Putting Things Straight (German title: Ich räume auf) is a 1979 film directed and written by Georg Brintrup. It was shot in 16 mm film and was the director's first television release. The script is based on a polemic printed in 1925 ("Ich räume auf - Meine Anklage gegen meine Verleger")[1] by the Jewish German poet Else Lasker-Schüler, the principal woman representative of German Expressionism.
| Putting Things Straight | |
|---|---|
 Film set in Berlin, October 1979 | |
| Directed by | Georg Brintrup |
| Written by | Georg Brintrup |
| Produced by | Hartmut Bitomsky Christhardt Burgmann |
| Starring | Gisela Stein Hanns Zischler Ulrich Gregor Hans Christoph Buch Harun Farocki |
| Cinematography | Ali Reza Movahed |
| Edited by | Carlo Carlotto Georg Brintrup |
| Music by | Arnold Schönberg Classical Arabic music |
Release date |
|
Running time | 60 minutes |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
Premise edit
The film describes a dispute between poet Else Lasker-Schüler and her publishers. The film takes place in Berlin before, during and after World War I. It deals with the rights of the author; quoting from Karl Marx: "a writer is judged as productive, not on the amount of ideas he produces, but on the amount of money his publisher is able to profit from his works."[2]
Cast edit
- Gisela Stein – Else Lasker-Schüler
- Frank Burkner – Paul Cassirer
- Hanns Zischler – Alfred Flechtheim
- Ulrich Gregor – Kurt Wolff
- Hans Christoph Buch – Franz Werfel
- Harun Farocki – Friend of Flechtheim
Production edit
The film was first broadcast on 23 December 1979, by Westdeutscher Rundfunk. It was then shown at the 1980 International Film Festival Rotterdam.
