This film screened 17th October 2016.

Our monthly programme strand in which a key film is presented in the context of a notional film canon.

October’s Bigger Picture offering chimes with the release of Kate Plays Christine which explores the on-air suicide of news reader Christine Chubbuck, an event that inspired Paddy Chayefsky to write his Oscar-winning script for Network. When news anchor Howard Beale (posthumous Oscar-winner Peter Finch) suffers a public breakdown, the network he works for exploits his fragile mental state to capitalise on his newfound celebrity. Cynical, blackly funny and remarkably prescient in its depiction of the advent of a news media culture predicated on ratings and entertainment rather than actual news, Network remains one of the greatest satires of US cinema. (Notes by David O’ Mahony.)

The screening will be presented by RTÉ Newscaster Bryan Dobson.