Rock on Film Part 14: Nowhere Boy

Always a risk, this retelling of the early life of John Lennon does something refreshing: it keeps focus on the central issue of the young Lennon's torn emotional life, being raised by his aunt and only finding out his mother lived locally when in his teens.

Aaron Johnson in the lead plays a young, cocky, charming and hot tempered teenager rather than a nascent rock star. His aunt Mimi runs her lower middle class home strictly but not coldly. Kristen Scott-Thomas presents a woman containing a tide of heartache and disappointment by providing her ward with a clean home that is welcoming if not always warm.

Anne Marie Duff plays Julia, Lennon's mother whom he hasn't seen since a traumatic day of his childhood. She's wild and warm and constant fun offering all the freedom in the world to her newly returned son as long as she doesn't have to take too much responsibility for him. Duff shows the danger in the fun, allowing a teetering instability into every scene she's in. And mention ought to be afforded David Morrisey for playing Julia's second husband, tolerant of the upheaval his young family suffers at the entrance of the intruder to the point of formlessness. His anger is palpable but so is his concern for her sanity. He's not soft, he's just good at walking on eggshells. It's a strong and thankless performance.

Just as the scouse accents are not overdone for these people between the proletariat and bourgeoisie who are attempting to step above mucky commonality, the Beatles content is so understated that when asked for a reminder of the group's name toward the end, John simply answers: "would you care?" No B word there. Similarly, there isn't a single instance of a title of a Beatle song nor any line from one inserted into the dialogue. Showing the gates of Strawberry Field or the Penny Lane street sign are blissfully permissable.

Lennon's epiphany on seeing Elvis on screen is believable, he doesn't explode but you can see he's riveted and calculating at the same time. When he gathers a gang of boys to light up in the loo at school, calling them to be his group, he's not so inspired as starting somewhere. The scene rings with schoolboy excitement and derision and, as with some later moments in the story illustrates something very accurate about bands forming and managing their membership: people are chosen by personality and fit over ability.

I've never been in a band nor ever observed one that recruited someone just because they played well. Come on, you're between 16 and about 25, you're playing some version of rock music; you are not going to get anyone who's too old or nerdy or straight or socially or culturally wrong, regardless of how well they play. There is nothing reprehensible about this, it's the way of the genre and it says less about rock being a musically clueless music but one that can easily be built from little: to this day I'd rather hear Jonathon Richman than Genesis for that very reason. When the significantly younger Paul McCartney plays a word and riff perfect version of 20 Flight Rock it's impressive but he's encouraged more for his pluck. He fits. It's a good scene as it goes against the grain of the rock bio without a breath of spite.

Scenes of the Quarrymen playing on stage are far slicker than they would have been but the point of them is to show Lennon's commitment and showmanship. Depicting the cold and uncomfortable reality of a rock gig at that level runs contrary to purpose of the film. The ones in Backbeat are a lot truer to experience (if heightened for fiction) because it *is* about the young Beatles. This is a film about a teenager fighting his way out of a damagingly confusing situation. One way he finds to do this is through a door he has little trouble opening.

You could say that this didn't have to be about Lennon at all but that it is is important. It has a curious effect of deconstructing the pop god. Soberingly it might remind viewer's of the turbulent mind that pointed a pistol at him in 1980 and squeezed its trigger.

Reccomended.

SHADOWS AUTUMN PART 2 PROGRAM HERE.

Rock on film Part 11: Chapter 27

I finally got around to seeing this after putting it off. First, I put it off because I read a few bad reviews and wanted to clear their memory. Second, I wanted to avoid seeing it on the twentieth anniversary of John Lennon's murder. Couple of reasons for that last one. While I am a big Beatles fan I was a lukewarm fan of their solo work and thought the Double Fantasy album was an unsurprising mediocrity when it was released (I felt embarrassed by the single Starting Over). While I was aggrieved by Lennon's murder I didn't feel as personally crushed as those of the original generation of Beatles devotees. I was more outraged to learn that his murder had been at the hands of a born-again religious psycho. It seemed a disgustingly American way to be killed.

The Americans have done a bang up job of taking personal responsibility for the murder happening on their watch, as it were, and feel the guilt of it for the rest of the world. This is why a film about the murderer's last days before the act is inevitably as obsessive and psychologically claustrophobic as Chapter 27. It's why it has to be so quintessentially American. And it is ... but in a good way.

First good thing: the characterisation of Lennon is slight and blurred. He's not really a player in this, oddly enough, he's just a target. Second good thing: Chapman's mental state is the chief character, centre stage; the husk it inhabits, flabby and malleable, is a vehicle. Third good thing: Chapman's diconnection from the world he inhabits is depicted as being complete and irreparable: he is a perfect devotee.

These things are good in this account because they serve as antidotes to any sentimentality resident in any viewer who might be tempted to wrest the emotional centre of this account away from Chapman and drape it around Lennon's ghost. Chapman is alone in his universe and whether this is by his conscious agency or through psychological forces he is aware of the insurmountable difficulty he faces whenever he is called on to connect with anyone earthly (he considers Lennon to be something other). It's time to talk casting.

Jared Leto, normally so slim that he fronts an emo band outside of his acting gigs, has monstered up to resemble Chapman in a shocking transformation (he also looks a little like a young Stephen King). He speaks and thinks in a paper thin Georgian accent, a kind of straight Truman Capote. He makes brief definite statements that he offers like Christian leaflets. It's a pity Leto was winced at where Charlize Theron was celebrated for this kind of metamorphosis. It's possible he will never do anything as hazardous as this again which is a pity because he is good.

The other significant player in this film is someone who has similarly suffered the wrong kind of public attention; Lindsay Lohan. She's a fellow fan, loitering outside Lennon's palatial apartment building with a friend who doesn't quite share her obsession. Her name's Jude (yes, Chapman gets the line "Hey, Jude" but that's after she has said,"Hey, Mark, don't make it bad.") She's slight and geeky and takes to Chapman's intensity. There's a moment later where, though she is already understanding the danger of his condition she responds to his flattering encouragement as any teenager would. For a second on her face it's as though she has found her strength and purpose AND a soul mate. Then she remembers the words were spoken by someone she is starting to fear and her guard is immediately repaired. It's good stuff.

The reason this review is in the Rock on Film series of this blog and not by itself is that, despite nary a bar of rock music being played in it digetically or not, is that it's real theme, the big hard ice lake it's built on, is fandom. Chapter 27 is not interested in humanising Mark David Chapman (who'd listen?) or eulogising John Lennon (who hasn't?) it's interest is in illuminating the scary human capacity to replace the self with an assumed and unattainably distant identity. Chapman's obsession swings between the Bible and Catcher in the Rye and every time it swings past he gets a glimpse of Lennon: Lennon God, Lennon Sellout, Lennon Genius, Lennon Traitor.

The problem here is not that he scooped his being to make way for the star's like some terrifying Elvis impersonator, it's that he wanted to stay there, nestling beside the famous parasite, warm and feeding as long as they both should live. Obsession is derived from the Latin word for beseiged which is handy to know and remember whenever fandom manifests. The scary thing about Chapman, especially for Americans is that he is the distillate of that subservience, essential and execrable.

The film itself plays like an anaesthetised memory but is highly accessible for all that. The difficulty you might have in sitting through it will not be due to any nostalgic leanings toward John Lennon or any anger at Chapman, though. You might be reminded, however, that the grace of a few moments reason has saved you from the many seductive means of self annihilation offered every day. Be afraid of yourself. Be very afraid of yourself. Then you'll be dandy, I reggon.

Available locally. Watch it with A Hard Day's Night. No joke.

SHADOWS resumes screenings in March