The Killing of John Lennon

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[man] There was no emotion

in my blood.

There was no anger.

There was nothing.

It was dead silence in my brain.

Dead, cold quiet.

He looked at me,

he walked past me,

and then I heard my head.

It said,

"Do it, do it, do it, do it",

over and over again.

[gunshot]

[man] The "Catcher in the Rye"

of my generation.

Chapter 27.

[gunshot]

My whole life

has pointed in one direction.

I can see that now.

There's never been

any choice for me.

You never find your identity

by looking for it.

[air horns blare / people cheer]

[Reagan] They say the United States

has had its day in the sun,

that our nation

has passed its zenith.

They expect you

to tell your children

that the American people no longer

have the will to cope with their problems,

that the future will be one

of sacrifice and few opportunities.

My fellow citizens,

I utterly reject that view.

[cheering]

- Hey, man, you're late.

- I thought you weren't in till Monday.

The boss called. Arthur's ill.

The new guy ain't here yet.

You're kidding.

It's almost 11:
30.

I know.

I've been here since seven.

[man on TV] ...will get things

under way there in the music hall.

What's going on over there?

Someone jammed gum in the locks.

- Animals.

- That's what I said.

[woman on TV] ...election day.

Before going to the polls,

voters want to understand the issues.

- Have you called in?

- It's all yours.

Voters will have an opportunity

to see and hear the major-party

candidates for the presidency

state their views

on issues that affect us all.

[man on TV] The candidates will debate

questions on domestic, economic,

foreign-policy

and national-security issues.

The questions are going to be posed

by a panel of distinguished journalists

who are here with me.

- [phone rings]

- [man on TV] They are: Marvin Stone...

[phone continues to ring]

Yes, hello?

Hello?

[man] Bang, bang.

You're dead.

Hello?

[man] 12 hours of work

and I still can't sleep.

The days go on and on,

and they don't end.

My body fights me always.

It won't sleep, it won't eat.

The headaches are getting worse.

Thank you.

Hey. Mark.

- Hey.

- What are you doing?

Well, it's very nice

to see you too, Mark.

- Everything OK over here?

- Oh, yeah, sure. Fine.

This is Makana.

Makana, this is Mark. Mark is an old...

- I'm her son.

- [woman] Oh, you!

Oh, don't listen to him.

I was never much of a mother to him. We

were more like best friends. Weren't we?

Mind you, where we come from,

that can be one and the same.

- Makana's gonna take me surfing.

- [tyres squeal]

[mother] Bye.

[Mark] My mother

was a dreamer, moody,

right out of "The Glass Menagerie".

She was afraid of getting old and said

she'd commit suicide when she turned 50.

She felt romantic

about Charles Boyer,

but remote from my father.

I don't think

I ever hugged my father.

He never told me he loved me

and he never said he was sorry.

My mother always said

he couldn't show these kinds of things,

couldn't show

any kind of emotional love.

One time, he pushed my head

in a plate of spaghetti.

Sometimes I fantasised about

getting a gun and blowing him away.

She said she only married him

to have me.

Normal kids don't grow up

to shoot ex-Beatles.

All my life needed

was a sense of someplace to go.

I don't believe you should devote your life

to morbid self-attention.

I believe that one should

become a person like other people.

I was starting to hate people.

The slightest rebuff or rejection

would send me into a frenzy.

[phone rings]

Bang, bang.

You're dead.

Bang, bang.

You're dead.

I began withdrawing

from the world.

I was losing

everything I cared about.

You know,

things used to be OK.

I just don't know

if I can keep up, OK?

If I can keep up with everything.

Everything. You know?

You, Mom, my job.

I can't come down.

In my head, I can't come down.

I feel like a victim right now, OK? I just

feel like I have no control over my world.

Over our world -

the world I want to give you.

I need you to understand.

Do you understand?

- Yes.

- Understand me. Please!

- We know it's you.

- Yeah?

- If you persist in...

- Oh, come on.

If you persist in harassing us,

you'll be served a restraining order.

What do you think this is?

You get people to buy into this,

then screw their savings and force them

to take a second mortgage.

- This is your last warning.

- God forbids man to destroy his own kind.

- Correct.

- To destroy the sanity of another.

To destroy or enslave another soul.

If you persist, we'll call the police

and then phone the medical authorities.

I'm sure you don't want to

go back to the hospital.

Castle Memorial

Mental Health Clinic.

June 21, 1977.

A science-fiction writer

is not a god.

You're not a religion.

My life was either happiness

or despair.

I had no stable sense

of self-esteem.

I felt I was nothing,

a nobody.

I took refuge in public places.

I loved the library.

I loved the smell of books.

All that learning -

it's the essence

of something orderly.

Miss Blakeslee taught me

the value of books -

Thurber, Ogden Nash.

Once a month, she brought us in

and taught us how to use the library.

I volunteered as an assistant.

Things you like as a child

stay with you for life.

I was searching for

some kind of guidance, a mission,

and, for my sins,

I found one.

I hadn't read it since I was 16.

Now it burned in my hand.

It was like a current

passing through my body

and lighting up

all the cells in my brain.

Here was something

I could identify with,

an unphoney way of life.

And the more I read,

the more I saw myself in its pages.

I was actually becoming its hero,

Holden Caulfield.

I started reading "The Catcher in the Rye".

I couldn't put it down until I got to the end.

And then I read it again.

And I held it between my hands and put it

against my face and I inhaled deeply.

[echoing] I read it again, drinking in

the aroma of that faintly antiseptic smell...

..against my face...

..through my nostrils and my skin.

..drinking in the aroma

of that faintly antiseptic smell...

..through my nostrils and my skin.

A way to live an honest life,

an unphoney a way of life,

a way that I can identify with.

I remember

my mind is dishevelled.

It's ripped and torn. There is a tornado

in my mind, circling around my brain.

Bits and pieces

crashing into the walls.

A debris.

Broken things, cloudy things,

things I can 't see.

[thunder crashes]

- Well?

- [woman] I don't see much point in it.

This is one of the most brilliant

studies of adolescence ever written.

[woman] He sounds a mess to me.

Of course he's a mess.

But he realises he's a mess.

He tries to express what he feels.

He's a human being,

for all his faults.

- I don't like the way he talks.

- I don't like the way you talk, but I listen.

I suppose it's very clever,

the way he writes and all.

Gloria, I gave you the book because

I thought you would identify with him.

With me.

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