Skip Norman
{{Short description|US African-American filmmaker}}
Wilbert Reuben ("Skip") Norman (December 22, 1933 - March 18, 2015) was a Black American filmmaker, visual anthropologist, and educator.
Biography and career
Skip Norman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1933, and went to high school at Dunbar High School in Washington, DC.{{Cite web |title=Black and White, Unite! Unite! / B / 03 / Rosa Mercedes / Harun Farocki Institut |url=https://www.harun-farocki-institut.org/en/2021/04/30/black-and-white-unite-unite/ |access-date=2023-10-05 |language=en-GB}}
Beginning in 1966, he joined the inaugural class of the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB), from which he graduated in 1969.{{Cite web |title=Skip Norman {{!}} DFFB |url=https://dffb-archiv.de/dffb/skip-norman |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=dffb-archiv.de}} As a student, he closely collaborated with a number of fellow students on films, including those of Harun Farocki.{{Cite book |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvb4bw8v |title=Celluloid Revolt: German Screen Cultures and the Long 1968 |date=2019-04-22 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd |isbn=978-1-78744-483-6 |editor-last=Gerhardt |editor-first=Christina |doi=10.2307/j.ctvb4bw8v.9 |jstor=j.ctvb4bw8v |access-date=27 October 2023 |editor-last2=Abel |editor-first2=Marco}} Three of his films, Strange Fruit, On Africa, and Washington DC November 1970 were broadcast on the WDR “Filmredaktion” (film unit of the West German Broadcasting channel) in 1971 and 1972.{{Cite web |title=Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) / Contexts / 03 / Rosa Mercedes / Harun Farocki Institut |url=https://www.harun-farocki-institut.org/en/2021/11/25/westdeutscher-rundfunk-wdr/ |access-date=2023-11-10 |language=en-GB}}
In 1979, he was the cinematographer for Wilmington 10 — U.S.A. 10,000 directed by Haile Gerima.{{Cite journal |last1=Safford |first1=Tony |last2=Triplett |first2=William |date=1983 |title=Haile Gerima: Radical Departures to a New Black Cinema |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20686943 |journal=Journal of the University Film and Video Association |volume=35 |issue=2 |pages=59–65 |jstor=20686943 |issn=0734-919X}} Haile Gerima described his choice to use Norman as a cinematographer thusly: "I know when I asked him to do the cinematography part of the 'Wilmington Ten,' it was out of his still photography work that I found impressive. That’s how I knew he would be the one to shoot the film."{{Cite web |title=Remembering Skip Norman / B / 03 / Rosa Mercedes / Harun Farocki Institut |url=https://www.harun-farocki-institut.org/en/2021/04/30/remembering-skip-norman/ |access-date=2023-11-10 |language=en-GB}}
Norman later obtained a PhD from The Ohio State University in 1984. From 1996 to 2010, he taught in the Eastern Mediterranean University's Faculty of Communication and Media Studies in Cyprus.{{Cite web |date=2015-03-19 |title=EMU Faculty of Communication and Media Studies Mourns Dr. Skip Norman {{!}} News |url=https://www.emu.edu.tr/en/news/news/emu-faculty-of-communication-and-media-studies-mourns-dr-skip-norman/1206/pid/768 |access-date=2023-10-05 |website=Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Cyprus |language=en}}{{Cite web |date=2015-03-19 |title=DAÜ Skip Norman için yasta |url=https://www.yeniduzen.com/dau-skip-norman-icin-yasta-48993h.htm |access-date=2023-11-06 |website=YENİDÜZEN |language=tr}} He published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Visual Anthropology.{{Cite journal |last=Norman |first=Wilbert Reuben |date=17 May 2010 |title=Photography as a research tool |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08949468.1991.9966560 |journal=Visual Anthropology |language=en |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=193–216 |doi=10.1080/08949468.1991.9966560 |issn=0894-9468|url-access=subscription }}
Norman died in Washington, DC, in 2015.{{Cite web |date=2015-03-19 |title=EMU Faculty of Communication and Media Studies Mourns Dr. Skip Norman {{!}} News |url=https://www.emu.edu.tr/en/news/news/emu-faculty-of-communication-and-media-studies-mourns-dr-skip-norman/1206/pid/768 |access-date=2023-11-13 |website=Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), Cyprus |language=en}}
Films
Recent 2023 retrospectives at the US National Gallery of Art and Open City Documentary Festival in London have highlighted his pioneering body of work of documentary and experimental films that looked at issues such as structural racism, Marxism, and inequality.{{Cite web |title=Skip Norman: Here and Now |url=https://www.nga.gov/calendar/film-programs/skip-norman.html |access-date=2023-10-27 |website=www.nga.gov}} The premiere of the digitization of his On Africa was the subject of a lecture and screening sponsored by Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art in 2021 and again further expanded in 2023, which explored his films through the lens of "Decolonial activism, cinema, visibility."{{Cite web |title=ON AFRICA |url=https://savvy-contemporary.com/en/events/2021/on-africa/ |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=S A V V Y Contemporary |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Lecture and screening: Skip Norman: Decolonial activism, cinema, visibility |url=https://www.arsenal-berlin.de/en/cinema/film-screening/lecture-and-screening-skip-norman-decolonial-activism-cinema-visibility-2628/ |access-date=2023-11-10 |website=Arsenal – Institut für Film und Videokunst e.V. |language=en-GB}} In 2021, his film On Africa was also the subject of a keynote session at the international scholarly conference on documentary film and media Visible Evidence.{{Cite web |title=Visible Evidence 2021 Keynote Address SKIP NORMAN'S "ON AFRICA" |url=https://2021.visibleevidence.org/keynotes/skip-normans-on-africa/}}
His filmography in which he served in different roles includes:{{Cite web |title=Skip Norman: Here and There |url=https://opencitylondon.com/year_round/skip-norman-here-and-there/ |access-date=2023-10-27 |website=Open City Documentary Festival |language=en-US}}
- Situationen (Situations) (1967)
- Brecht die Macht der Manipulateure (Break the Power of the Manipulators, 1967–68){{Cite book |last=Koutsourakis |first=Angelos |date=2018-10-02 |title=Rethinking Brechtian Film Theory and Cinema |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781474418911 |doi=10.1515/9781474418911|isbn=9781474418911 |s2cid=248018851 }}
- Blues People (1968)
- Cultural Nationalism (1969)
- Strange Fruit (1969), his DFFB thesis film{{Cite journal |last=Griffith |first=Karina |date=2021-01-01 |title=Bearing Breasts, Not Arms: Black Femininity In The Films Of Skip Norman |url=https://www.academia.edu/83123419 |journal=Rosa Mercedes, the Online Journal of the Harun Farocki Institut.}}
- On Africa (1970), which was shown at the 1970 Festival of Mannheim{{Cite web |title=1970 |url=https://www.iffmh.de/festival/history/1970 |access-date=2023-11-01 |website=1970 |language=en}}
- Washington D.C. November 1970 (1970)
- Blackman’s Voluntary Army of Liberation (1970)
- Wilmington 10 — U.S.A. 10,000 (1979)
- But Then She's Betty Carter (1980)
- Spirit to Spirit: Nikki Giovanni (1986)
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{IMDb name|0635624}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norman, Wilbert}}
Category:20th-century American artists
Category:Academic staff of Eastern Mediterranean University
Category:Academic staff of NOVA University Lisbon
Category:African-American anthropologists
Category:Howard University faculty
Category:Ohio State University alumni
Category:Ohio University faculty
Category:University of Southern Mississippi faculty