Some of you may remember The Playlist’s earlier coverage of the late, great Stanley Kubrick’s early ’90s development of a Holocaust movie based on the novel “Wartime Lies,” called, “The Arayan Papers.”The plans for the film were agreeably shelved by Kubrick and Warner Brothers when they learned that Steven Spielberg was releasing the similar-sounding, “Schindler’s List” at around the same time. Kubrick’s film focused on a Jewish Polish woman and her nephew who fled the Nazi persecution by pretending to be Catholic.
Now Kubrick’s family, lead by brother-in-law James Harlan who executive produced “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Full Metal Jacket” and “The Shining,” are urging Warner Brothers to move forward with making the film. Harlan, in a quote to the U.K. Times, refers to the project being titled “Aryan Papers.”
At this time, Warner Brothers have announced no intentions to pull the project off the shelf, but it certainly sounds like something not outside of the realm of possibility given the success of this subject matter with last year’s “The Reader” and the strong support from Kubrick’s family. The studio still owns the rights to this last Kubrick film and his family would like to see a high caliber director like Ang Lee step into the director’s chair and bring it to the screen.