Kate Plays Christine (Robert Greene, 2016)

[Cronenfly]

I really don't like to be lectured. Kate Plays Christine, a largely successful meta documentary about the making of a nonexistent Christine Chubbuck film (unlike the one actually coming to theaters next month), ends on such a sour note that I have a difficult time recommending it. It's rare to be scolded about your morality after two hours of a film making a very persuasive case to you about just how much emotion you should feel toward its subject. A tragic figure like Chubbuck deserves your empathy, and the film has you feeling raw and sad and prepared for the frightening and hopeless reality of her carefully crafted epitaph, and then decides to wag its finger in a way that is insulting to the small audience this film is going to have to begin with. Just don't show us anything. No one is making you. Your film could have been so much better if you hadn't, that's for sure.

I'm curious if you or zedz could elaborate on any connection between this film and Antonio Campos' Christine. I believe zedz mentioned a Campos-esque (Campos spoofing?) director character in Greene's film, and up until now that's the only near-direct link I've heard of between the two. I probably will not be able to see this until the UK Dogwoof DVD comes out at the end of October, and I was hoping to know a little more about it before I see the Campos next week at TIFF.

[zedz]

I really don't like to be lectured. Kate Plays Christine, a largely successful meta documentary about the making of a nonexistent Christine Chubbuck film (unlike the one actually coming to theaters next month), ends on such a sour note that I have a difficult time recommending it. It's rare to be scolded about your morality after two hours of a film making a very persuasive case to you about just how much emotion you should feel toward its subject. A tragic figure like Chubbuck deserves your empathy, and the film has you feeling raw and sad and prepared for the frightening and hopeless reality of her carefully crafted epitaph, and then decides to wag its finger in a way that is insulting to the small audience this film is going to have to begin with. Just don't show us anything. No one is making you. Your film could have been so much better if you hadn't, that's for sure.

I'm curious if you or zedz could elaborate on any connection between this film and Antonio Campos' Christine. I believe zedz mentioned a Campos-esque (Campos spoofing?) director character in Greene's film, and up until now that's the only near-direct link I've heard of between the two. I probably will not be able to see this until the UK Dogwoof DVD comes out at the end of October, and I was hoping to know a little more about it before I see the Campos next week at TIFF.

After doing a little image research, there's another possible explanation for the Campos similarity.

Consider:

Antonio Campos:


Rob Green:


This is pure speculation on my part, and I don't think Kate Plays Christine is directly influenced by Campos film (which they wouldn't have seen, obviously), but I wouldn't be surprised if Greene heard that somebody was thinking about making a movie about the incident and thought "hey, that raises all sorts of interesting ethical and representational issues", which in turn evolved into a movie project.

As for mfunk's criticisms, I didn't read the ending of the film in quite the same way (kinda-spoilers follow!), since it's not just a meta- incident but it's also in large part the culmination of the development of the character of Kate, and her frustration builds to this point not just because of the abstract issues surrounding the entire idea of the project, but because of specific narrative elements (e.g. the fact that there isn't enough real-world evidence for her to get a grasp on the 'real' Christine, her growing awareness that the film itself is kinda shitty and her collaborators opportunistic - which I actually think was a bit of a cheat on Green's part, since it's much easier to argue that making a film is a bad idea is it's actually a bad film). Also, at this point Kate - and the film - wants to find its own equivalent to Christine's climactic action. She needs to 'break the frame' and find her own voice in her own way (and the other obvious option - actually shooting herself - is, in this specific context, the very opposite of breaking the frame and finding her own voice). I also think it's naive to assume that everybody who sees this film (or Campos' biopic) is completely aware of the ethical and representational issues involved and is not just there for the money shot. The paradox that this film explores is that it's that event that keeps Christine's memory alive and effectively eradicates her personality. Let's face it, if she'd taken a fistful of pills and died in her sleep the night before, nobody would be making either of these films today.

[mfunk9786]

If I had walked into Kate Plays Christine wanting the "money shot," as it were (and I didn't) - I certainly emerged through 90% of its runtime totally acquainted with the ethical and representational issues involved. So while, as you say, it may be naive to assume no one would be there for that, by the time we roll into the film's central talking-to, it is totally beside the point that anyone in the audience would need it.

[zedz]

I don't entirely disagree with you, and I noted my ambivalence about the film when I first commented on it, but I think it definitely needed some large-ish gesture at the end of the film to set everything else in relief, and it also needed to address that shot directly, as it's the crux of all the issues swirling around. The filmmakers' solution didn't bother me as much as it did you, but they might well have been able to come up with a different way of tackling those issues that would be less blunt (e.g. Kate simply walking off the set and out of the film.)

[mfunk9786]

By that point, the whole idea that it was important that this scene take place was so undermined by the poorly staged and executed "film" scenes that led up to it (Greene might not want to take up non-documentary filmmaking any time soon), and moments like someone muttering to someone else "remember, they're filming -- Kate Plays Christine" that it wasn't like it even mattered to the narrative of the film. If this was Campos' doing at the conclusion of a failed sincere effort to make a narrative film of this subject matter and a parallel documentary, it would be a really impressive document, but as it stands it's merely a pretty good rumination on an actress' process of the practical considerations of fitting herself into a role - everyone seems to be in on this from square one, so why play up this notion that you need to film this final scene? It's an intellectually dishonest move from a doc that fashions itself as being quite intellectual (as the 15 seat auditorium at the IFC Center and opening short on Paul Ryan's questionable economic policies might've foreshadowed).

[zedz]

I feel like I'm not quite getting what you're saying at this point. It's a film about making a film about Christine Chubbock, so of course - within the narrative of the film within the film - they have to film her death scene.

And I guess I see this film as precisely the "parallel documentary" you posit, except that it's a fiction film taking the form of a "parallel documentary". It's an interesting point to consider whether it not being a documentary completely renders it meaningless / pointless, but personally I can't think of a good reason why this should be considered a failure if a hypothetical documentary on the making of Campos' film that ended in exactly the same way would make for "a really impressive document." And I also suspect that these kind of complicated and fraught considerations of the value of the real (or the perceived real - and a lot of this film is documentary, after all) are one of the things Green was trying to access with this film.

[mfunk9786]

This hypothetical documentary we both speak of would be rooted in an actual dissolution of the filming of a feature film, while the way this dissolves is nothing if not carefully scripted/guided toward where it ultimately goes. In other words, this film is only unsuccessful when it decides to try to convince us that Kate Sheil was actually choosing her own adventure. She's great, revelatory at times, but whenever there was an explosion of frustration at the filming of a [farcical] scene or, again, the finale, it was difficult if not impossible for me to play along. If you're going to stage a meta documentary, you can do a better job than Greene did here. So when we find out it's all in the service of a big scold? Eh.

[Cde.]

The ending of Kate Plays Christine was incredibly condescending and hypocritical.

For me, one of the year's worst.

[mfunk9786]

It's also somewhat ghoulish - I've been thinking hard about this (I saw it just before going to Paris on vacation so it was the last thing on my mind for a while) and the fact that people who were actually there/knew Chubbuck/were deeply affected by what happened were asked to weigh in on whether Sheil was "going through with the scene" - a scene that didn't exist for a movie that didn't exist - feels exploitative in a way that an actual film couldn't possibly be.

[Never Cursed]

I really don't like to be lectured. Kate Plays Christine, a largely successful meta documentary about the making of a nonexistent Christine Chubbuck film (unlike the one actually coming to theaters next month), ends on such a sour note that I have a difficult time recommending it. It's rare to be scolded about your morality after two hours of a film making a very persuasive case to you about just how much emotion you should feel toward its subject. A tragic figure like Chubbuck deserves your empathy, and the film has you feeling raw and sad and prepared for the frightening and hopeless reality of her carefully crafted epitaph, and then decides to wag its finger in a way that is insulting to the small audience this film is going to have to begin with. Just don't show us anything. No one is making you. Your film could have been so much better if you hadn't, that's for sure.

If I may ask, how did it end? I can't find a summary or screening anywhere.

[mfunk9786]

SpoilerShow

The moment of Chubbuck's suicide is being filmed. Sheil carefully acts it out, but cannot pull the trigger. She then tries again, can't pull the trigger, faces the camera and calls out viewers for their voyeurism and only being there to want to see violence and not because they have any empathy for Chubbuck, and then says something to the effect of "eh, fuck it" and pulls the trigger. She may get up after that and continue to admonish the audience before the credits begin, I don't remember exactly what happens at the very end because my eyes had rolled out of my head.

[D50]

Is this streaming (ppv) anywhere yet?

[mfunk9786]

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[Cronenfly]

Kate Plays Christine will be getting a UK DVD release from Dogwoof on October 31, which is good news if, like me, the film does not appear to be reaching theatres near you anytime soon. It's a two disc affair that includes (according to Dogwoof's site) over an hour of extras and Greene's previous film Actress to boot. Just under ten pounds from Amazon UK as of this writing.

As for the Campos: he drops his Haneke Jr. shtick here, but doesn't replace it with much else, stylistically or narratively speaking. If anything, it is a shockingly conventional biopic, given the explosiveness of the material. Hall is naturally quite good (once you get past the strange accent/intonation, which I assume is modelled on the real Chubbuck), but I do not expect this to make that much noise when released, and any awards traction seems doubtful to me.

[copen]

The film makes a big deal out of Kate being invited to the home of Christine's coworker who shows her actual footage of Christine conducting an interview. But that footage has been on youtube for at least 4 years, so the filmmakers are really just b.s.'ing the viewer. It's impossible to believe that no one involved in the making of the documentary bothered to check out youtube.
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