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From: ahdn1964{at}hotmail.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles.moderated,rec.music.beatles
Subject: "Chapter 27" - Glorifying Mark Chapman
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rec.music.beatles:981990

As most of you are aware, there is a new film being done in NYC called
"Chapter 27" which, all of us here, feel it's glorifying Mark Chapman.
Why this is being filmed is beyond anyone's comprehension.  It's
garbage, plain and simple.  

We are asking for a boycott and/or a protest.  I have supplied the
information below for those of you who would like to write to Peace
Arch Motion Pictures in Toronto.  

Here is the news story, FYI:


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183177,00.html#1

'Chapter 27': A New 'Springtime for Hitler'
Monday, January 30, 2006
By Roger Friedman

Lennon Film Script: A New 'Springtime for Hitler'

The script for "Chapter 27" by Jarrett Schaefer - a movie about the
man who murdered John Lennon - reads like "Springtime for Hitler,"
the tasteless, fictitious play that Max Bialystock discovers in Mel
Brooks' "The Producers" and terms "the worst idea in history."

And yet, someone is producing "Chapter 27" to make a profit - not, as
in "The Producers," to defraud investors by making a turkey.

I read the script over the weekend, or at least the version that got
the ball rolling for the production.

The basic story of "Chapter 27" casts Jared Leto as the odious Mark
David Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as a minor character named Jude. It
follows Chapman's activities leading up to the killing, painting him
as a jolly fan who is obsessed with "The Catcher in the Rye."

The Web site for Peace Arch Films describes it as thus: "The story
portrays Chapman's mental collapse, which is played out through his
obsession with J.D. Salinger's classic novel 'The Catcher in the Rye,'
as Chapman's demons win over and persuade him to shoot Lennon on the
steps of Lennon's apartment building, The Dakota."

Lohan's Jude is a friend he makes along the way, evidently based on
real person Jude Stein, who was hanging around the Dakota with her
friend, Jeri Moll.

It's unclear whether Schaefer secured Stein's rights, or renamed the
character in the shooting script. In any event, it's a small,
insignificant role. It's Leto who's in every scene as Chapman.

Production of "Chapter 27" is the most controversial thing happening
on the New York film scene right now. Over the weekend, the company
continued to film and make a huge scene, unabated, in front of the
Dakota apartment house, where Lennon was murdered by Chapman and where
his widow, Yoko Ono, still lives.

I've been critical of Ono in the past about various things, but no one
deserves this kind of torture. Schaefer, who wrote and is directing
"Chapter 27," has really crossed a line of decency and taste here.

If he had to make this movie, it certainly could have been done
elsewhere. Picture that in the version I read, Chapman shakes hands
with 5-year-old Sean Lennon in front of the Dakota.

Ono, contrary to some reports, did not authorize this movie. She and
her attorney, Peter Shukat, have not seen the script.

A publicist working on the film told me recently that my script is
different from the shooting script, and that must be true. But
director-writer Schaefer's intentions are here, and they are pretty
alarming.

In the version of the script I read, Chapman reads long passages from
"Catcher in the Rye" aloud(the movie's title refers to what would be
an extra chapter of the novel - Salinger stopped at 26).

For example, Chapman announces on page 43: "I am [main character]
Holden Caulfield. I am the Catcher in the Rye." He does this while
practicing shooting his gun, studying his reflection in a mirror à la
Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver."

Schaefer's dependence on "Catcher," at least in his original vision,
would seem problematic legally.

When Chapman isn't actually quoting the book in voice-overs, he's
talking like Holden, punctuating his dialogue with Holden's trademark
words "phonies" and "goddamn." Chapman's odyssey in New
York prior to
the shooting melds with Holden's from the novel: He stays at a YMCA,
befriends a prostitute and has a yearning for the ducks in Central
Park.

Calls to Salinger's literary agent/lawyer were never returned, but the
famously reclusive author could not be happy about his copyright
possibly being infringed upon.

If the script has changed, then Schaefer must have done a complete
overhaul, because as this version stood, the script could not exist
without "The Catcher in the Rye."

Eventually, Ono, Lennon and even their 5-year-old son Sean are
recreated in the screenplay, as are Dakota doormen and New York City
policemen.

The part with Sean is gratuitous, but then again the whole script is.
Jude introduces Sean and his nanny to Chapman in this fantasy. We can
only glean from this that a similar scene will be shot in front of the
Dakota.

And of course, the worst scene of all is included: a graphic rendering
of Lennon's assassination in the doorway of the Dakota. It includes an
odd twist on what is considered the conventional story: distraught
doorman Jose Perdomo is recorded in history as telling Chapman right
after the shooting, "Leave! Get out of here!"

When Chapman doesn't respond, Perdomo shouts: "Do you know what you've
done?"

But in Schaeffer's script, Perdomo's quote is different: "Get out of
here. Just go. Before anyone sees you."

Schaefer, it seems, is throwing a bone to the conspiracy theorists who
like to think that Perdomo, a Cuban exile, killed Lennon as part of
some plot.

"Chapter 27" penultimately ends with Chapman in a mental hospital, as
Caulfield ended up in the novel.

But Schaefer has a different final ending attached: He uses two
newsreel clips.

The first is of a Beatles press conference, circa 1964. It switches to
some five years later, again with real footage, but this time of John
and Yoko's Toronto bed-in and a discussion with a reporter of the
lyrics to "The Ballad of John and Yoko."

Lennon, answering a reporter, gets the final word in the script.

And here's an interesting post-script: Since news of "Chapter 27" has
leaked out, Schaefer's name has been excised entirely from the
Internet Movie Data Base. There is no longer any mention of him
anywhere.

His previous bio, which used to be posted there, listed him as a
senior editor at Fade In, a Beverly Hills-based movie magazine. But
when I called the magazine, the person who answered the phone said
that Schaefer had been a freelancer, and was long gone with no
forwarding information.

"He was not an editor," she said.

Schaefer's previous credits include a music video.
***

Peace Arch Motion Pictures, Inc.
12 Merton Street
Suite 407
Toronto, Ontario, 
Canada M4S 222
 
Tel. # 416-487-0377
 
Fax: 416-487-6141
 
Email: Mail{at}peacearch.com

Please, fellow fans, write to them and ask them to stop this filth!

Regards,
sue

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