Cinema has survived talkies, television and streaming. Its next challenge is Philomena Cunk. A new trailer for Cunk on Cinema sends Diane Morgan’s ill-informed interviewer into the history of the movies.
The BBC and Netflix released trailers on 29 October, ahead of the series’ BBC iPlayer arrival on 12 November. Charlie Brooker’s latest mockumentary follows Cunk from the invention of the camera through the New Wave filmmakers of the 1960s to computer-generated imagery and the future of artificial intelligence.
There are some brave professionals on hand to help. Benedict Cumberbatch and Transformers director Michael Bay are among the contributors, alongside composer Daniel Pemberton, Die Hard screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, cinematographer Seamus McGarvey and film critic Mark Kermode. The series runs to three half-hour episodes.
Al Campbell directs, with Morgan also part of the writing team. Pacesetter Productions makes the series for the BBC, with Netflix distributing outside the UK and Ireland.
Morgan has previously applied Cunk’s deadpan logic to humanity in Cunk on Earth and the meaning of existence in Cunk on Life. Film history now gets its turn. Knowing the answers may not be much protection.
