Jessie Maple

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Jessie Maple
Atlanta, Georgia
Occupation(s)Film director, Cinematographer
Years active1971–1992

Jessie Maple (February 14, 1937 – May 30, 2023)

civil rights of African Americans and women in the film industry.[3] Her 1981 film Will was among the first feature-length dramatic films created by an African American woman.[4]

Early life and education

According to an obituary in The Washington Post, Maple was born on February 14, 1937, in McComb, Mississippi,[b][5] one of eleven siblings (4 brothers and 7 sisters).[6] Maple's father worked as a farmer and died when she was 13; her mother worked as a dietician and schoolteacher.[5] Now in Philadelphia, Maple was a student at the Franklin School of Science and Arts, where she studied medical technology.[5]

In the 1960s and 1970s, Maple was head of a bacteriology and serology laboratory in Philadelphia and New York.[7] She later wrote for the New York Courier. She received film training through Ossie Davis's Third World Cinema, and through the National Education Television Training School, a program run by WNET public television in New York City.[6]

The latter program was established for African Americans to learn behind-the-scenes camera jobs in order to get into the union, but funding for this program was short-lived; as Maple noted, "It was so successful that after one year they shut it down."[8] She began her career in film as an apprentice editor for Shaft's Big Score! and The Super Cops.[9] After being admitted to the Film Editor's Union, Maple studied and passed the examination for the Cinematographer's Union.[6]

Career

Following a prolonged legal struggle in 1973, Maple became the first African American woman admitted to the New York camera operators union.[6][10] She described her lawsuits and struggle in a self-published autobiographical book, How to Become a Union Camerawoman (1976). In a 2020 interview, she said, "After I passed the test and got into the cameraman's union, then they told the studios not to hire me and blacklisted me. I decided, well, I'm going to fight this....I decided, let me get this out the way, I sued them all at once, ABC, CBS, NBC, and I won."[11]

Working for many years as a news camerawoman, Maple recounts she had her best moment when she realized she could "edit the story in the camera and prevent the editor from taking a positive story and making a negative one out of it," particularly in stories with a race element where black people were often left out of the news story. According to Maple, "I would shoot [the story] in a way where they couldn't cut the black person out of [it]. They had to see both sides of what happened and what they had to say."[8]

In 1974, Maple cofounded LJ Films Productions with her husband, Leroy Patton, to produce short documentaries.[12]

In 1981, Maple released the independent feature film

Twice as Nice from a screenplay by poet and actress Saundra Pearl Sharp.[16]
Released in 1989, the film is a tale of twin sisters who play basketball.

The Black Film Center & Archive at Indiana University holds the papers and films of Maple in the Jessie Maple Collection, 1971–1992.[17]

Death

Jessie Maple Patton died in Atlanta on May 30, 2023. She was survived by her husband, her daughter, a grandson, five sisters, two adopted daughters, and several nieces and nephews.[2]

Selected filmography

Features

Documentaries

  • Methadone: Wonder Drug or Evil Spirit (1976)[5]
  • Black Economic Power: Reality or Fantasy (1977)[17]

Books

  • How to Become a Union Camerawoman: Film-Videotape, New York, L. J. Film Productions, 1977[5]
  • Maple, Jessie; Butler, Danielle E. (2019). The Maple Crew: A Memoir. Jessie Maple.
    ISBN 9780578502021
    .

Notes

  1. ^ Some sources cite 1947 as her year of birth and 76 as her age at death[1] but Variety gives Maple's age at death as 86.[2]
  2. ^ According to Ebony magazine, Maple was a native of Louisiana.

References

  1. ^ Bissada, Mason (May 31, 2023). "Jessie Maple, Trailblazing Black Director and Cinematographer, Dies at 76". TheWrap. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  2. ^ a b Franklin, McKinley (May 31, 2023). "Jessie Maple Dead: Trailblazing Director-Cinematographer Was 76". Variety. Retrieved May 31, 2023.
  3. ^ BFC/A (April 12, 2012). "Into The Archive: Exploring the Jessie Maple Collection". Black Film Center/Archive. Indiana University. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  4. ISBN 9781138924956
    . Jessie Maple and Kathleen Collins ... were among the first black women to create long-form narrative dramatic feature films: Maple directed Will (1981) and Collins directed Losing Ground (1982).
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Smith, Harrison (June 2, 2023). "Jessie Maple, who broke barriers in filmmaking, dies at 86". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 3, 2023.
  6. ^ a b c d "A Lady Behind the Lens". Ebony. 31 (4): 44–52. February 1976.
  7. JSTOR 27761653
    .
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-1-78320-506-6
    .
  9. ^ Heyde, Paul (2006). "Black Women Filmmakers Forum: An Alternative Aesthetic and Vision". Black Camera. 21: 15.
  10. ^ "An Evening with Jessie Maple". Tell It Like It Is: Black Independents in New York, 1968–1986. The Film Society of Lincoln Center. February 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  11. ^ NuBlockMuseum (February 6, 2020). "'I invest in myself and I make my films': Jessie Maple on breaking boundaries and filmmaking". Stories from the Block. Retrieved June 19, 2021.
  12. ^ "Will (1981)". New York Women in Film & Television. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  13. ^ Oxendine, Alice (July 30, 2013). "Remembering Jessie Maple And Her Landmark 1981 Feature-Length Film, 'Will'". Shadow and Act: On Cinema of The African Diaspora. Indiewire. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  14. ^ Holden, Stephen (February 15, 2015). "Films by Jessie Maple in Lincoln Center Series (Film: Fighting for Rights and Making Movies)". The New York Times. p. AR4. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  15. ^ Carpenter, Sandy (December 10, 1983). "'Burning An Illusion' Is Cruel Racial Awakening". New York Amsterdam News. 74 (50): 26–27.
  16. ^ "57 Films To Be Saved Through the NFPF's 2015 Preservation Grants". The Film Foundation. June 4, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  17. ^ a b "Jessie Maple Collection, 1971–1992". Archives Online. Indiana University. Retrieved January 20, 2016.

External links

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