2013 Essays
Ruth Goetz
Ruth Goetz, one of the most prolific writers for film in Germany in the period 1916-1927, with about sixty-five titles including original scripts and adaptations credited to her name, is not well known today. “The film writer is like a ‘violet’ that blooms hidden from sight,” she said at the beginning of her spectacular career during the late 1910s. “The audience does not know anything either about him or his work. Rarely does he get mentioned and he is never seen. If the film is bad, it’s the writer’s fault. If the film earns the label ‘good’ or ‘very good’ then the writer is entitled to a minuscule credit. This is different for the playwright and if one has started writing for the theater stage, one has quickly to adjust to this reality. I am letting this journal publish my photograph, so that people can at least once see a film writer” (600). Goetz was the only woman featured in this special 1918 issue of the Berlin-based trade magazine Kinematograph edited by E. A. Dupont and devoted to the invisible work of scenarists. A year earlier, one of her scripts had been included as a model for aspiring writers in one of the first manuals compiled by Wilhelm Adler. The film based on this script, Noemi, die blonde Jüdin/Noemi, the Blond Jewess (1917), was directed by Hubert Moest and served primarily as a star vehicle for actress Hedda Vernon.
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More About This Work
- Academic Units
- Film
- Libraries
- Series
- Women Film Pioneers Project
- Published Here
- October 15, 2019