Paul Verhoeven
|
Paul Verhoeven in 2004 in a documentary on Z Channel |
Paul Verhoeven (born
July 18,
1938) is a
Dutch-born
film director best known for his sometimes extremely violent
science fiction films.
Childhood
Paul Verhoeven was born in
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands. In his childhood he lived in
Slikkerveer and from
1943 in
The Hague. During
World War II he lived not far from a German military base with
V1 and V2-rocket launchers, which was repeatedly bombed by allied forces, which made quite an impression on young Paul.
[Een beetje oorlog, best spannend]He was the son of hat maker Nel van Schaardenburg and school teacher Wim Verhoeven. Later his father became head teacher on the
Van Heutszschool in The Hague.
Paul Verhoeven went to the secondary school
Gymnasium Haganum in The Hague. After this he studied from 1955 at the
University of Leiden, where he joined the students' corps. He graduated in
1960 with a double major in
mathematics and
physics. Subsequently, in
1964 he earned doctorates in both subjects. [
1]
Career in filming
|
Screenshot from Paul Verhoeven's debut A Lizzard Too Much |
Verhoeven made his first film
A Lizzard Too Much for the anniversary of his students' corps in 1960.
[Paul Verhoeven - Biography] In his last years at university he also attended classes at the
Dutch Film Academy. After this he made three more short films
Nothing Special (
1961),
De Lifters (
1962) and
Let's Have a Party (
1963).
After his studies he entered the Dutch
Navy as a conscript. He made the documentary
The Royal Dutch Marine Corps (1965) about the Navy, which won the French
Golden Sun award for military propaganda films
.
When he left the Navy, he took his skills into Dutch television. First he made a documentary about
Anton Mussert named
Mussert (
1968). His first major success was the
1969 Floris television series, starring
Rutger Hauer. The concept of
Floris was inspired by foreign series like
Ivanhoe and
Thierry La Fronde.
In
1967 he married Martine Tours, with whom he has two daughters: Claudia (
1972) and Heleen (
1974).
The Netherlands
Paul Verhoeven's first feature film
Business Is Business was released in
1971 and was not especially well received. His first national success did not come until
1973 with
Turkish Delight, starring Rutger Hauer and
Monique van de Ven. This film is based on a novel by bestselling Dutch author
Jan Wolkers and tells a passionate love story of an artist and a liberal young girl from a rather conservative background. The film got an
Academy Award nomination for
Best Foreign Language Film in 1974. In 1999 the film received a
Golden Calf for Best Dutch Film of the Century. Verhoeven's
1975 film
Katie Tippel was again featuring Hauer and Van de Ven, but it would not match the success of
Turkish Delight.
Verhoeven built on his reputation and had an international success with his
Golden Globe nominated film
Soldier of Orange[http://www.hfpa.org/browse/film/24971]. The film is based on a true story about the Dutch resistance in
World War II, written by
Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema.
In
1980 he made the film
Spetters with
Renée Soutendijk and again Rutger Hauer. The story is sometimes compared to
Saturday Night Fever, but the film has more explicit violence and sexuality (in this case also homosexuality) which are sometimes seen as the trademarks of Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven's film
The Fourth Man (
1983) is a horror film starring
Jeroen Krabbé and
Renée Soutendijk. It was written by Gerard Soeteman from a novel by the popular Dutch writer
Gerard Reve. This film would be Verhoeven's last Dutch film production until the 2006 film
Black Book.
United States
Gerard Soeteman also wrote the script for Verhoeven's first American film,
Flesh & Blood (
1985), which starred Rutger Hauer and
Jennifer Jason Leigh. Verhoeven moved to
Hollywood for a wider range of opportunites in filmmaking. Working in the USA he made a serious change in style, directing big-budget, sometimes violent, special-effects-heavy smashes
RoboCop (
1987) and
Total Recall (
1990) - at the time the most expensive film ever produced. Both
RoboCop and
Total Recall won an
Academy Special Achievement Award, respectively for Sound Effects Editing and for Visual Effects.
Verhoeven followed those successes with the non S.F. but equally intense and provocative
Basic Instinct (
1992), the top grossing film of the year. The most notorious scene shows Sharon Stone's character in a police interrogation, where she doesn't wear underwear underneath her skirt. Despite the
R rating, the film received two Academy Awards nominations, for Film Editing and for Original Music.
[http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/DisplayMain.jsp?curTime=1143590110752] Then he made the poorly received NC-17 rated film
Showgirls (
1995), about a stripper in
Las Vegas trying to have a career as a showgirl. The film won seven
Raspberry Awards including the ones for worst film and for worst director. Paul Verhoeven was the first director to accept the award in person.
After
Basic Instinct and
Showgirls, Paul Verhoeven returned to the S.F., graphic violence, and special-effects that had marked his earlier films with
Starship Troopers, based on the noted & controversial S.F. novel by the same name, by
Robert A. Heinlein (
1997), and
Hollow Man (
2000). Both films received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Hollow Man had some negative publicity after the truth got out behind Sony's fake journalist
David Manning.
Future films
Two new Verhoeven films are expected to be released at the end of
2006. After many years of filming in the
United States Verhoeven returns to
The Netherlands to shoot the war drama
Black Book, an unusual story about the resistance in
World War II. The second film to be expected in 2006 is also a war drama,
Beast of Bataan, which is set in
Bataan,
Philippines.
Paul Verhoeven is a member of the
Jesus Seminar.
[See the Jesus Seminar website at http://www.westarinstitute.org/Fellows/fellows.html] He is the only member who does not have a degree in
Biblical studies.
[Paul Verhoeven schrijft boek over Jezus Dutch press release on the writing of his book.] Since he is not a professional Biblical exegete, his membership in the Jesus Seminar has occasionally been cited by opponents of the Seminar as a sign that this group is less scholarly than it claims.
[For example, The Real Jesus by Luke Timothy Johnson (SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) criticizes the Jesus Seminar's methods on exegetical grounds, and also criticizes what he perceives to be a dependence on the theatrical and an attempt to manipulate the mainstream media. He singles out Verhoeven as a key player in the media activities of the Jesus Seminar on pp. 15-16 of this book.] On the other hand, some Jesus Seminar members were unhappy with Verhoeven's portrayal of Jesus as an
eschatological prophet.
[Charlotte Allen, "Away With The Manger", in Lingua Franca (Feb. /1995), p. 27.]In 2006 Paul Verhoeven's book
Jesus - the man (
Dutch:
Jezus - de man) about the life of Jesus will appear.
[Fondslijst Uitgeverij Bijleveld Jezus - de man in the list of books for 2006 of publisher Bijleveld] He is interested in the ideas of
Jesus Christ and the corruption of these same ideas in the many years until now. The book can be seen as preparation for
Jesus: The Man, a controversial filmproject about the life of Jesus.
Shorts
A Lizzard Too Much (
1960)
Nothing Special (
1961)
De Lifters (
1962)
Let's Have a Party (
1963
*The Royal Dutch Marine Corps
(1965) - documentary
*The Wrestler'' (
1970)
Television
Mussert (
1968) - documentary
Floris (
1969) - TV series
All Things Pass (
1979) - film
Feature films
Business Is Business (1971)
Turkish Delight (1973)
Katie Tippel (1975)
Soldier of Orange (1977)
Spetters (1980)
The Fourth Man (1983)
Flesh & Blood (1985)
RoboCop (1987)
Total Recall (1990)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Showgirls (1995)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Hollow Man (2000)
Black Book (2006)
Beast of Bataan (2006)
*
Paul Verhoeven critique by professor Dan Shaw on the 'Senses of Cinema' website
*
Paul Verhoeven.net fanpage
