Putting Things Straight

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 Schoenberg Classical Arabic music
Release date	23 December 1979 (1979-12-23) (Germany)
Running time	60 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

Premise

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

• 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

The film was first broadcast on 23 December 1979, by Westdeutscher Rundfunk. It was then shown at the 1980 International Film Festival Rotterdam.