Avalon (1990). Photofest.
(Barry Levinson, US 1990, 128 min., 35mm)
L’Chaim: Celebrating Jewish Life. A Jewish immigrant family settles in the Avalon neighborhood of Baltimore. By the 1940s and 1950s, the tight-knit family is slowly unraveling, as each new generation embraces an American way of life, including moving to the suburbs instead of remaining with the extended family. Television plays a central symbolic role in the family’s assimilation and reveals the fracturing of the family in small yet poignant moments: television replaces mealtime conversation, and two cousins of the younger generation create TV commercials for their burgeoning business using Americanized names. Avalon is the third in a semi-autobiographical tetralogy of “Baltimore films” (along with Diner, 1982; Tin Men, 1987; and Liberty Heights, 1999) by director Barry Levinson, who won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay for Avalon.
Admission is FREE to this screening.
Note earlier start time.