Watermelon Man
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1970 • United States
Starring Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, Howard Caine
Melvin Van Peebles puts a spin on Franz Kafka’s THE METAMORPHOSIS in this provocative racial satire. Bigoted white insurance salesman Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) has it made: he’s got a loving wife, two adorable kids, and a comfortable suburban home. But when Jeff wakes up one morning to discover that he has inexplicably turned into a Black man, he soon finds out what it means to live as an outsider in a racist society.
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Watermelon Man
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1970 • United States
Starring Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, Howard CaineMelvin Van Peebles puts a spin on Franz Kafka’s THE METAMORPHOSIS in this provocative racial satire. Bigoted white insurance salesman Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) has it made: he’s ...
Extras
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Spotlight on New Hollywood
The following introduction by Mark Harris, author of “Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood,” was recorded in 2024
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Melvan Van Peebles on WATERMELON MAN
Director Melvin Van Peebles shares stories about how he made WATERMELON MAN his own way, in this introduction, recorded in 2004.
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Spotlight on WATERMELON MAN with Racquel J. Gates
In the following introduction recorded in 2021, film scholar Racquel J. Gates explores Melvin Van Peebles’s sole foray into Hollywood filmmaking, an audacious satire that dissects America’s racist double standards with acerbic irreverence and radical insight.
