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Paul Verhoeven
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Paul Verhoeven (; born July 18, 1938) is a Dutch BAFTA Award- nominated film director, screenwriter, and film producer who has made movies in both the Netherlands and the United States. Explicitly violent and/or sexual content are trademarks of both his drama and science fiction films. He is best known for directing the American feature films RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), and Starship Troopers (1997).
Turkish Delight (1973) received the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century at the Netherlands Film Festival. His films altogether received a total of 9 Academy Award nominations, mainly for editing and effects. Both RoboCop and Total Recall won an Academy Special Achievement Award. In contrast, his film Showgirls (1995) was poorly received and won 7 Golden Raspberry Awards, but has become a cult film over time.
Early lifeChildhoodVerhoeven was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the son of school teacher Wim Verhoeven and hat maker Nel van Schaardenburg.
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Paul Verhoeven (; born July 18, 1938) is a Dutch BAFTA Award- nominated film director, screenwriter, and film producer who has made movies in both the Netherlands and the United States. Explicitly violent and/or sexual content are trademarks of both his drama and science fiction films. He is best known for directing the American feature films RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), and Starship Troopers (1997).
Turkish Delight (1973) received the award for Best Dutch Film of the Century at the Netherlands Film Festival. His films altogether received a total of 9 Academy Award nominations, mainly for editing and effects. Both RoboCop and Total Recall won an Academy Special Achievement Award. In contrast, his film Showgirls (1995) was poorly received and won 7 Golden Raspberry Awards, but has become a cult film over time.
Early lifeChildhoodVerhoeven was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the son of school teacher Wim Verhoeven and hat maker Nel van Schaardenburg. Although born in Amsterdam, the 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 house of Verhoeven was near a German military base with V1 and V2-rocket launchers, which was repeatedly bombed by allied forces. The house of their neighbour was hit and also his 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 (1987).
His father Wim Verhoeven became head teacher on the Van Heutszschool in The Hague and Paul Verhoeven attended this school. Sometimes they watched informative films at home with the school's film projector. Paul Verhoeven and his father also liked to see American films, that were in the cinema after the liberation, such as The Crimson Pirate (1952). They went as many as ten times to see The War of the Worlds (1953). Paul Verhoeven was a fan of the Dutch comic Dick Bos, where the character Dick Bos is a private detective who fights crime using Jujutsu. Verhoeven himself liked comic drawing and created The Killer, a grey character in a detailed story full of revenge. Other fiction he liked were Frankenstein and Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series.
He went to the public 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 with a M.Sc. double majoring in mathematics and physics.
Career in filmVerhoeven made his first film A Lizzard Too Many for the anniversary of his students' corps in 1960. In his last years at university he also attended classes at the Netherlands Film Academy. After this he made three more short films Nothing Special, De Lifters and Let's Have a Party.
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. 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 and Helen.
At the 1996 Golden Raspberry Awards, Paul Verhoeven showed up to collect his Showgirls razzies, the first--and to date only--director ever to do so. The Razzies are given each year for the worst in film. (Showgirls was nominated for Worst Director, among other things.)
His film Turkish Delight received an Academy Award nomination for best foreign film and in 1999 was awarded the title "Best Dutch Film of the Century" at the Netherlands Film Festival.
Paul received a PhD in math and physics from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He never used his degree, opting instead to invest his energies in a career in film.
Paul is a longtime member of the Jesus Seminar, an organization devoted to the scholarly, secular study of the life of Jesus Christ. He is the only "layman" member who is considered informed enough to vote with the governing panel. Paul has often talked about doing a film on the life of Jesus.
When Kubrick was making Eyes Wide Shut, he called Verhoeven for advice. Also, when Paul was still making Dutch films, Steven Spielberg called him and encouraged him to try his hand in America.
Paul spent time in Paris as a young man. He also served in the Dutch navy, where he made a famous documentary called "Het Korps Mariners."
Verhoeven is unusually loyal in terms of his crew. He has only used two cinematographers over the course of his professional film career: Jost Vacano and Jan de Bont. He worked with the same writer (Gerard Soeteman) for all of his major Dutch films, and his American films (excluding Showgirls but including Flesh and Blood) have been scored exclusively by Basil Poledouris and Jerry Goldsmith. Alan Marshall has produced Paul's last four films.
Paul (apparently) speaks four languages: English, French, Dutch, and German.
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.
"I try to take these elements out of life that I have detested or admired and put them in a movie, be it violence or sex. I think there's no 'why.' It's just the man I am, and it comes from the inside. It's something I just do." -- Paul Verhoeven
Frequent Collaborators
Jost Vacano, a good friend of Paul's and fellow Dutchman, has worked as the cinematographer on seven of his films, including most of the American ones. The first movie they did together was Soldier of Orange in 1977.
Jerry Goldsmith wrote the scores for Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and Hollow Man. He has said that he considers Basic Instinct one of the best movie scores he's written.
Basil Poledouris has scored three of Paul's films: Flesh & Blood, Robocop, and Starship Troopers.
Ed Neumeier wrote both Robocop and Starship Troopers. It's too bad he didn't get his hands on the Hollow Man script, because I'm sure the film would have been better for it. Ed had a cameo as the condemned man in Starship Troopers.
Jon Davison was an executive producer on RoboCop and a producer on Starship Troopers. He provided the voice of the ED-209 in RoboCop.
Phil Tippett provided special effects for RoboCop and Starship Troopers. He also served as a producer on those films.
Rob Bottin has contributed special effects for RoboCop, Basic Instinct, and Total Recall, most notably the design of the Quatto puppet in Total Recall.
Alan Marshall has produced four of Verhoeven's films: Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man.
Jan de Bont was the cinematographer for all of Paul's Dutch films except Spetters and Soldier of Orange. His last film as a cinematographer was Basic Instinct. Since then he has directed the Speed movies, Twister, and The Haunting update.
Joe Eszterhas wrote the scripts for Basic Instinct and Showgirls.
Rutger Hauer appeared in five of Paul's Dutch films as well as the Verhoeven-directed TV miniseries Floris. The last time the two worked together was in 1985 on Flesh & Blood. Apparently they had a bit of a falling out during that movie, but have since patched things up.
Rob Houwer produced five of Paul's Dutch films. The two had an acrimonious relationship while they were working together but, as with Rutger Hauer, now seem to be on a friendly basis.
Gerard Soeteman (no photo) wrote all of Paul's major Dutch projects starting with Floris and ending with Flesh & Blood. They are currently working on a new script together.
Feature filmsThe NetherlandsPaul 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. 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 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 StatesPaul Verhoeven is best known in America as the director of big, controversial films such as Basic Instinct, Total Recall, Robocop, and Showgirls. His trademark is unrestrained sex and violence, and this has predictably but somewhat unfairly caused his American films to be labeled as pure mind candy... at least upon first viewing. Many critics show an amusing tendency to retroactively reverse their opinions of Verhoeven films, especially the once much-maligned but now oft-praised Starship Troopers.
Many casual fans might not realize that Verhoeven had a thriving film career in his native Holland prior to coming to the United States. Several of his films remain the most attended ever in the Netherlands. Turkish Delight recently won a "best film of the century" award in a popular vote there, and his 1977 World War II film Soldier of Orange received a Golden Globe nomination. To American viewers, his European movies can be somewhat of a revelation; they are just as commercial as his American films and oftentimes even bolder in spirit and more graphic sexually (although it's hard to beat the pool scene in Showgirls).
Perhaps the most appealing thing about Verhoeven is his desire and ability to make films that simultaneously entertain and provoke thought, yet can be enjoyed on either level. We have been conditioned to think of movies as either popcorn fare or art films, but rarely do they dare to straddle the line. It's this dichotomy that makes Verhoeven's career so interesting to follow. Almost all his movies work at two levels, a fact that he is quick to both point out and poke fun at. In a director's DVD commentary, after discussing the political implications of the fascist, bright and shiny world of Starship Troopers, he suddenly exclaims, "There are no politics here. This is just basically big and ugly bugs on the table here."
Gerard Soeteman also wrote the script for Verhoeven's first American film, Flesh & Blood, which starred Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Verhoeven moved to Hollywood for a wider range of opportunities in filmmaking. Working in the USA he made a serious change in style, directing big-budget, sometimes violent, special-effects-heavy smashes RoboCop and Total Recall—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. The 9th-highest grossing film of the year, the movie was a return to the themes Verhoeven had explored in Turkish Delight and The Fourth Man (it can even be viewed as a remake of the latter). The most notorious scene shows Sharon Stone's character in a police interrogation, where she doesn't wear underwear underneath her skirt. The film received two Academy Awards nominations, for Film Editing and for Original Music. Then he made the poorly received NC-17 rated film Showgirls, 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 and controversial science-fiction novel by the same name, by Robert A. Heinlein, and Hollow Man. 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.
Return to the NetherlandsAfter about 20 years of working and living in the United States Paul Verhoeven returned to the Netherlands for the shooting of a new film. Together with his scenarist Gerard Soeteman he made Black Book (2006). The director was hailed by the host of the Netherlands Film Festival with the words "The return of a hero". Black Book eventually won 3 Golden Calves at this festival, one for Paul Verhoeven as Best Director. When the shooting of Black Book was delayed due to financial issues, there were speculations about a new production. The film Beast of Bataan was already announced, but when the shooting for Black Book resumed, the film was never realised.
Another Dutch film Kneeling on a Bed of Violets has been announced. The shooting of this film, which will be directed and (partially) produced by Verhoeven, is planned for 2007.
Other activitiesPaul Verhoeven is a member of the Jesus Seminar. He is the only member who does not have a degree in biblical studies, although he holds a Ph.D. 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. On the other hand, some Jesus Seminar members were unhappy with Verhoeven's portrayal of Jesus as an eschatological prophet.
In 2007 Verhoeven authored the book Jesus - the man 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. The book may be a preparation for Jesus: The Man, a controversial film project about the life of Jesus.
In 2008 Verhoeven, 69, wrote the biography of Jesus book which suggested that Jesus' father might have been a Roman soldier who raped Mary, in 4 B.C. See Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera. Jewish uprising versus Roman rule. Marianna Sterk of the publishing house J.M. Meulenhoff said "Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait," will be released in September and translated into English in 2009.
FilmographyShort films- A Lizzard Too Much
- Nothing Special
- De Lifters
- Let's Have a Party
- The Wrestler
Documentaries- The Royal Dutch Marine Corps
- Mussert
Television series- Floris (1969)
- The Hitchhiker (1986), episode 24 "Last Scene"
Feature films
- The Thomas Crown Affair 2 (release date unknown)
- The Paperboy (release date unknown)
- Batavia's Graveyard (release date unknown)
- Hardcourt (release date unknown)
External links- fan page
- critique by professor Dan Shaw on the Senses of Cinema website
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