I have to say this up front. The people who choose to ignore this movie are as complicit in the cycles of violence that it portrays as the people who met Mark David Chapman in those three days in 1980. It is not that I blame these people. We are all guilty of ostracizing and isolating the people who are not like us, the people who may frighten us, or those who disgust us. I would probably do the same (get this psycho away from me).
My strongest impression of this movie is how the people surrounding Mark David Chapman may have had a chance to avert this depraved action. Wasn't Mark David Chapman begging people to make him stop? This Jude character does make attempts to befriend the killer, and does admirably. Yet eventually she, too, must keep her distance. I do not know how much of this actually happened or is just storytelling. But the movie, if anything, seems authentic to me.
Through further research I found out that Mark David Chapman's girlfriend in Hawaii actually knew that he had gone to New York earlier that year to shoot John Lennon. He returned and said he was cured, then he goes back to New York City. On the phone she tells him that the first step is to let Jesus into his heart. Well played! How about calling the police? Ah, probably wouldn't work. The police would have ignored her.
None of this, though, changes the fact in my mind that Mark David Chapman was a cold-blooded killer. He deserves no sympathy, but that doesn't mean we can't try to understand him. If Yoko Ono is true to what she says and writes, then she has forgiven him. Shouldn't we? Yes, he took our greatest voice. But Lennon was no saint either. I hope I am clearly communicating the sense of contradiction that I am feeling here.
Onto the movie. It is pretty cut and dried. The highlight is Jared Leto. Some people say he is channeling De Niro because of the weight gain. That summary misses the boat completely. The performance is completely different than Raging Bull. De Niro's rage was outside. Leto's rage is hidden and subverted. It is an incredible lesson in restraint that Jared displays here. The understatement of it all may make it seem like he is not really acting, but he is acting his a** off. I think it a hallmark performance.
Conceptually, well it is hard for me to say right now. I have read Catcher in the Rye, but truthfully I have forgotten most of it. Today I will pull it off the bookshelf and read it again. I could see myself either seeing this movie then as a true classic or a pile of rubbish. I can't tell you which it will be. Why don't you try the same?
But do not worry that I will go out and do something after reading the book. I have many people who love me. There are people out there who are alone and afraid, though. Can't someone do something about that?
PPPP.
My strongest impression of this movie is how the people surrounding Mark David Chapman may have had a chance to avert this depraved action. Wasn't Mark David Chapman begging people to make him stop? This Jude character does make attempts to befriend the killer, and does admirably. Yet eventually she, too, must keep her distance. I do not know how much of this actually happened or is just storytelling. But the movie, if anything, seems authentic to me.
Through further research I found out that Mark David Chapman's girlfriend in Hawaii actually knew that he had gone to New York earlier that year to shoot John Lennon. He returned and said he was cured, then he goes back to New York City. On the phone she tells him that the first step is to let Jesus into his heart. Well played! How about calling the police? Ah, probably wouldn't work. The police would have ignored her.
None of this, though, changes the fact in my mind that Mark David Chapman was a cold-blooded killer. He deserves no sympathy, but that doesn't mean we can't try to understand him. If Yoko Ono is true to what she says and writes, then she has forgiven him. Shouldn't we? Yes, he took our greatest voice. But Lennon was no saint either. I hope I am clearly communicating the sense of contradiction that I am feeling here.
Onto the movie. It is pretty cut and dried. The highlight is Jared Leto. Some people say he is channeling De Niro because of the weight gain. That summary misses the boat completely. The performance is completely different than Raging Bull. De Niro's rage was outside. Leto's rage is hidden and subverted. It is an incredible lesson in restraint that Jared displays here. The understatement of it all may make it seem like he is not really acting, but he is acting his a** off. I think it a hallmark performance.
Conceptually, well it is hard for me to say right now. I have read Catcher in the Rye, but truthfully I have forgotten most of it. Today I will pull it off the bookshelf and read it again. I could see myself either seeing this movie then as a true classic or a pile of rubbish. I can't tell you which it will be. Why don't you try the same?
But do not worry that I will go out and do something after reading the book. I have many people who love me. There are people out there who are alone and afraid, though. Can't someone do something about that?
PPPP.