CinemaTyler Movie Club - Kate Plays Christine (2016) (Patreon)

Kate Plays Christine is a documentary by Robert Greene on a news reporter named Christine Chubbuck who committed public suicide on live television in 1974. Chubbuck suffered from severe depression, but her motivation for taking her life on the air was that the news had been moving so far away from journalism and toward sensationalism that a public suicide is almost the next logical step. There was a famous quote around this time that said “if it bleeds, it leads.” Chubbuck’s news stories were often bumped in favor of a murder or accident that provides no opening for discussion and teaches nothing.  

Click here to watch the film: https://mubi.com/showing/kate-plays-christine/watch 

The documentary follows actress Kate Lyn Sheil as she researches Chubbuck’s life in an effort to portray her in the film. Sheil is seen preparing for the role by visiting the locations and people involved in Chubbuck’s life (and death). There are also several dramatizations of these life-events interspersed throughout the film. 

What’s interesting is that there was another film on Christine Chubbuck— a narrative titled Christine— that came out around the same time as Kate Plays Christine. In some ways the existence of this narrative film is needed for Kate Plays Christine to really drive home its point. The film isn’t really on the life of Chubbuck— it is on her death. If she had ended her life at home, neither of these films would have been made and no one would know about her.   

The dramatizations in Kate Plays Christine show just how bizarre it is to attempt a film on this subject at all. It doesn’t show a remarkable life or what one might consider a proper subject for a biopic. Rather, Kate Plays Christine seems to comment on the narrative film Christine without making a single reference to it. If Chubbuck ended her life partly in protest of the sensationalism of bloodshed, how are these films not feeding this mentality? At one point in the film, a former friend and coworker of Chabbuck named Steve Newman brings Sheil a tape of Chubbuck conducting an interview for one of her shows. Newman talks about the idea of this film only existing because of the way Chubbuck ended her life. In a way, he is speaking directly to the audience as if to say, “you are only here because of the sensationalism and bloodshed.”  

One aspect of the Kate Plays Christine is the mystery surrounding the only existing tape of Chubbuck’s suicide. Reportedly only 500 people have seen the tape and the only copy remains under lock and key. The real question is: for what purpose does it still exist if not to be seen? Why not destroy the tape or show it? There is a morbid curiosity surrounding something so awful that you might feel inclined to see both of the films simply to get a sense of what is on the tape. Around the time of the event, a piece was written in the Washington Post describing what is on the tape. It reads: 

Christine Chubbuck flicked her long dark hair away from her face, swallowed, twitched her lips only slightly and reached with her left hand to turn the next page of her script. Looking down on the anchor desk she began to read: ‘In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in’— she looked up from the script, directly into the camera and smiled a tentative smile. Her voice took on a sarcastic tone as she emphasized ‘blood and guts…and in living color.’ She looked back down at her script, her left hand shook almost unnoticeably… A loud crack was heard. A puff of smoke blew out from the gun and her hair flew up around her face as though a sudden gust of wind had caught it. Her face took on a fierce, contorted look, her mouth wrenched downward, her head shook. Then her body fell forward with a resounding thud against the anchor desk and slowly fell out of sight. 

How poignant it is to report on Chubbuck’s death in the precise way her death criticizes. However, if that is what is interesting about this life, then why make a film at all? Why spend time on her life instead of just recreating her death? 

I’m curious to hear your thoughts! Let me know what you thought of Kate Plays Christine in the comments! 

Further reading:  

On YouTube, we can see the death scene from Christine lifted from the movie as a whole: https://youtu.be/Os2PCdre7os 

http://flavorwire.com/592021/christine-and-kate-plays-christine-writers-on-one-of-the-strangest-and-thematically-weighty-cinematic-coincidences-in-recent-memory

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/why-dramatize-an-on-air-suicide

http://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/kate-plays-christine-review-1201690902/

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