Pamela Katz

Last updated
Pamela Katz
Born (1958-04-16) 16 April 1958 (age 66)
Occupations
  • Screenwriter
  • novelist
  • director
Years active1987–present
Spouse Florian Ballhaus
Websitepkatz.com

Pamela Katz (born April 16, 1958) is an American screenwriter and novelist best known for her collaborations with director Margarethe von Trotta, including Rosenstrasse and Hannah Arendt .

Contents

She is currently a teacher of screenwriting at the Tisch School of the Arts.

Early life

Katz was born on April 16, 1958, in Rhinebeck, New York, to psychoanalyst Natalie Becker and philosophy professor Joseph Katz who had moved to the United States in 1940 from Leipzig, Germany. [1] In 1980 she received her Bachelor's degree of Arts from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.[ citation needed ] While she majored in Anthropology, upon graduating she began working in the film world in various technical capacities. This included working with directors such as Martin Scorsese, Mike Nichols and Spike Lee. [1]

Film career

The trajectory of Katz's film career has been marked by her fascinations with historical biography with special attention to the cultural context and ramifications of the holocaust. [1] She began her career as a filmmaker with her debut short In a Jazz Way, a thirty minute film co-directed with Louise Ghertler about dance documentarian Mura Dehn. [2] The film was perceived as unusual for its avoidance of typical documentary tropes and its usage of conversation to convey a sense of Dehn's legacy. [2]

Her breakthrough film Rosenstrasse was co-written with director Margarethe von Trotta and came out in 2003. The film centered around the Rosenstrasse protest which occurred in Berlin in 1943. [3] It was concerned with the concept of the good German during the Nazi era, and though von Trotta insisted it was not intended to "rehabilitate the German," it was criticized by James Adams at the Globe & Mail for being "insufficiently emotionally complex." [4] [5]

When asked about her longtime collaboration with von Trotta, Katz said in a 2004 interview with FF2 Media's Jan Lisa Huttner that:

In the course of working with Margarethe, I discovered that Germans artists feel they have to be very careful about how they present Jews. Even a radical, left-wing, politically-perfect woman like Margarethe von Trotta is going to feel nervous about how she presents a Jewish family.... But then I came on board, and I said: “I feel very Jewish and I come from a family that identifies itself as Jewish. But we don’t keep kosher, etc, etc.” That was hard for Margarethe to hear, and it took quite a bit of nerve on her part. A big part of our tension, the creative back and forth between us, came about because I kept saying: “You can do it any way you want to.” [6]

Remembrance (2011) is a love story Katz wrote for director Anna Justice which begins with a Polish prisoner (Tomasz) rescuing his Jewish girlfriend (Hannah) from Auschwitz in 1944. After losing each other and becoming convinced that the other is dead, thirty years pass before Hannah sights Tomasz during an interview and the two reconnect. [7] Though the idea was criticized as being unrealistic, Katz said in an interview with Susana Styron that "there [were] actually 600 attempted escapes from Auschwitz, about a third of which were actually successful." [8]

Hannah Arendt (2012), was co-written with director Margarethe von Trotta and was a biographical film depicting a portion of the life of Jewish intellectual Hannah Arendt. The film specifically deals with Arendt's coverage of the trial of Nazi Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann and the subsequent controversy in academic circles. [9]

Other work

Outside of film work Katz has a career as a teacher of screenwriting at NYU Tisch School of the Arts as well as a novelist. She has written a historical novel entitled And Speaking of Love which was based on the life of Lotte Lenya. [10]

In 2015, Random House publishing released Katz's book The Partnership: Brecht, Weill, Three Women, and Germany on the Brink, a non-fiction account of the theatrical artists Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's collaboration and subsequent alienation. [11] It covers the years of their friendship while exploring the relationships they had with actresses Lotte Lenya and Helene Weigel as well as the writer Elisabeth Hauptmann.

Personal life

On February 7, 1988, Katz married German cinematographer Florian Ballhaus.

Filmography

YearTitleCreditNotes
1987In a Jazz Way: A Portrait of Mura DehnDirector
1989 Caro Nome Writer, Directoras Pam Katz
1994 Alles auf Anfang Story
1998Two Women, Two MenWriter
2000Scheidung auf Rädern (TV Movie)Writer
2003 Rosenstrasse Writerwith Margarethe von Trotta
2004The Other Woman (TV Movie)Writerwith Margarethe von Trotta
2011 Remembrance Screenplayas Pam Katz
2012 Hannah Arendt Screenplaywith Margarethe von Trotta
2017 Forget About Nick Screenplaywith Margarethe von Trotta

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hannah Arendt</span> Historian and philosopher (1906–1975)

Hannah Arendt was a German-American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.

<i>Sophies Choice</i> (novel) 1979 novel by William Styron

Sophie's Choice is a 1979 novel by American author William Styron. The author's last novel, it concerns the relationships among three people sharing a boarding house in Brooklyn: Stingo, a young aspiring writer from the South, Jewish scientist Nathan Landau, and his lover Sophie, a Polish-Catholic survivor of the German Nazi concentration camps, whom Stingo befriends.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margarethe von Trotta</span> German film director

Margarethe von Trotta is a German film director, screenwriter, and actress. She has been referred to as a "leading force" of the New German Cinema movement. Von Trotta's extensive body of work has won awards internationally. She was married to and collaborated with director Volker Schlöndorff. Although they made a successful team, von Trotta felt she was seen as secondary to Schlöndorff. Subsequently, she established a solo career for herself and became "Germany's foremost female film director, who has offered the most sustained and successful female variant of Autorenkino in postwar German film history". Certain aspects of von Trotta's work have been compared to Ingmar Bergman's features from the 1960s and 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet McTeer</span> English actress (born 1961)

Janet McTeer is an English actress. She began her career training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before earning acclaim for playing diverse roles on stage and screen in both period pieces and modern dramas. She has received numerous accolades including a Tony Award, a Olivier Award, a Golden Globe Award and nominations for two Academy Award and Primetime Emmy Award. In 2008 she was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to drama.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosenstrasse protest</span> 1943 street protest in Nazi Germany

The Rosenstrasseprotest is considered to be a significant event in German history as it is the only mass public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews. The protest on Rosenstraße took place in Berlin during February and March 1943. This demonstration was initiated and sustained by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men and Mischlinge,. Their husbands had been targeted for deportation, based on the racial policy of Nazi Germany, and detained in the Jewish community house on Rosenstrasse. The protests, which occurred over the course of seven days, continued until the men being held were released by the Gestapo. The protest by the women of the Rosenstrasse led to the release of approximately 1,800 Berlin Jews.

<i>Eichmann in Jerusalem</i> 1963 book by Hannah Arendt

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a 1963 book by the philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers of the Holocaust, for The New Yorker. A revised and enlarged edition was published in 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Sukowa</span> German actress and singer

Barbara Sukowa is a German actress of screen and stage and singer. She has received three German Film Awards for Best Actress, three Bavarian Film Awards, Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, Venice Film Festival Award, as well as nominations for European Film Awards, César Awards and Grammy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katja Riemann</span> German actress

Katja Hannchen Leni Riemann is a German actress.

<i>Marianne and Juliane</i> 1981 film

Marianne and Juliane, also called The German Sisters in the United Kingdom, is a 1981 West German film directed by Margarethe von Trotta. The screenplay is a fictionalized account of the true lives of Christiane and Gudrun Ensslin. Gudrun, a member of The Red Army Faction, was found dead in her prison cell in Stammheim in 1977. In the film, von Trotta depicts the two sisters Juliane (Christine) and Marianne (Gudrun) through their friendship and journey to understanding each other. Marianne and Juliane was von Trotta's third film and solidified her position as a director of the New German Cinema.

Rosenstraße is a 2003 film directed by Margarethe von Trotta, starring Maria Schrader and Katja Riemann. It deals with the Rosenstrasse protest of 1943.

Thekla Simona Gelsomina Reuten is a Dutch actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aviva Kempner</span> American filmmaker (born 1946)

Aviva Kempner is a German-born American filmmaker. Her documentaries investigate non-stereotypical images of Jews in history and focus on the untold stories of Jewish people. She is most well known for The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Winkler</span> German actress (born 1944)

Angela Winkler is a German actress.

<i>Vision</i> (2009 film) 2009 German film

Vision is a 2009 German film directed by Margarethe von Trotta.

The New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF) is an annual festival in New York City that features a wide array of international films exploring themes related to the Jewish experience. The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center work in partnership to present the NYJFF every January. Since its creation in 1992, the festival has more than doubled in size and scope. Screenings are typically followed by discussions with directors, actors and film experts. Audience participation is encouraged.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larysa Kondracki</span> Canadian film director and screenwriter

Larysa Kondracki is a Canadian producer, director and screenwriter. Her debut feature film, The Whistleblower, was released in 2011 and received nominations for six Genies at the 32nd Genie Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. She has received international accolades for reporting on the stories of victims of trafficking in the former Yugoslavia.

<i>Remembrance</i> (2011 film) 2011 German drama film

Remembrance is a 2011 German drama film directed by Anna Justice. A German-Jewish young woman and Polish young man fall in love and escape a Nazi concentration camp. As the film prologue notes, it is based on the true story of Jerzy Bielecki and Cyla Cybulska.

<i>Hannah Arendt</i> (film) 2012 biographical drama film by Margarethe von Trotta

Hannah Arendt is a 2012 biographical drama film directed by Margarethe von Trotta and starring Barbara Sukowa. An international co-production from Germany, Luxembourg and France, the film centers on the life of German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. The film, distributed by Zeitgeist Films in the United States, opened theatrically on 29 May 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jutta Lampe</span> German actress (1937–2020)

Jutta Lampe was a German actress on stage and in film. She was for 30 years a leading actress at the Schaubühne founded in Berlin by her husband Peter Stein, where she played both classical theatre such as Alkmene in Kleist's Amphitryon, and world premieres including Robert Wilson's Orlando for one actor, and roles that Botho Strauß created for her. She was also engaged at the Vienna Burgtheater and the Schauspielhaus Zürich. She appeared in more than twenty films from 1963, including lead roles in films by Margarethe von Trotta. Lampe was named Actress of the Year by Theater heute several times. Other awards included the Gertrud-Eysoldt-Ring and the Joana Maria Gorvin Prize for her life's work.

Pamela Gray is an American screenwriter.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lovenheim, Barbara. "Pamela Katz: Scripting Hannah Arendt". nycitywoman.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-24. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  2. 1 2 Dunning, Jennifer (16 December 1987). "Mura Dehn, Dancer, as Subject and Chronicler". The New York Times.
  3. Sarris, Andrew (30 August 2004). "Rosenstrasse Wives Remembered By German Director von Trotta". Observer. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  4. "Margarethe von Trotta and Barbara Sukowa by Sabine Russ - BOMB Magazine".
  5. "Rosenstrasse *". The Globe and Mail. 24 September 2004.
  6. Huttner, Jan Lisa (August 24, 2004). "Jan Chats with Pamela Katz about the screenplay for her new film, Rosenstrasse". FF2 Media. Retrieved April 27, 2020.
  7. Hall, Sandra (24 October 2013). "Remembrance review: Potent tale of love against a backdrop of horror". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  8. Pamela Katz discusses REMEMBRANCE with Susana Styron. YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-09.
  9. "Hannah Arendt Q&A". Vimeo. 17 June 2013. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  10. "Pamela Katz". tisch.nyu.edu. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  11. "THE PARTNERSHIP by Pamela Katz". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2016-03-17.