http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2005/10/09/a08n1esp.php">here</a> if you’d like to read this story in <span style="font-style:italic;">La Jornada</span>—a newspaper that should be commended for recently printing on its front page a blunt truth that no American newspaper I’ve seen has expressed as clearly: “U.S. Legalizes Torture for All Foreign Enemies.”<br /><br />This October 9, as I seem to do every October 9 that I’m in New York, I’ll probably go on the <span style="font-style:italic;">Louie Free Radio Show</span>, broadcasting on WASN 1500 AM out of Youngstown, Ohio, and on the <a href="http://free.vindy.com/">Internet</a>, Monday-Friday, 7 A.M.-Noon Eastern time. “Radio Free Ohio,” as I call the show, is my home away from home. Usually Louie and I talk about Lennon, the Beatles, and <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>, but we also talk about politics, and a couple of weeks after 9/11, he even broadcast my wedding, live from the Municipal Building in downtown Manhattan, a few blocks from Ground Zero. It was, he said, an affirmation of life in the midst of horror and mass death. Though I’ve never met him face to face, I consider Louie Free my friend and my brother. Like John Lennon, he’s a man of peace, a courageous independent voice speaking out in a vast wasteland of talk radio.<br /><br />I urge you all to listen to his show, even when I’m not on it—if only because Louie also plays some very good music.Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1157476347183458572006-09-05T11:44:00.001-05:002006-09-05T12:12:27.210-05:00Letters to Chapter 27<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/QAA%20Cover.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/QAA%20Cover.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />In addition to the comments readers post on this blog, I also receive numerous e-mails, generally of a longer and more complex nature. I always treat them as private correspondences. Recently, however, a reader granted me permission to post the letter that appears below. The writer has obviously put a great deal of thought into <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>—perhaps more than I have—and has come up with a number of compelling, yet highly speculative, ideas about the film. The letter, of course, expresses opinions that are not necessarily my own.<br /><br />In keeping with my policy of free speech for all, I will continue (when given permission) to post reader letters in this fashion, even if I differ with what they have to say. I would even, should the opportunity arise, post a letter from Yoko Ono’s spokesman Elliot Mintz, whom I suspect will disagree with some of the points raised in this critique.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">McLennon Happy Meal</span><br /><br />My name’s David, I’m a Lennon fan and an actor from London. In the 1970’s, a few friends of mine met Mark Chapman in the West End. He was hanging out at stage doors collecting autographs. One actor I know even has a photo Chapman sent him of the two of them together outside the show he’d just performed in. I’ve seen the photo—very unnerving.<br /><br />I’m writing to say that I find your blog fascinating and that I’ve read <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books">Nowhere Man</a></span>, too. The book gives you a real feel for John—an artist who changed so many things in the world, or at least showed us how we could effect change. Thank you for writing it and for seeing it through to publication. It seems to have cost you quite a lot.<br /><br />As for <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, I think the film will be a complete failure, at least for people who want a true examination of Lennon, the murderer, and the murder itself. Since J.D. Salinger has not given permission, there will be no <span style="font-style:italic;">Catcher in the Rye</span> voice-overs, which I think are integral to the plot. And since Yoko Ono has not given permission, there will be no Lennon music, either. <br /><br />The movie seems to be primarily drawing on an incomplete psychological profile of Chapman borrowed from <span style="font-style:italic;">Let Me Take You Down</span>, the book by that Jack Jones chap, who visited him inside Attica. Chapman, as you may have noticed, has a knack for PR, and like an old rock star, he talks about himself in the third person—which Jones dutifully repeats. To get an accurate picture of Chapman’s state of mind, surely you’d have to talk to his wife and his family, which Jones didn’t do.<br /><br />But the worst problem, I think, is using Jude as a link between Chapman and Lennon. She’s just a marketing device to give the film a romantic subplot—a way to use this hot new young thing, Lindsay Lohan, to put some <span style="font-style:italic;">bums</span> in the seats. This is grossly unfair to the real Jude, and quite simply incorrect historically.<br /><br />A better solution would be to build on the truth: Use Paul Goresh as the link. He’s the amateur photographer who took the picture of Lennon signing Chapman’s <span style="font-style:italic;">Double Fantasy</span> album. Both Goresh and Chapman were fans who became stalkers. I realize Goresh, a fat guy from New Jersey, isn’t sexy. But an actor like Philip Seymour Hoffman would be perfect for the role. The result would be a movie with more depth and character analysis that might teach us something about celebrity culture and obsession.<br /><br />I know there’s artistic license, but the filmmakers also have to take some responsibility to at least tell the general facts that are known to be accurate. And if Lohan did meet Ono, and if Ono gave Lohan her blessing to do the film, then I think Yoko’s got final cut on a few sensitive areas that the movie may touch upon—like security.<br /><br />Yoko, apparently, had scheduled a meeting for December 9 to talk about security. Her security chief, Doug MacDougall, had warned her the previous month that because they were now back in the public eye, they were running huge risks. But Ono either ignored his advice, or thought it wasn’t a problem.<br /><br />John himself had said in BBC interviews, conducted on December 5 and 6, two days before the murder, how wonderful it was to walk around the city unmolested. Naively, he didn’t recognize that the situation had changed. Lennon, believing he was “of the people,” saw no point in security. He figured that it wouldn’t make a difference. First they shoot the bodyguards, he said, then they shoot the guy they’re protecting.<br /><br />Most people probably don’t even know about the security situation, and if it’s shown in the movie, Yoko might be subjected to a huge backlash. Maybe the film will show that there was no way to stop Chapman, even with a team of bodyguards. (Personally, I think Chapman couldn’t have been stopped, and I believe Yoko is not to blame.) So, maybe Ono did ask that security issues not be discussed in the movie. Who can blame her?<br /><br />Yet, the question remains: How much say does Ono have in the movie as a whole? As you well know, she’s notorious for shutting down (or attempting to shut down) “unauthorized” projects that have anything to do with John. (I’m sure the <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> producers read in <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> that it took you nearly 20 years to publish the book—they must have shat themselves.) All I’m saying is don’t perpetuate a myth that has little basis in reality. Your book shows John as a human being, with frailties. We respect, understand, and warm to him even more because of those weaknesses, and because he was able to achieve so much with all his insecurities. As the man said, “Gimme some truth.”<br /><br />The problem that the filmmakers are facing is that without full permission on the various rights involved, they can only go the way of conspiracy theories, unsubstantiated rumors, and nonexistent romantic subplots, such as making Jude a major character. All this plays directly into Yoko’s hands, again allowing her to drip-feed us what she wants every few years, so we get only a taste of the man, and then it’s gone again. Sorry, but it’s crap, the way Yoko trots out this repackaged stuff, and the way her spokesman, Elliot Mintz—a man whom Lennon, as you know, had little time for—belches forth the cartoon peace and love and househusband stuff. We end with another McLennon happy meal, processed garbage for the masses.<br /><br />There is enough real evidence available to comprehensively examine this terrible act and the protagonists without making shit up. Writer/director Andrew Piddington has apparently done this in his recently released <span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span>. And, of course, you’ve done it in <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>—which is a great piece of work because it contains a lot of information that isn’t public knowledge. It’s a creative, evocative examination of Lennon, and more importantly, it’s inspired from a direct source. And you managed to do it even though Yoko made it as difficult as possible for you by not returning your journals for 18 years.<br /><br />But people will go to see <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>. I think it’ll be huge—if Yoko likes it. If she doesn’t, then her press machine will say it’s making money off a murdered family man and hero. And it’ll be buried. Let’s hope she doesn’t like it, and people (like you) will continue to dig out the truth and say, “This is the life of the real man.”<br /><br />Cheers,<br />DavidRobert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1156106613411820442006-08-20T15:22:00.000-05:002006-08-20T15:43:33.426-05:0025 Years Ago: Chapman Sentenced to 20 Years to Life<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/a-CARRIED_OFF.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/a-CARRIED_OFF.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>A scene from <span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span>: the ex-Beatle’s body is taken to the morgue moments after he dies from gunshot wounds.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Twenty-five years ago, on August 24, 1981, in a New York City courtroom, Judge Dennis Edwards asked Mark David Chapman if he had anything to say before he was sentenced for the murder of John Lennon. Chapman, who’d pleaded guilty to the crime (thereby avoiding a trial), chose to read a passage from J.D. Salinger’s <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span>, the book that he said inspired him to kill Lennon. <br /><br />“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all,” said Chapman, reading from the book, his faltering voice growing stronger and more confident with each word. “Thousands of little kids and nobody around—nobody big, I mean—except me. And, I’m standing on the edge of some scary cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.”<br /><br />This was Chapman’s message and confession. He was the Catcher in the Rye for his generation; he’d murdered John Lennon to save the little children.<br /><br />Chapman then told the hushed courtroom, “I feel like a bloodied prizefighter in the 27th round.” These were the exact words he’d said to a psychiatrist in Hawaii after his suicide attempt. But nobody knew what he was talking about. They understood neither <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">the significance of 27</a>, the triple 9, nor the significance of Chapter 27, the missing chapter of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span>, Chapman’s chapter written in Lennon’s blood. They were just the meaningless words of a madman, signifying nothing.<br /><br />The judge then sentenced Chapman to 20 years to life in Attica prison, and the murderer was taken away in manacles. He walked fearlessly out of the courtroom, holding his head high, veritably glowing with pride. He’d done what he came to do—become the world’s most famous antihero.<br /><br />This is, in part, how I described the courtroom scene in <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/01/roots-of-chapter-27-including-chapter.html">“Chapter 27”</a> of my John Lennon biography <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/104-8978060-0850359?s=books&v=glance&n=283155">Nowhere Man</a></span>. I don’t know yet how the scene will be depicted in Andrew Piddington’s new film, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span>, which premiered recently at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. (The film is unavailable in the United States at this time.) <br /><br />But an accurate recreation of Chapman’s sentencing will presumably be in the movie—because it was Piddington’s goal to put onscreen an unflinching presentation of the truth, as seen through Chapman’s eyes, as he goes from his dead-end job as a security guard in Hawaii to the aftermath of the murder and his solitary confinement in Attica. All dialogue and voiceovers are based on the assassin’s journals, statements he made to the police and psychiatrists, interviews, depositions, and court transcripts.<br /><br />Judging by <a href="http://www.bffsscotland.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=59">press reports</a> from Edinburgh, Piddington seems to have indeed created an uncompromising work of art and achieved a high degree of cinematic verisimilitude. The film has been described as documentary-like. The writer/director has also said that he wants <span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span> to generate “controversy, adverse criticism and scorn.”<br /><br />He can count on it. With scenes like the one in the picture above, showing the ex-Beatle’s body being taken to the morgue moments after he died from gunshot wounds, Piddington will have more than his share of controversy—primarily because a small but vocal army of <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/astute-readers-aspiring-censors-and.html">self-appointed censors</a> feel that Lennon’s killer is an unfit subject to explore in a film. Any movie about Chapman, they say, will give him the fame he wanted.<br /><br />These censors, of course, have been in an uproar since they learned late last year that <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, starring Jared Leto as Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as a Lennon fan he befriends a few days before the murder, was in production. Well, now the censors don’t have to wait for the release of <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>; the movie they’re dying to boycott is here now. (I can already hear the tap-tap-tap of a thousand hammers pounding nails into picket signs.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span>, which has been in production for three years, and stars Jonas Ball as the murderer, seems to have snuck up on a press that has confined its Chapman biopic coverage to Leto’s gout and diet, Lohan’s asthma attacks and nightclub exploits, and Yoko Ono’s denunciation of <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, which, curiously, she also seems to be collaborating on. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span> appears to be everything <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> isn’t: truly independent, no bullshit, no stars, no interference from Ono, just the real story told as accurately as possible. It even has a straightforward title the producers made up themselves, rather than expropriating one from <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>. <br /><br />Someday, I’d imagine, it’s going to make for one half of an enthusiastically picketed double feature.Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1155747189280903842006-08-16T11:44:00.000-05:002006-08-16T11:53:09.296-05:00The Killing of John Lennon<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/killingofjohnlennon1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/killingofjohnlennon1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Jonas Ball as Mark David Chapman in <span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span>.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span> premiered this week at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Written and directed by Andrew Piddington, and shot over the past three years, in Hawaii, Decatur, Georgia, and New York, the movie is described as a meditation on the relationship between celebrities and their public, as well as a look into the mind of Lennon’s killer. Shot on a $500,000 budget, and starring Jonas Ball as Mark David Chapman, the film takes Chapman from his dead-end job as a security guard in Hawaii to the aftermath of the murder, with the assassin in solitary confinement in Attica prison.<br /><br />“I wanted the film to be controversial,” says Piddington, who has directed two other features, <span style="font-style:italic;">Shuttlecock</span> (1991) and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Fall</span> (1999). “I wanted it hard, realistic, and unflinching in its presentation of the truth.”<br /><br />Unlike <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of John Lennon</span> takes no fictional liberties. According to the director, nothing was made up and there are no invented characters. All of Chapman’s dialogue is based on his journals and statements he made to the police and psychiatrists. All of the voiceovers are based on interviews, depositions, and court transcripts.<br /><br />The murder itself is presented realistically, Piddington says. “We see Lennon being shot. We see blood exploding from his body. We see Lennon’s last gasping breath as he hits the tiled floor. We hear the crunch of his bones as he’s being lifted and carried to the cop car.”<br /><br />In a deliberate nod to <span style="font-style:italic;">Taxi Driver</span>, the final image is Chapman standing naked to the waist, finger pointed to his head like a gun, just like Travis Bickle.<br /><br />No information is available at this time when the film is coming to America.Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1153146417074066062006-07-17T09:13:00.000-05:002006-07-17T09:58:20.956-05:00El Capítulo 27 y Chapter 27<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/Nowhere%20Man%20Portada.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/Nowhere%20Man%20Portada.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Para celebrar ambos, que cumplo 54 años (¡5+4=9!) el ¡27! de julio (2+7=9) y el 30 aniversario del día cuando el gobierno le concedió el permiso de Residencia a John Lennon, he puesto el “El Capítulo 27” de <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400084768/ref=pd_rvi_1/102-7966636-8967342?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155">Nowhere Man: Los Ultimos Días de John Lennon</a></span>. Esta es una forma de decirle gracias a quienes compraron <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> y quienes escribieron sobre el libro, convirtiéndolo en el éxito que es en Latinoamérica y España. Y quiero agradecer especialmente a todas las personas de México y Chile, que me dieron la bienvenida a sus países dispensándome su fina hospitalidad. Gracias, muchas gracias, de todo corazón.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">El Capítulo 27</span><br /><br /><br />El 24 de agosto de 1981 fue un día sofocante—un día parecido a los de Honolulú—; cerca de doscientos miembros de la prensa y un puñado de espectadores esperan a que el famoso asesino sea conducido ante la Corte Suprema del estado de Nueva York, en el centro de Manhattan, y condenado por el delito de asesinato en segundo grado. La sala de la corte está abarrotada, y el nivel de energía es anticipadamente alto, con ese habitual tipo de anticipación previo a un concierto de rock. Todos estiran sus cuellos para ver con claridad a la estrella esposada, cuando entra en la sala con un chaleco antibalas debajo de una camisa azul oscuro. Chapman luce triste y patético, una presa entre las garras de algo que apenas entiende. Aunque no haya ya ninguna necesidad de juicio, hay la necesidad primaria de la humillación pública, un linchamiento verbal ante los medios de todo el mundo. Todos saben por qué Mark David Chapman lo hizo. Lo han sabido por ocho meses. <span style="font-style:italic;">Él lo hizo por la fama.</span><br /><br />Y hay ciertamente mucha fama en los arrebatos de la sala de la corte esa día. Sería injusto sugerir que <span style="font-style:italic;">todos</span> allí—todos los periodistas, testigos oculares, abogados—tienen el mismo objetivo: ser famoso. El juez Dennis Edwards, por ejemplo, parece bastante benigno, un viejo amable, de conducta moderada. En verdad, parece casi aburrido con lo que sucede, y tan soñoliento bajo la pesada humedad de agosto, que dormita por unos instantes en el banco, pero nadie parece advertirlo, u ocuparse de ello. Y el abogado defensor, Johnathan Marks, se conduce con aire de dignidad. Parece estar interesado en que su cliente tenga una audiencia imparcial.<br /><br />Pero parece haber sólo una diferencia entre Chapman y virtualmente todas las demás personas que participan en esta audiencia: el acusado tiene ideas mucho más radicales acerca de cuán lejos está dispuesto a llegar para alcanzar la celebridad. Por un instante grotesco, Chapman, un cobarde perdedor, una cáscara vacía como ser humano, procura dominarse, es una actuación con el coraje de sus monstruosas convicciones. Él ha hecho exactamente lo que quería hacer, se ha transformado a sí mismo en el antihéroe mundial más famoso.<br /><br />Por consiguiente, el aire está caldeado por celos vengativos. La gente está furiosa con Chapman no sólo porque él mató a John Lennon, sino también porque cometió un ataque brutal contra el <span style="font-style:italic;">statu quo</span>, un acto de lucha de clases. John Lennon era un profesional muy exitoso, un miembro de la élite de poder. Y los profesionales más exitosos de la sala de la corte toman eso personalmente. Chapman se ha robado la fama de John Lennon, y ellos no están dispuestos a que la disfrute. Pero el triste hecho es que, de todas formas, la breve fama que ellos puedan alcanzar por esos días dependerá directamente de su relación con el asesino. <span style="font-style:italic;">Yo lo psicoanalicé a él. Yo lo acusé a él. Yo escribí una historia sobre él.</span><br /><br />Los testigos oculares se han preparado bien para su momento ante los reflectores, para esa combinación de lo personal con lo histórico. Los psiquiatras podrían ser tomados por actores que audicionan para una miniserie de TV. Si puede hallarse un defecto en su actuación, es porque son transparentes en su mayoría. Sonríen demasiado. Parecen demasiado felices, demasiado presumidos, como si no les competiera cualquier noción anticuada de justicia, sino su lugar, pensar en contratos para escribir libros.<br /><br />Los psiquiatras de la fiscalía repiten lo que han estado diciendo desde diciembre: Chapman estaba cuerdo, él sabía perfectamente lo que estaba haciendo, <span style="font-style:italic;">y lo hizo por la fama.</span> Los psiquiatras de la defensa, desde luego, hablan de su esquizofrenia, de “la gente pequeña”, de su dolor.<br /><br />Aparentemente, nadie se familiariza con la intrigante declaración de Yoko Ono sobre la reencarnación: “Tu hermano es la persona que tú asesinaste en tu vida pasada”. Por tanto, nadie se ha molestado en preguntar a Chapman: <span style="font-style:italic;">¿Usted espera ser el hermano de John Lennon en su siguiente vida?</span><br /><br />Los fans de Lennon añaden un toque surrealista a los procesos. Muchos de ellos llevan el pelo largo, como John lo usaba en el 68. Llevan lentes con bordes de cable y playeras con la imagen de Lennon. Ellos son más que los reporteros al menos en una relación de dos a uno, y están ansiosos por compartir sus opiniones con “los hombres de la prensa”.<br /><br />“Mark David Chapman—opina un fan—era sólo un cabrón cobarde que lo hizo la fama.”<br /><br />“Ahora él merece morir—añade otro—. Y yo estaría feliz de bajar el enchufe.”<br /><br />Allen Sullivan, el fiscal, describe a Chapman como un hombre que “nunca mostró algún verdadero remordimiento” y está “interesado sólo en sí mismo, en su propio bienestar, en lo que le afecta, lo que le importa en este preciso momento”. Entonces insiste en que Chapman “lo hizo por la fama, por la exaltación personal, para llamar la atención sobre él, para halagar a su propio ego. El acusado estaba dedicado todo el tiempo a hacerse famoso”. Su prueba: Chapman quería que el fotógrafo Paul Goresh, quien previamente había fotografiado a Lennon cuando firmó la copia del <span style="font-style:italic;">Double Fantasy</span> para Chapman, esperara hasta que Lennon regresara de su sesión de grabación, para que pudiera hacer la foto del asesinato.<br /><br />Sullivan lo hace parecer como si el deseo por la fama fuera una cosa vergonzosa, un crimen en sí mismo. Pero sus palabras suenan huecas. Es un feo espectáculo que pasa por alto intencionalmente, el único hecho horrible que flota como una niebla sobre la sala de la corte. Es un hecho que nadie se atreve a mencionar: en Estados Unidos, en 1981, particularmente en una ciudad como Nueva York, la fama es una ventaja crucial, y el anonimato es una condición tóxica que puede conducir a la rabia asesina.<br /><br />Holden Caulfield o John Lennon, en cuanto a eso, se habrían vomitado.<br /><br />Antes de que el juez Dennis Edwards pronuncie la sentencia, a Chapman se le concede la oportunidad de hablar. Pero es poco lo que puede hacer para ayudarse a sí mismo. Chapman ya se ha declarado culpable. La evidencia en su contra es abrumadora. Es literalmente un arma humeante. El veredicto también podría estar predestinado. Él se ha enterrado en algún lugar por el resto de su vida. Alguna vez, la única duda verdadera era si él iba a estar en una prisión o en una institución para criminals dementes. Ahora no hay duda.<br /><br />Visto como un mártir con un chaleco antibalas, se pone de pie y enfrenta al juez. Tiene su “Biblia” con él—su copia muchas veces hojeadas de <span style="font-style:italic;">El guardian entre el centeno</span>—. “Yo he escogido este pasaje como mis últimas palabras”, jura—un juramento que pronto romperá—. Abre el capítulo 22, en el que Holden, tras ser expulsado de la escula por reprobar cuatro materias, dice a su pequeña hermana, Phoebe, lo que quiere hacer con su vida.<br /><br />El asesino empieza a leer. “De todos modos, yo sigo imaginando a todos esos niños pequeños jugando algo en ese gran campo de centeno y eso es todo.” Está nervioso y al principio vacila. Entonces algo le da fluidez y pone empeño, su voz de repente es fuerte y clara, regular e impecable. Él ha ensayado bien, y hace justicia a Salinger.<br /><br />“Miles de niños pequeños y nadie alrededor—nadie grande, quiero decir, excepto yo—. Y estoy parado al borde de un temible precipicio. Lo que tengo que hacer es capturar a todo el que empiece a acercarse al precipicio. Me refiero a que si ellos corren y no miran a donde van, yo tengo que salir de algún lugar y capturarlos. Eso es lo que yo hago todo el día. Yo sólo soy el guardián entre el centeno, y eso es todo.”<br /><br />Éste es su mensaje y confesión. Mark David Chapman es el guardián entre el centeno de su generación; él ha asesinado a John Lennon para salvar a los niños.<br /><br />Entonces Chapman dice a la callada sala de la corte: “Me siento como un peleador sangriento premiado en el round 27”. Ésas son las palabras exactas que había dicho a un psiquiatra en Hawai, tras su intento de suicidio. Pero nadie sabe de qué está hablando. Tampoco entienden el significado del 27, el triple de 9, ni el significado del capítulo 27, el capítulo perdido de <span style="font-style:italic;">El guardián entre el centeno</span>, el capítulo de Chapman escrito con la sangre de Lennon. Son sólo unas palabras insensatas de un loco, que no significan nada.<br /><br />El juez entonces pronuncia la sentencia y Chapman es sacado; con las esposas sale sin miedo de la sala de la corte, llevando la cabeza en alto, realmente brillando de orgullo. Él ha hecho lo que vino a hacer.<br /><br />Instantes después, afuera de la sala de la corte, los medios, con sus bolígrafos, reflectores y cámaras listas, descienden sobre los testigos oculares de la fiscalía y Sullivan, el fiscal. Ellos son el equipo ganador. Están de pie en un nudo apretado y pequeño, arreglados para los reflectores, cada uno sonriendo ampliamente, empujándose el uno al otro hacia atrás, felicitándose interiormente por el trabajo bien hecho. Lo único que se echa de menos es el champagne, que probablemente vendrá más tarde, en una fiesta privada.<br /><br />“¿Se hizo justicia?”, los medios quieren saber.<br /><br />Por supuesto que se hizo justicia. El asesino muy probablemente pasará el resto de su vida en la cárcel.<br /><br />Entonces no les queda nada más que hacer sino irse a casa y verse en las noticias nocturnas, mirarse fotografiados en los periódicos matutinos.<br /><br />Con excepción de Mark David Chapman. Él continuará la gran caída descrita en la oscura profecía del capítulo 24 de <span style="font-style:italic;">El guardian entre el centeno</span>. El Sr. Antolini, un viejo maestro de Holden—otro “pervertido” en realidad—, le dice: “Yo pienso que esta caída que estás conduciendo es una clase especial de caída, horrible. Al hombre que cae no se le permite sentir u oírse a sí mismo cuando toca fondo. Él sólo sigue cayendo y cayendo”.<br /><br />Chapman pronto descubrirá lo que hay en el fondo del abismo “sin fondo”: un confinamiento solitario en Attica, poseído por los demonios.<br /><br />Imagina que no hay posesión.<br /> <br />“Esto me mata.” Eso es lo que Holden Caulfield hubiera dicho, de todos modos.<br /><br />Desde <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man: Los Últimos Días de John Lennon</span> © 2003, Robert Rosen. <br />© 2003, de la traducción, Rene Portas<br />© 2003, <a href="http://www.editorialmondadori.com/ficha_libro/ficha_libro.asp?Ident=29033">Groupo Editorial Random House Mondadori</a>, S.L.<br />Barcelona, España<br />© 2003, Editorial Grijalbo, S.A. de C.V.<br />México, D.F.<br /><br />***<br /><br />The Translation<br /><br />To celebrate both my 54th birthday (5+4=9!) on July 27 (!) and the 30th anniversary of the government granting John Lennon his green card, I’ve posted “El Capítulo 27” from <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400084768/ref=pd_rvi_1/102-7966636-8967342?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155">Nowhere Man: Los Últimos Días de John Lennon</a></span>. This is my way of saying thank you to all the Spanish-speaking people who’ve bought <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>, who’ve written about the book, and who’ve made it such a success in Latin America and Spain. And I especially want to thank all the people in Mexico and Chile who welcomed me to their countries with such graciousness and hospitality. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!<br /><br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Chapter 27</span><br /><br />On the stifling day of August 24, 1981–a Honolulu-like day–about two hundred members of the press and a handful of spectators wait for the famous assassin to be brought before the New York State Supreme Court in downtown Manhattan and sentenced for his crime of second-degree murder. The courtroom is packed, and the energy level is high with anticipation, the kind of anticipation that normally might precede a rock concert. Everybody cranes their necks to get a good look at the manacled star as he is marched into the room wearing a bulletproof vest under a dark blue shirt. He looks sad and pathetic, a pawn in the clutches of something he barely understands. Though there is no longer any need for a trial, there is a primal need for a public shaming, a verbal tarring and feathering before the world media. Everybody knows why Mark David Chapman did it. They’ve known it for eight months. <span style="font-style:italic;">He did it for fame.</span><br /><br />And there’s certainly a lot of fame up for grabs in the courtroom this day. It would be unfair to suggest that <span style="font-style:italic;">everyone</span> there–all the journalists, expert witnesses, lawyers–has the same objective: to be famous. The judge, Dennis Edwards, for example, appears to be utterly benign, a kindly old man, low-key in his demeanor. Indeed, he seems almost bored by what is happening, and so drowsy from the heavy August humidity that he dozes off for a few moments at the bench, but nobody seems to notice, or care. And the defense attorney, Jonathan Marks, carries himself with an air of dignity. He does seem to be concerned that his client be given a fair hearing.<br /><br />But there appears to be only one difference between Chapman and virtually everybody else who is participating in this hearing: The defendant has far more radical ideas about how far he’s willing to go to achieve celebrity. For one grotesque moment, Chapman, a cowardly loser, an empty shell of a human being, managed to manipulate himself into acting with the courage of his monstrous convictions. He has done exactly what he wanted to do; he has transformed himself into the world’s most famous antihero.<br /><br />Consequently, the air is thick with vengeful jealousy. People are furious at Chapman not only because he killed John Lennon, but also because he committed a brutal attack on the status quo, an act of class warfare. John Lennon was a very successful professional, a member of the power elite. And the very successful professionals in this courtroom take it personally. Chapman has stolen John Lennon’s fame, and they’re not about to let him enjoy it. But the sad fact is that whatever fleeting fame they might be able to grasp this day will depend strictly upon their relationship to the killer. <span style="font-style:italic;">I psychoanalyzed him. I prosecuted him. I wrote a story about him.</span><br /><br />The expert witnesses have prepared well for their moment in the spotlight, for this merging of the personal and historical. The psychiatrists could be mistaken for actors auditioning for a TV miniseries. If there is fault to be found in their performances, it’s that most of them are transparent. They smile too much. They look too happy, too smug, as though they aren’t concerned with any antiquated notions of justice, but are thinking instead about book deals. <br /><br />The psychiatrists for the prosecution repeat what they’ve been saying since December: Chapman was sane, he knew exactly what he was doing, and <span style="font-style:italic;">he did it for fame</span>. The defense psychiatrists, of course, talk of his schizophrenia, the “Little People,” his pain. <br /><br />Apparently, nobody on either side is familiar with Yoko Ono’s intriguing statement on reincarnation: “Your brother is the person you murdered in your past life.” So nobody has bothered to ask Chapman, <span style="font-style:italic;">Do you expect to be John Lennon's brother in your next life?</span><br /><br />The Lennon fans add a surreal touch to the proceedings. Many of them are long-haired in that “John ’68” style. They wear wire-rimmed glasses and T-shirts with Lennon’s image on it. They’re outnumbered by reporters by at least two to one, and they’re anxious to share their opinions with “the men of the press.” <br /><br />“Mark David Chapman,” opines one fan, “was just a cowardly fuck who did it for fame.”<br /><br />“Now he deserves to die,” adds another. “And I’d be happy to pull the switch.”<br /><br />Allen Sullivan, the prosecutor, describes Chapman as a man who “has never exhibited any true remorse” and who is “only interested in himself, his own well-being, what affects him, what’s important to him at this particular moment.” He then proceeds to hammer home the point that Chapman “did it for fame, personal aggrandizement, to draw attention to himself, to massage his own ego. The defendant was concerned throughout that he become famous.” His proof: Chapman wanted photographer Paul Goresh, who’d previously photographed Lennon signing Chapman’s copy of <span style="font-style:italic;">Double Fantasy</span>, to wait until Lennon returned from his recording session so he could get a photo of the murder.<br /><br />Sullivan makes it sound as if the desire for fame is a shameful thing, a crime in itself. But his words ring hollow. It’s an ugly show that intentionally overlooks the one hideous fact that hangs like fog in the courtroom. It is the one fact that nobody dares mention: In America in 1981, particularly in a city like New York, fame is a crucial commodity, and anonymity is a toxic condition that can lead to murderous rage.<br /><br />Holden Caulfield, or John Lennon for that matter, would have puked.<br /><br />Before Judge Dennis Edwards passes sentence, Chapman is given the opportunity to speak. But there’s little he can do to help himself. Chapman has already pleaded guilty. The evidence against him is overwhelming. There is literally a smoking gun. The verdict may as well have been preordained. He is getting locked up somewhere for the rest of his life. Once, the only real question was if it was going to be in prison or in an institution for the criminally insane. Now there is no question. <br /> <br />Looking like a martyr in a bulletproof vest, he stands up and faces the judge. He has his “Bible” with him–his well-thumbed copy of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span>. “I’ve chosen this passage as my final spoken words,” he vows–a vow he'll soon break. He opens to Chapter 22, in which Holden, after being thrown out of school for failing four subjects, tells his little sister, Phoebe, what he wants to do with his life.<br /><br />The murderer begins reading. “Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.” He’s nervous and at first he falters. Then something clicks and he hits his stride, his voice suddenly strong and clear, smooth and flawless. He is well rehearsed, and he does Salinger justice.<br /><br />“Thousands of little kids and nobody around–nobody big, I mean–except me. And, I’m standing on the edge of some scary cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff–I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.”<br /> <br />This is his message and confession. Mark David Chapman is the Catcher in the Rye for his generation; he has murdered John Lennon to save the little children. <br /><br />Then Chapman tells the hushed courtroom, “I feel like a bloodied prizefighter in the 27th round.” These are the exact words he said to a psychiatrist in Hawaii after his suicide attempt. But nobody knows what he’s talking about. They understand neither the significance of 27, the triple 9, nor the significance of Chapter 27, the missing chapter of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span>, Chapman’s chapter written in Lennon’s blood. They are just the meaningless words of a madman, signifying nothing. <br /><br />The judge then passes sentence, and Chapman is taken away still wearing manacles. He walks fearlessly out of the courtroom, holding his head high, veritably glowing with pride. He’s done what he came to do.<br /><br />Afterwards, outside the courtroom, the media, with their pens and floodlights and cameras at the ready, descend upon the expert witnesses for the prosecution, and Sullivan, the prosecutor. They are the winning team. They stand in a tight little knot, preening in the floodlights, everybody smiling broadly, patting each other on the back, congratulating themselves on a job well done. The only thing missing is champagne, which will probably come later, at the private party.<br /><br />“Was justice served?” the media demands to know. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Of course justice was served. The killer will most likely spend the rest of his life in jail.</span> <br /><br />Then there is nothing for them to do but go home and watch themselves on the evening news, look at their pictures in the morning newspapers.<br /><br />Except for Mark David Chapman. He will continue the great fall described in the dark prophesy in Chapter 24 of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span>. Mr. Antolini, an old teacher of Holden’s–another “pervert,” actually–tells him, “This fall I think you’re riding for–it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling.”<br /><br />Chapman will soon discover what lies at the bottom of the “bottomless” pit: solitary confinement in Attica, possession by demons.<br /> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Imagine no possession.</span><br /> <br />“That kills me.” <br /><br />That’s what Holden Caulfield would have said, anyway.<br /> <br />From <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon</span><br /><a href="http://quickamerican.com/">Quick American Archives</a>, 2002<br />© 2000, 2002 Robert RosenRobert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1149881165429583972006-06-09T13:49:00.000-05:002006-06-09T14:27:30.980-05:00Why Don’t Those “Chapter 27” People Make a Film About John Lennon Instead of Mark David Chapman?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/LennonNY%20556_edited.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/LennonNY%20556_edited.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>A scene from the disastrous Broadway musical <span style="font-style:italic;">Lennon</span>, a Yoko Ono-authorized project that ran for a few weeks in the summer of 2005. © 2005 Joan Marcus<br /><br />***<br /><br />It’s a good question, one I’ve seen raised in numerous online forums, including <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488988/">IMDB</a>. Since I seriously doubt the filmmakers will answer it before <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> is released next year (if they ever answer it), I’ll attempt to answer it myself. But before I do, I just want to say to <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>’s writer/director J. P. Schaefer: Hey J. P., when you’re ready to talk, let’s do an interview for <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://proceso.com.mx/columna.html?cid=35344&cat=3">Proceso</a></span>, the Mexican <span style="font-style:italic;">Time</span>/<span style="font-style:italic;">Newsweek</span>. In case you haven’t heard, the Mexicans think Mark David Chapman is a fascinating character—a grotesque symbol of the maddening juxtaposition of wealth/poverty/fame/anonymity/sanity/insanity in America. Yes, J. P., I think we could do quite the <span style="font-style:italic;">entrevista</span>.<br /><br />As for the question: I think that <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>’s producers, Peace Arch Films, did want to make a movie about John Lennon; they probably spent a year or two trying to figure out how—only to realize that without Yoko Ono’s permission they couldn’t make the kind of “serious” film they wanted to make. <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, I suspect, is what they chose to do instead.<br /><br />Other people, of course, have made unauthorized Lennon films, and some of them are quite good. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Hours and Times</span> (1991), starring Ian Hart as Lennon, is about John’s alleged affair with the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein. <span style="font-style:italic;">Backbeat</span> (1994), again starring Hart as Lennon, is about the Beatles in Hamburg in the early 1960’s. <span style="font-style:italic;">The Two Of Us</span> (2000), starring Jared Harris as Lennon and Aidan Quinn as Paul McCartney, is about a fictional reunion John and Paul had in New York in the mid-1970’s. But in each case the producers had to overcome seemingly insurmountable legal and creative obstacles: Because Ono controls both the rights to Lennon’s music and the screen rights to the registered trademark known as “John Lennon,” they couldn’t use music written by Lennon (or the Beatles), they couldn’t quote Lennon from published sources, and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Two Of Us</span>, which took place during the Dakota years, couldn’t use Ono or Sean Lennon as characters.<br /><br />And Ono still probably wanted to sue—because the only John Lennon story she wants told is her authorized “official” version. But Ono’s lawyers presumably told her in each case that a lawsuit was a bad idea. Not only would it bring more attention to these films, but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to prove that they were taking money out of her pocket or that a reasonable person might mistake them for authorized products of the Lennon estate, thereby infringing on her Lennon trademark. (Apple Records recently sued Apple Computer in British courts for this kind of trademark infringement…and lost.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, however, is a different kind of movie because the subject matter is so “controversial” and because it’s getting so much high-profile publicity. When Ono’s attorneys found out about it, they probably sent Peace Arch a letter telling them (as if they didn’t know) that Ono controls the screen rights to her own character, to Lennon, and to Sean, and they probably asked to vet both the script and the film—just to make sure that Peace Arch hadn’t infringed upon any trademarks or copyrights.<br /><br />In response, I’d imagine the Peace Arch attorneys told Ono’s lawyers to chill, assuring them that nothing had been infringed, and they’d do their own vetting, thank you very much. (I also suspect that Ono’s attorneys were not at all happy when they saw photos of the <a href="http://beatlenews.blogspot.com/2006/01/question-on-chapter-27.html">pseudo-Double Fantasy album cover</a>, which could be mistaken for the real thing. They probably fired off another warning letter to Peace Arch, and it remains to be seen if the album stays in the picture.)<br /><br />Well, this is all very interesting, people may say. But then they often ask: <span style="font-style:italic;">Why doesn’t Ono just give her approval to a great filmmaker, like Martin Scorsese or Robert Altman, and let him make the Lennon movie everybody wants to see—one with proper music, characters, and dialogue?</span><br /><br />The answer is simple: Independent-minded directors of Scorsese’s or Altman’s stature would never collaborate with somebody who, like Ono, would demand complete control of the film and final approval over everything associated with it. When Ono gives permission for a Lennon project, it’s not to artists and auteurs; it’s to pliant journeymen she can bend to her will—like Don Scardino, for example, the “conceiver”/director/writer of the Broadway musical <span style="font-style:italic;">Lennon</span>, which ran for a few weeks in the summer of 2005 and met with uniformly disastrous reviews before closing.<br /><br />In a lengthy critique of <span style="font-style:italic;">Lennon</span> I wrote for <span style="font-style:italic;">Proceso</span> (available <span style="font-style:italic;">en español</span> as an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B7NY9Q/qid=1149704121/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/002-7427142-4397626?s=books&v=glance&n=551440">e-document</a> on Amazon, or for a few pesos less from <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.proceso.com.mx/hemerotecaint.html?arv=136652&sec=11">Proceso</a></span>), I said that the primary problem with the play was that it never took you into John’s world; you never believed for a second that what you were seeing onstage was an accurate representation of his life; and that Lennon himself never came alive—partly because nine different actors, men and women of various ages and ethnic backgrounds, took turns playing him, with one serving as the “main” narrating Lennon. (Ono has said that no single actor is capable of playing Lennon.)<br /><br />In the article, I also contrasted Scardino’s experience putting together <span style="font-style:italic;">Lennon</span> with my own experience, in 1981, collaborating with Lennon’s former personal assistant, Fred Seaman, on what was supposed to be an authorized Lennon biography based on John’s diaries—a project that 19 years later became the very unauthorized <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://quickamerican.com/">Nowhere Man</a></span>. I think the following excerpts will help explain why Peace Arch chose to make <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> rather than a Lennon biopic:<br /><br />Scardino, [probably best known for directing a few episodes of <span style="font-style:italic;">Law and Order</span> and the <span style="font-style:italic;">Cosby</span> show], has said that he didn’t want <span style="font-style:italic;">Lennon</span> to be a “whitewash” but was uneasy about including any material that portrayed John in a negative light. He’s also said that Ono insisted that he keep a scene where John humiliates her at a party, loudly making love to a girl in the next room. Though the scene does remain, it’s neutered. There’d be no way to know what was going on if “narrating John” didn’t tell you.<br /><br />Which raises a ticklish question: Is everybody who collaborates with Yoko Ono on any Lennon project reduced to being a propagandist? I’m not sure. But I can say this much: Every day [as I struggled to put together the authorized Lennon bio], Seaman and I confronted the same two questions: <span style="font-style:italic;">Is there anything we can write that Ono will approve? Is there any way to please “Mother”?</span> The problem was that every time Seaman spoke to Ono, he divined different answers.<br /><br />“Write something that makes Yoko look like a star in her own right…and write it fast,” he’d tell me Monday. Then Tuesday he’d say, “Don’t use any words at all; it has to be a picture book.”<br /><br />Our discussions left me creatively paralyzed, and I suspect that it was a similar kind of fear and confusion that drove Scardino to rely completely on Lennon’s previously published words, to write virtually no original material, and to reduce John’s last five years to little more than the official myth: “I was taking care of the baby.”<br /><br />At the least, Ono should have insisted that Scardino show Lennon’s dramatic struggle in Bermuda, in the spring and summer of 1980, to write the music for his final album, <span style="font-style:italic;">Double Fantasy</span>—show a creative giant awakening from a five-year slumber to recapture his muse. Instead, for reasons I do not pretend to understand, it was airbrushed out—along with his mistress, May Pang, his son Julian, tarot, magic, astrology, numerology, servants, money, marijuana, and his diary.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Assuming the copyright laws (which Congress, pressured by well-funded Disney lobbyists, recently revised to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain), aren’t changed yet again, John Lennon and his creative output will begin to pass into the public domain in 2055. Until then, all we can do is take what we get and hope for the best. <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> is hardly the last word. There are a lot of independent-minded and fiercely creative people who will not rest until they find innovative and “legal” ways to tell the John Lennon story that they want to tell, that John would have wanted told, and that deserves to be told in our lifetime.Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1147722488901206932006-05-15T14:33:00.000-05:002007-03-26T11:26:16.400-05:00All He Was Saying Was “Give Me a Job!”<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/MDC%20Mug_edited.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/MDC%20Mug_edited.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Mark David Chapman’s mug shot, from December 9, 1980.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Late in the afternoon of December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman confronted John Lennon as the ex-Beatle emerged from the Dakota. But instead of shooting Lennon, he handed him a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Double Fantasy</span>. Yet even more than Lennon’s autograph, Chapman wanted a job. Because he’d read in Lennon’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Playboy</span> interview that sometimes he hired fans off the street.<br /><br />Here’s how I describe the scene in <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-7427142-4397626?s=books&v=glance&n=283155">Nowhere Man</a></span>: <br /><br />In his deranged mind [Chapman] figures that he might like to work in the Dakota, and if John hires him, there’ll be no need to kill him.<br /><br />“Is this what you want?” John asks, scrawling his name and the date on the [album] cover.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Mister Lennon, are there any jobs available in your office?</span> It is a triumph of will [for Chapman] to get the words out.<br /><br />Paul Goresh, an amateur photographer who haunts the Dakota, snaps a picture—24 hours later it will be on the front page of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Daily News</span>.<br /><br />“Send in your resume,” John suggests to Chapman. He then climbs into the limousine, which speeds off towards Columbus Avenue.<br /><br />An excerpt from <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400084768/ref=pd_rvi_1/002-7427142-4397626?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155">Nowhere Man</a></span> (<span style="font-style: italic;">en español</span>) about what it was like to work for John Lennon just ran in <a href="http://www.soho.com.co/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?IdArt=4113"><span style="font-style: italic;">Soho</span></a>, a popular Colombian “lad” magazine (kind of like <span style="font-style: italic;">Maxim</span>). It reminded me of this passage, so I figured I’d post a link to the article. (The original English is, of course, accessible through Amazon’s “Search Inside” feature, though it’s easier to just buy the book.)<br /><br />While I’m at it, two other <span style="font-style: italic;">Nowhere-Man</span>-related items—an interview in <span style="font-style: italic;">Paniko</span> and a news article about <span style="font-style: italic;">Paniko</span> in the Chilean newspaper <span style="font-style: italic;">La Nación</span>—have recently been published. <span style="font-style: italic;">Para los lectores que hablan español, aquí están los enlaces:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.paniko.cl/musica/entrevistas/002drogaslennon.htm">Las drogas de Lennon</a></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.lanacion.cl/prontus_noticias/site/artic/20060416/pags/20060416185656.html">Periodismo adolescente se toma la red</a></span><br /><br />(Anybody else who wants to know what these articles say can do a rough translation with <a href="http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en">Google language tools</a>.)<br /><br />For the record: Because <span style="font-style: italic;">Nowhere Man</span> has received so much attention in Latin America, I’ve made the effort over the past 18 months to learn Spanish. I’m probably reading on a third-or-fourth-grade level now. Fortunately, I have cooperative editors and a very good translator.Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1146068333662721442006-04-26T11:02:00.001-05:002011-07-24T14:24:28.424-05:0027—The Unluckiest Number in Rock ’n’ Roll<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/Jim%20Morrison.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/Jim%20Morrison.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
Born on December 8, the day that would become better known as the anniversary of John Lennon’s murder, Jim Morrison, founder of the Doors, died at age 27—as did Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain.<br />
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***<br />
<br />
Though Cheiro said that <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">27</a> is “a fortunate number” promising “reward…authority, power, and command,” it appears to be an especially unlucky number for rock stars—and not just because Mark Chapman wanted to write Chapter 27, the missing chapter of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span>, in John Lennon’s blood. It’s as if 27, the triple 9, formed a numerological Bermuda Triangle that has swallowed at least five great musicians.<br />
<br />
Here are the birth and death days of rock stars whose lives ended at age 27:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.beatzenith.com/the_rolling_stones/bjones.htm">Brian Jones</a>, founding member of the Rolling Stones<br />
Born: February 28, 1942, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England<br />
Died: July 2, 1969, Hartfield, Sussex, England<br />
Cause of Death: Found dead in his swimming pool. “Death by misadventure,” the coroner’s report said.<br />
Age: 27<br />
<br />
<a href="http://jimihendrix.com/">Jimi Hendrix</a><br />
Born: November 27, 1942, Seattle, Washington<br />
Died: September 18, 1970, London, England<br />
Cause of Death: Apparently drowned in his own vomit after drinking wine and taking 9 sleeping pills.<br />
Age: 27<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.officialjanis.com/">Janis Joplin</a><br />
Born: January 19, 1943, Port Arthur, Texas<br />
Died: October 4, 1970, Hollywood, California<br />
Cause of Death: Overdose of heroin and alcohol.<br />
Age: 27<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thedoors.com/band/jim/">Jim Morrison</a>, founder of The Doors<br />
Born: December 8, 1943, Melbourne, Florida<br />
Died: July 3, 1971, Paris, France<br />
Cause of Death: Heart failure, according to the official report.<br />
Age 27<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.burntout.com/kurt/articles/">Kurt Cobain</a>, founder of Nirvana<br />
Born: February 20, 1967, Aberdeen, Washington<br />
Died: April 5, 1994, Lake Washington, Washington<br />
Cause of Death: Self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head, according to Seattle police.<br />
Age: 27<br />
<br />
If I’m leaving anybody out, please let me know.<br />
<br />
(Thank you Trickyhappyelf on IMDB.)<br />
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***<br />
<br />
Though a number of people have asked me to post more often (and I appreciate the encouragement), I still intend to limit what I say here to my thoughts on <span style="font-style: italic;">Chapter 27</span>, the movie, and its connection to “Chapter 27” in my John Lennon biography<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-6464329-6401627?v=glance&s=books"><span style="font-style: italic;">Nowhere Man</span></a>, which is the inspiration for the movie’s title. In other words, I see this blog as a database, not a place to post my daily stream of consciousness. (If I feel like doing that, I’ll start another blog.)<br />
<br />
In my first entry, “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/01/roots-of-chapter-27-including-chapter.html">The Roots of Chapter 27</a>,” I said that I’d post when I had time to write. That appears to be happening every 3 to 4 weeks, though I always respond as soon as possible to e-mail and to people who post comments. (Please do check out the ongoing and often provocative dialogues in the “Comments” sections of various postings, especially “<a href="http://www.blogger.com/publish-comment.do?blogID=21300246&postID=114098797571722339&r=ok">Astute Readers</a>.”)<br />
<br />
In the spirit of this blog, I will try to post new material around the 9th, 18th, or 27th of each month. But I also want to let everybody know that I’m into keeping this blog for the long haul, and I will continue posting at least until the release of <span style="font-style: italic;">Chapter 27</span> in 2007.</div>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1143297197769971752006-03-25T09:17:00.000-05:002006-03-25T09:36:54.020-05:00The 27 I Missed<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/VF%20Feb%2006%2C%202006.0.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/VF%20Feb%2006%2C%202006.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Lindsay Lohan on the cover of the February ’06 <span style="font-style:italic;">Vanity Fair</span>. In <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, Lohan plays a fan, presumably based on a woman known as “Jude” Stein, whom John Lennon’s assassin, Mark David Chapman, played by Jared Leto, befriends a few days before the murder.<br /><br />***<br /><br />In my previous posting, “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">John Lennon’s Bible and the Occult Significance of 27</a>,” I said, “In <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>, the number 27 doesn’t come up in relation to Lennon until Chapman appears on the scene.” <br /><br />Apparently, I hadn’t read my own book carefully enough. On page 33 of the <a href="http://quickamerican.com/index.htm">Quick American Archives edition</a>, I say, speaking of Lennon’s “green card,” “On July 27 [1976] his application for a visa was approved.” <br /><br />Roberto Ponce, my editor at <span style="font-style:italic;">Proceso</span>, pointed this out in his <a href="http://proceso.com.mx/columna.html?cid=35344&cat=3">column</a> of December 5, 2005. <br /><br />So there you have it. One of the best days in John Lennon’s life, the day the government allowed him to remain in the United States, rather than deport him for a 1968 marijuana conviction, was a number 27—“a fortunate number,” just as Cheiro had said in his <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8121604281/qid=1143296868/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/002-0025128-8542442?s=books&v=glance&n=283155">Book of Numbers</a></span>. <br /><br />(For a full explanation of how the number 27 “karmically” connects Chapman to Lennon, please see my earlier posting, “<a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/01/roots-of-chapter-27-including-chapter.html">The Roots of Chapter 27</a>.”)Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1140987975717223392006-02-26T15:43:00.000-05:002006-02-26T16:06:15.750-05:00Astute Readers, Aspiring Censors, and IMDB: The Chapter 27 Page<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/Leto%20as%20MDC_edited.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/Leto%20as%20MDC_edited.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Jared Leto as Mark David Chapman in <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>.<br /><br /><br />As one astute reader of this blog pointed out, <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932551513/qid=1080274788/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-8225287-6352859?s=books&v=glance&n=283155">Nowhere Man</a></span>, my John Lennon biography, is not the first book to mention “Chapter 27.” That honor, if I may use such a word, belongs to Jack Jones’s Mark David Chapman bio, <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812991702/ref=pd_rhf_p_7/002-8225287-6352859?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155">Let Me Take You Down</a></span>, which I used for my own Chapman research and credited accordingly. But one of the flaws in Jones’s book is that he was unaware of the numerological significance of the number 27—that it’s more than the number that follows 26, the final chapter of <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316769487/qid=1140986676/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/002-8225287-6352859?s=books&v=glance&n=283155">The Catcher in the Rye</a></span>—and he didn’t show how Chapter 27 played into the heart of Lennon’s obsession with numerology, the number 9, and all its multiples. Nor did Jones show how, in a very spooky way, the number 27 karmically tied Chapman to Lennon, and gave the events a more chilling resonance. (For a full explanation of all this, please see my first two postings: <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/01/roots-of-chapter-27-including-chapter.html">“The Roots of Chapter 27”</a> and <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">“John Lennon’s Bible and the Occult Significance of 27.”</a>) That’s why Jones mentions Chapter 27 only once, early on in his book, and never elaborates on it. <br /><br />The Chapman section in <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>, which I call “The Coda,” picks up where the Jones bio leaves off, bringing Chapter 27 to the forefront of the story. It probes the meaning of what Chapman did more than it plumbs the ooze of Chapman’s mind, from Chapman’s lunatic point of view, as the Jones bio does.<br /><br />That’s why the only people who seem to fully understand what Chapter 27 means are those who’ve read <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> or this blog. That’s also why the Mexican newsweekly <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://proceso.com.mx/columna.html?cid=35344&cat=3">Proceso</a></span> has been covering this story in-depth, wasting no time in saying that <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, the movie, comes from “Chapter 27” in <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>. In other words, if the producers of <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> hadn’t read my book, then they’d be calling their film <span style="font-style:italic;">Let Me Take You Down</span>. But they totally get the numerology thing, and they’re placing all their bets on number 27—which is one reason they’re releasing the movie in 2007, probably on September 27. <br /><br />Some people, presumably enraged Beatles fans, are not happy about this. Perhaps believing that <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> will inspire other deranged individuals to assassinate a celebrity so they, too, can spend the rest of their lives rotting in jail, these fans are petitioning for a boycott of the film. Apparently, they don’t think that <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> is getting enough publicity on its own—even with 500 newspapers running stories about Lindsay Lohan’s asthma attacks and Jared Leto’s diet; Yoko Ono herself denouncing the film (except when she’s collaborating on it); and Sean Lennon “dating” Lohan. These fans are also apparently unaware that censorship always backfires. <br /><br />The case of one Richard M. Nixon should serve as a cautionary tale. The week the Watergate scandal broke in 1972, Nixon, in an attempt to distract the country, ordered the FBI to shut down every theatre showing <span style="font-style:italic;">Deep Throat</span>, confiscate the prints, and arrest the filmmakers and actors on obscenity charges. The result: a mediocre porn flick, shot in a week for $25,000, became the 11th-highest-grossing film of 1973, with earnings of over $600 million, and Linda Lovelace became the world’s first porno “superstar.” (And Nixon still had to resign the presidency, in disgrace, to avoid impeachment.)<br /><br />I might also remind any aspiring censors that long before Chapman was autographing copies of <span style="font-style:italic;">The Catcher in the Rye</span> in his prison cell, the book was a perennial best-seller, thanks in part to the high school principals all over America who’d been banning it for 29 years.<br /><br />***<br /><br />To get a sense of all the “bad karma” swirling around this film, I took a look at the <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> page on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488988/">IMDB</a>, the Internet Movie Data Base, which includes a public forum on which I posted a few comments. One of my postings, an attempt to explain the meaning of <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span>, prompted another writer, who calls himself Berberis, to talk about his aversion to the word “hate,” which he said “is bandied about on this board—and others—with a willingness I find both alarming and saddening.” Speaking of Chapman, he then asks if the level of hatred towards people we don’t understand is a recent development, or if it’s just easier to express now.<br /><br />I told him, “Obviously the Internet has made it easy for any maniac who knows how to use a computer to broadcast their hatred worldwide. As for somebody like Chapman: a good way to become a target of virulent hatred is to murder one of the most beloved icons of the 20th century. I, however, think it’s better to make an effort to understand people like Chapman, which is what I did in the final section of <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span>, what Jack Jones did with his Chapman bio—and what I hope the producers of <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> are doing.<br /><br />“The original draft of <span style="font-style:italic;">Nowhere Man</span> ended the afternoon of December 8, 1980, before the murder. I wanted to show people what the world looked like through John Lennon’s eyes, and that vision had nothing to do with Chapman. But my publisher insisted that I make an effort to explain what Chapman did—because he didn’t understand it. Since I’d attended the court proceedings and felt I had something new to say—and since the numerology angle gave the story a deeper resonance—I agreed to write the section called ‘The Coda.’ <br /><br />“I was, of course, horrified and repulsed by the murder. But in writing about Chapman, I came to feel a certain sympathy for him because he was (and probably remains) a deeply disturbed human being—the ultimate Nowhere Man.” <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> should be allowed to stand or fall on its own. If the film’s a disaster, then the media will crucify it, as they did with <span style="font-style:italic;">Lennon</span>, the clueless Broadway musical, which closed after 40-some-odd performances and lost millions of dollars. But if <span style="font-style:italic;">Chapter 27</span> is any good—and I hope it is—then it will bring us to a deeper understanding of an event which, on the surface, seems to make no sense at all. And that would be a rare step in the right direction—one that I might even get a little credit for.Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1140102457287103152006-02-16T09:37:00.005-05:002013-09-27T19:30:23.602-05:00Perfect 9: For Yoko Ono on her 73rd Birthday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/J%26Y.0.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/400/J%26Y.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><b>John Lennon, age 29, and Yoko Ono, age 37, in Denmark. From <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Nowhere-Man-Final-Days-Lennon/dp/0932551513/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335306140&sr=1-1">Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon</a></i>, AP/Worldwide Photos</b><br />
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February 18 is Yoko Ono’s 73rd birthday and to commemorate the occasion I’ve done a numerological workup, based on John Lennon’s bible, <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8187061529/sr=8-1/qid=1140101023/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2961018-8025604?%5Fencoding=UTF8">Cheiro’s Book of Numbers</a></span>, on the “name number” and “birth number” of rock’s foremost widow.<br />
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Yoko<br />
1727<br />
17 = 8<br />
<br />
Ono<br />
757<br />
19 = 10 = 1<br />
8 + 1 = 9<br />
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Or:<br />
Yoko Ono<br />
Lennon<br />
355575<br />
30 = 3<br />
8 + 1 + 3 = 12 = 3<br />
<br />
Born February 18, 1933 <br />
2 + 18 + 1933 = 27 = 9 <br />
or<br />
2 + 9 + 7 = 18 = 9<br />
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I explained in my <a href="http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/2006/02/john-lennons-bible-and-occult.html">previous post</a>, on the occult significance of 27, how I calculated these numbers, and their numerological significance according to Cheiro. But I didn’t explain the numbers 12 and 3, which are also the name numbers of “John Lennon.” <br />
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The number 12, Cheiro says, is the number of “suffering and anxiety of the mind, it is indicated as ‘the sacrifice’ or ‘the victim’ and generally foreshadows one being sacrificed for the plans or intrigues of others.” Threes, on the other hand, love discipline, are “decidedly ambitious, are never satisfied by being in subordinate positions” and “rise to the highest positions in any profession they choose.” Their aim, he adds, is “to have control and authority over others.” (John’s nickname, “Walrus,” is a 3, as well.)<br />
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*** <br />
<br />
On my way to meet a friend (who blogs anonymously) at an <a href="http://www.authorsguild.org/">Authors Guild</a> gathering, I saw Yoko Ono on the street. It was about 6 p.m. on January 25, and I was walking uptown, at a brisk pace, on New York’s 5th Avenue, near 38th Street. She caught my eye from about a half block away—a tiny woman wearing a white leather jacket, a mod white cap, and black pants, walking downtown, at an equally brisk pace, accompanied by a tall, athletic-looking fellow, whom I assumed was a bodyguard. But I still wasn’t sure it was her until we strode past each other and I saw the side of her face, behind her sunglasses. I was amazed: she looked even younger than she did the last time I saw her, in September 2002, the day I testified on her behalf at a <a href="http://www.courttv.com/archive/trials/ono/092602_ctv.html">copyright infringement trial</a>. I’d go so far as to say that she’s the youngest-looking 73-year-old woman I’ve ever seen—and it made me think about what she said in an interview that I’d read a few months ago in what I believe was a British women’s magazine. Death, Ono told the reporter, was avoidable and she didn’t believe in it—or words to that effect. <br />
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I’d like to know if she was talking about a Faustian bargain, <a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060227/vonhoffman">cryogenic freezing</a>, or an impending medical breakthrough. Because there is no other way to explain eternal life, at least in the physical sense.</div>
Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21300246.post-1139409995280747132006-02-08T09:44:00.000-05:002006-02-11T15:36:49.886-05:00Program Note<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/1600/Las%20%3F%3Fltimas%20Noticias%20Oct%2016%2005_edited.0.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6775/2144/200/Las%20%3F%3Fltimas%20Noticias%20Oct%2016%2005_edited.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />For any Spanish-speaking readers: I will be talking with Eli Bravo about <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://quickamerican.com/">Nowhere Man</a></span> and John Lennon on <a href="http://www.unionradio.com.ve/default.htm?__redir=1">Union Radio Venezuela</a> on Friday, February 10, 12:30-1 pm eastern standard time (1:30-2 pm Venezuela time). <br /><br />The broadcast is streamed but you need to register. The show is <span style="font-style:italic;">en español</span>.<br /><br />Photo by Mariola Guerrero, <a href="http://www.lun.com/TiempoLibre/Musica/detalle_noticia.asp?cuerpo=701&seccion=807&subseccion=905&idnoticia=C38640855677037">LUN</a>Robert Rosenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00629961299437423585noreply@blogger.com0