Alan Cumming’s Adventures in Moviegoing

Alan Cumming’s Adventures in Moviegoing

14 Episodes

Tony-winning actor, director, activist, and bon vivant Alan Cumming is known for both his chameleonic performances (this is a man, after all, who has played every role in “Macbeth”) and charmingly irreverent wit. In this edition of Adventures in Moviegoing, the stage and screen star sits down with Criterion president Peter Becker to discuss everything from Scottish-cinema rarities to the reasons why he’s decidedly antiauteurist to the films he loves dearly. The selections he’s chosen—including Orson Welles’s trickster metadocumentary F FOR FAKE, Charlie Chaplin’s audacious political satire THE GREAT DICTATOR, and Volker Schlöndorff’s surreal antiwar statement THE TIN DRUM—display the same slyly subversive spirit he brings to his own work.

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Alan Cumming’s Adventures in Moviegoing

14 Episodes

  • Alan Cumming in Conversation
    20:09
    Alan Cumming in Conversation
    Episode 1

    Alan Cumming in Conversation

    Episode 1

    Scottish Renaissance man Alan Cumming discusses the differences between actors and movie stars, the Scottish films he loves, and more.

  • Alan Cumming on THE GREAT DICTATOR
    03:22
    Alan Cumming on THE GREAT DICTATOR
    Episode 2

    Alan Cumming on THE GREAT DICTATOR

    Episode 2

  • The Great Dictator
    2:05:33
    The Great Dictator
    Episode 3

    The Great Dictator

    Episode 3

    Directed by Charles Chaplin • 1940 • United States
    Starring Charles Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Paulette Goddard

    In his controversial masterpiece THE GREAT DICTATOR, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona. Chaplin, in his first pure ...

  • Alan Cumming on BRIEF ENCOUNTER
    03:30
    Alan Cumming on BRIEF ENCOUNTER
    Episode 4

    Alan Cumming on BRIEF ENCOUNTER

    Episode 4

  • Brief Encounter
    1:27:00
    Brief Encounter
    Episode 5

    Brief Encounter

    Episode 5

    Directed by David Lean • 1945 • United Kingdom
    Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard

    After a chance meeting on a train platform, a married doctor (Trevor Howard) and a suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) begin a muted but passionate, and ultimately doomed, love affair. With its evocatively fog-en...

  • Alan Cumming on I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING!
    03:32
    Alan Cumming on I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING!
    Episode 6

    Alan Cumming on I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING!

    Episode 6

  • I Know Where I’m Going!
    1:31:53
    I Know Where I’m Going!
    Episode 7

    I Know Where I’m Going!

    Episode 7

    Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger • 1945 • United Kingdom
    Starring Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey

    In Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s stunningly photographed comedy, romance flourishes in an unlikely place—the bleak and moody Scottish Hebrides. Wendy Hiller stars as a headstr...

  • Alan Cumming on F FOR FAKE
    02:19
    Alan Cumming on F FOR FAKE
    Episode 8

    Alan Cumming on F FOR FAKE

    Episode 8

  • F for Fake
    1:28:43
    F for Fake
    Episode 9

    F for Fake

    Episode 9

    Directed by Orson Welles • 1975 • France, Iran, Germany

    Trickery. Deceit. Magic. In F FOR FAKE, a free-form sort-of documentary by Orson Welles, the legendary filmmaker (and self-described charlatan) gleefully reengages with the central preoccupation of his career: the tenuous lines between illu...

  • Alan Cumming on THE TIN DRUM
    03:06
    Alan Cumming on THE TIN DRUM
    Episode 10

    Alan Cumming on THE TIN DRUM

    Episode 10

  • The Tin Drum
    2:43:30
    The Tin Drum
    Episode 11

    The Tin Drum

    Episode 11

    Directed by Volker Schlöndorff • 1979 • Germany
    Starring David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler

    Oskar is born in Germany in 1924 with an advanced intellect. Repulsed by the hypocrisy of adults and the irresponsibility of society, he refuses to grow older after his third birthday. While the c...

  • Alan Cumming on THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE
    04:11
    Alan Cumming on THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE
    Episode 12

    Alan Cumming on THE LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE

    Episode 12

  • The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
    1:56:45
    The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
    Episode 13

    The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

    Episode 13

    Directed by Jack Clayton • 1987 • United Kingdom

    Maggie Smith plays an older woman who begins to lose her faith in the church as the loneliness of her existence comes to bear.

  • Alan Cumming’s Adventures in Moviegoing Teaser
    01:41
    Alan Cumming’s Adventures in Moviegoing Teaser
    Episode 14

    Alan Cumming’s Adventures in Moviegoing Teaser

    Episode 14

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