Ruth Weiss: the Beat Goddess is a 2020 documentary about the history of one of the movement’s most influential female beat poets.
There’s a rather staggeringly large possibility that not only do you not know what beat poetry is but even once you learn about it, won’t understand it. This is a movement begun in the years after World War II, where writers and authors denied the conventions of standard literature, looking for inspiration on a spiritual level, dabbling in experimental drugs, sexual liberation, and various religious dogmas to say the least.
There are of course a few well known names that emerged from this generation with Jack Kerouac perhaps most notable, he the one given credit for naming the whole thing. Naturally, men dominated the art form, but there were women pushing the envelope as well, including Hettie Jones and Joyce Johnson to name a few, both who continue to speak and write about their experiences. Then there’s Ruth Weiss (or ruth weiss as she prefers, keeping even her name a sort of protest against conformity), a poet and filmmaker who has maintained her vibrant presence in the movement to this day.
With her bright turquoise green hair and gravelly voice, she continues to write and perform, getting on stage with a few jazz musicians as she recites her work. This is interspersed with her personal accounts of life as a child before the rise of Hitler and escapes to freedom, accompanied with illustrations that punctuate the trials of her early ordeals. She incorporates these stories into her small stage shows that feel like throwbacks to 60s coffee shops, which is probably the intent. Diminutive and fragile, she’s nonetheless an engaging storyteller, clearly passionate about her path in this life.
This is ostensibly a documentary, but is divergent in its exploration of ruth’s history, allowing the woman to carry us through her extraordinary adventures, leading to her distinctive contributions to jazz poetry, feeling less like a sit and chat story than a deep dive into the story of a true innovator. Now admittedly, jazz poetry is not for everyone, and like most any art form, is subjective in one’s acceptance. But no matter how you feel about it, there’s no denying the impact Weiss had (and perhaps continues to have) on its growth.
Director Melody C. Miller keeps herself nearly entirely absent from the endeavor, occasionally tossing in a spontaneous thought while filming ruth as she rummages through her past. Meanwhile, we cut continually to the poet as she breaks the narrative with musical verse as young women in black leotards give it interpretive dance. It’s a groovy sort of thing and you can’t help but slip into a sense of feeling laid back and “with it.”
This is not mainstream stuff, but there is a kind of resurgence in the Beat Generation, and as for the history of it, there’s certainly great value in knowing how forward-thinking the movement had been at the time and how it feels natural for its cyclical place in modern times. You might not know Weiss and her contributions to it all, but once you see how much she helped shape and keep it alive, you can’t help but wish others would recognize her worth.
ruth weiss passed on July 31, 2020