AN ANGEL IN HELL: ARTUR BRAUNER AND THE ATTEMPT TO MAKE A GERMAN OSKAR- SCHINDLER-BIOPIC

Abstract

Film Studies tends to deal only with film projects that have been completed and pays particular attention to the work of directors, thus largely ignoring the fact that the vast majority of attempts to make movies fail, and marginalising the crucial role played by scriptwriters and producers in the initiation and development of film projects. To counter this tendency, this essay examines the unsuccessful attempt, between the 1970s and the early 1990s, of Artur Brauner, one of the leading producers in postwar (West) Germany, to make a biopic about Oskar Schindler. Like the Jewish workers rescued by Schindler, Brauner is a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Poland whose career as a producer has combined mainstream entertainment movies with films about the Third Reich and especially about the Holocaust. The essay explores the full range of his activities as a producer on the Schindler biopic – ranging from script development and financing to negotiations with actors and directors; highlights their transnational dimensions (through the involvement of personnel and co- production partners from France, the UK, Israel, the US, Poland, and the Soviet Union); and explores the refusal of (West) German funding bodies to support this project.