Paul Verhoeven
Paul Verhoeven is a Dutch director, screenwriter and film producer active in both the Netherlands and Hollywood. Verhoeven's blending of graphic violence and sexual content with social satire are trademarks of both his drama and science fiction films. He directed the films Turkish Delight, Keetje Tippel, Soldier of Orange, Spetters, The Fourth Man, Flesh and Blood, RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers, Hollow Man, Black Book and Elle.
Turkish Delight received the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century at the Netherlands Film Festival. His films altogether received a total of nine Academy Award nominations, mainly for editing and effects. Verhoeven won the Saturn Award for Best Director for RoboCop. His Dutch war film Black Book was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and was voted by the Dutch public, in 2008, as the best Dutch film ever made. In contrast, he won the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Picture and Worst Director for Showgirls; he is one of the few people to have accepted their Golden Raspberry awards in person, and was the first person to go to the ceremony to receive it. In 2016 he directed Elle, which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The Seattle Times praised Verhoeven by saying, "director Paul Verhoeven often appears to be a one-man Dutch movie industry," while The San Diego Union-Tribune called Verhoeven "a busy bee whose movies pollinate the festival circuit."
Early life
Paul Verhoeven was born in Amsterdam on 18 July 1938, the son of a school teacher, Wim Verhoeven, and a hat maker, Nel van Schaardenburg. His family lived in the village of Slikkerveer.In 1943 the family moved to The Hague, the location of the German headquarters in the Netherlands during World War II. The Verhoeven house was near a German military base with V1 and V2-rocket launchers, which was repeatedly bombed by Allied forces. Their neighbours' house was hit and Verhoeven's parents were almost killed when bombs fell on a street crossing. From this period, Verhoeven mentioned in interviews, he remembers images of violence, burning houses, dead bodies on the street, and continuous danger. As a small child he experienced the war as an exciting adventure and compares himself with the character Bill Rowan in Hope and Glory.
Verhoeven's father became head teacher at the Van Heutszschool in The Hague, and Paul attended this school. Sometimes they watched informative films at home with the school's film projector. Verhoeven and his father also liked to see American films that were in the cinema after the liberation, such as The Crimson Pirate.
They went ten times to see The War of the Worlds. Verhoeven was a fan of the Dutch comic Dick Bos. The character Dick Bos is a private detective who fights crime using jujutsu. Verhoeven liked comic drawing; he created The Killer, a character in a detailed story of revenge. Other fiction he liked were Frankenstein and the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series.
Verhoeven attended public secondary school Gymnasium Haganum in The Hague. Later, beginning in 1955, he studied at Leiden University, where he joined the fraternity Minerva. Verhoeven graduated with a doctorandus with a double major, in Mathematics and Physics.
Career
Short films and TV series (1960–1969)
Verhoeven made his first film Één hagedis teveel for the anniversary of his students' corps in 1960. In his last years at university Verhoeven also attended classes at the Netherlands Film Academy. After this he made three more short films: Nothing Special, The Hitchhikers, and Let's Have a Party.Verhoeven has not used his mathematics and physics degree, opting instead to invest his energies in a career in film. After his studies he entered the Royal Dutch Navy as a conscript. He made the documentary Het Korps Mariniers, which won the French Golden Sun award for military films.
In 1967 Verhoeven married Martine Tours, with whom he later had two daughters, Claudia, and Helen.
When he left the Navy, Verhoeven took his skills to Dutch television. First, he made a documentary about Anton Mussert named Mussert. 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.
First feature films (1969–1983)
Verhoeven's first feature film Business Is Business was released in 1971 and was not well received. His first national success came in 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 the passionate love story of an artist and a young liberal girl from a conservative background. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1974. In 1999 the film won a Golden Calf for Best Dutch Film of the Century. Verhoeven's 1975 film Katie Tippel again featured Hauer and van de Ven, but it would not match the success of Turkish Delight.Verhoeven built on his reputation and achieved international success with his Golden Globe nominated film Soldier of Orange, starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé. The film, based on a true story about the Dutch resistance in World War II, was written by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. Soldier of Orange received the 1979 LA Film Critics Award for best foreign language film. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1980.
In 1980 Verhoeven made the film Spetters with Renée Soutendijk and Rutger Hauer. The story is sometimes compared to Saturday Night Fever, but the film has more explicit violence and sexuality, which are sometimes seen as the trademarks of Paul Verhoeven. Verhoeven's film The Fourth Man is a horror film starring Jeroen Krabbé and Renée Soutendijk. It was written by Gerard Soeteman from a novel by the Dutch writer Gerard Reve. This film would be Verhoeven's last Dutch film production until the 2006 film Black Book.
Filmmaking in the United States (1983–2000)
Gerard Soeteman also wrote the script for Verhoeven's first English-language film, Flesh and Blood, which starred Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Verhoeven moved to Hollywood for a wider range of opportunities in filmmaking. Working in the U.S., he made a serious change in style, directing big-budget, violent, special-effects-heavy hits RoboCop and Total Recall—each of which won an Academy Special Achievement Award: RoboCop for Sound Effects Editing, and Total Recall for Visual Effects,.at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Left to right: Jeanne Tripplehorn, Michael Douglas, Martine Tours, Verhoeven, Sharon Stone and Mario Kassar
Verhoeven followed those successes with the equally intense and provocative Basic Instinct, an erotic thriller. The ninth-highest-grossing film of the year, the movie was a return to themes Verhoeven had explored in Turkish Delight and The Fourth Man. The film's most notorious scene shows Sharon Stone's character in a police interrogation, where she uncrosses her legs, briefly revealing her vulva. The film received two Academy Awards nominations, for Film Editing and for Original Music.
During this time, Verhoeven also worked on creating an historical epic based around the Crusades that would have starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film entered pre-production in 1993, but a year later the studio backing the film pulled funding for the project. Verhoeven would continue to discuss the film throughout the 1990s.
Verhoeven's next film was the poorly received, NC-17 rated Showgirls, about a stripper in Las Vegas trying to make a career as a showgirl. The film won seven Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Film and Worst Director; Verhoeven became the first director to accept his "award" in person. Afterward, the film enjoyed success on the home video market, generating more than $100 million from video rentals and became one of MGM's top 20 all-time bestsellers.
After Basic Instinct and Showgirls, Verhoeven returned to the science fiction, graphic violence and special-effects tropes that had marked his earlier films with Starship Troopers, loosely based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein, and Hollow Man''. Each film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Sexual harassment allegation
In the mid-1990s, Verhoeven acquired the rights to Charles Bukowski's novel Women with the goal of adapting it to the screen, and hired writer/producer Polly Platt to draft the screenplay. Platt's unpublished memoir, revealed to the public in July of 2020, stated that Verhoeven had groped her after a production meeting. After the allegation was publicized, Verhoeven declined to comment.Return to Europe (2006–present)
After about 20 years of working and living in the United States, Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands for the shooting of a new film. Together with his screenwriter Gerard Soeteman, Verhoeven made Black Book. The director was hailed by the host of the Netherlands Film Festival with the words "The return of a hero." Black Book won six Golden Calves at this festival, including Best Director. When the shooting of Black Book was delayed due to financial issues, there was speculation about a new production. The film Beast of Bataan had been announced, but once the shooting for Black Book resumed, the other film was not realized.Verhoeven was knighted in the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 2007.
Since Black Book, Verhoeven has been connected to a large number of projects, but in the first decade after his return, none came to fruition. Some of those titles were produced with other directors at the helm, such as The Paperboy. In 2016 however, Verhoeven followed Black Book by directing a French film: Elle, an adaptation of a novel by Philippe Djian. A psycho-thriller where Isabelle Huppert plays a rape victim, Elle was selected for the Official Competition at the Cannes International Film Festival, where it obtained very favourable reviews.
In December 2016, it was announced that Verhoeven would be the president of the jury for the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, scheduled to take place in February 2017.
In April 2017, Benedetta, his next French film, was announced to begin filming in August of the same year. It is a biographical film about the life of Benedetta Carlini, which will be portrayed by Elle co-star Virginie Efira, and is an adaptation of the non-fiction book Immodest Acts - The life of a lesbian nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith C. Brown. In May 2018, Charlotte Rampling was announced to play a key supporting role.
Other activities
Verhoeven is a member of the Jesus Seminar, and he is the only member who does not have a degree in biblical studies. He graduated with a degree in mathematics and physics from the University of Leiden. 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, Luke Timothy Johnson 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 the other hand, some Jesus Seminar members were unhappy with Verhoeven's portrayal of Jesus as an eschatological prophet.In 2007, Verhoeven wrote the book Jesus of Nazareth about the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The book reviews the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth and the alleged corruption of these same ideas over the last 2,000 years. Co-written with Verhoeven's biographer Rob Van Scheers, the book is the culmination of the research Verhoeven conducted in preparation for Jesus: The Man, a motion picture about the life of Christ. The book tells about the Jewish uprising against Roman rule and characterizes Jesus as a radical political activist, downplaying any supernatural events and miracles as unproved or unprovable. Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait was released in September 2008 in Dutch and was published in English in May 2010 by Seven Stories Press.
Robert J. Miller, author of Born Divine, said about Jesus of Nazareth, "Verhoeven breaks down the gospels...and reassembles them into a unique...reconstruction of the historical Jesus."
In April 2010, Verhoeven hinted that his next potential film project would be an adaptation of a "Hitchcockian" video game set in 1914. Although he would not reveal the title, there was speculation that the project might be an adaptation of The Last Express, a 1997 game designed by Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner. In October 2011, Verhoeven confirmed The Last Express as the identity of the game in question, and revealed that he is considering filming it in 3D. Mechner has gone on record as saying he is a fan of Verhoeven's Jesus of Nazareth. Verhoeven's interpretation of Jesus of Nazareth will reportedly include Jesus as an exorcist, and a believer in the Kingdom of God on Earth.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Director | Writer | Notes |
| 1971 | Business Is Business | |||
| 1973 | Turkish Delight | |||
| 1975 | Keetje Tippel | |||
| 1977 | Soldier of Orange | |||
| 1980 | Spetters | |||
| 1983 | The Fourth Man | |||
| 1985 | Flesh and Blood | |||
| 1987 | RoboCop | |||
| 1990 | Total Recall | |||
| 1992 | Basic Instinct | |||
| 1995 | Showgirls | |||
| 1997 | Starship Troopers | |||
| 2000 | Hollow Man | |||
| 2006 | Black Book | |||
| 2012 | Tricked | User-generated film | ||
| 2016 | Elle | |||
| 2021 | Benedetta | Post-production |