Thu October 21, 2021 7:00 PM WATERMELON MAN $8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission) Los Feliz 3 | New Restoration
ABOUT THE FILM Melvin Van Peebles’ only foray into Hollywood filmmaking, WATERMELON MAN is one of the most audacious, radically conceived works to be financed by a major American studio in the 1970s. Comedian Godfrey Cambridge delivers a virtuoso performance (initially in whiteface) as Jeff Gerber, a loudmouthed, bigoted white insurance salesman whose sitcomlike suburban existence is jarringly upended when he wakes up to discover, in a wild spin on Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, that he has become a Black man. What ensues is a ferocious satire of society’s racist double standards that gradually transforms into an empowering portrait of awakening Black consciousness, executed with a mix of acerbic irreverence and deadly serious political commentary by a relentlessly subversive Van Peebles. FORMAT: DCP DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Repertory