Paul Verhoeven (; born July 18, 1938) is a
Dutch film director,
screenwriter, and
film producer who has made movies in both the
Netherlands and the
United States. Explicitly violent and/or sexual content and social satire 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),
Starship Troopers (1997), and
Hollow Man (2000).
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 life
Childhood
Verhoeven 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 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 (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.
First films and TV series
Verhoeven made his first film
A Lizzard Too Much 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 (1961),
De Lifters (1962) and
Let's Have a Party (1963).
Verhoeven received a doctorandus degree 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. After his studies he entered the Dutch Navy as a conscript. He made the documentary "Het Korps Mariniers" (The Royal Dutch Marine Corps 1965) about the Navy, which won the French Golden Sun award for military films. The film is based on a true story about the Dutch resistance in World War II, 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 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 opportunities 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 equally intense and provocative Basic Instinct (1992), which was not science fiction. 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. The most notorious scene shows Sharon Stone's character in a police interrogation, where she uncrosses her legs, briefly revealing her pudenda (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 (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. 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, Paul Verhoeven returned to the science fiction, graphic violence, and special-effects that had marked his earlier films with Starship Troopers (1997), based on the noted and controversial science-fiction novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein, and Hollow Man (2000). Both films received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.
Return to the Netherlands
After 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 screenwriter
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, including 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 had been announced, but when the shooting for
Black Book resumed, the film was never realized.
Frequent collaborators
Verhoeven is unusually loyal in terms of his crew. Before Black Book he had 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.
Crew
Jost Vacano, a close friend of Verhoeven, has worked as the cinematographer on seven of his films, including many 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 Total Recall one of the best movie scores he's written.
Basil Poledouris scored three of Paul's films: Flesh & Blood, RoboCop, and Starship Troopers.
Ed Neumeier wrote both RoboCop and Starship Troopers. 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 contributed special effects for RoboCop, Basic Instinct, and Total Recall, most notably the design of the Kuato puppet in Total Recall.
Alan Marshall 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.
Joe Eszterhas wrote the scripts for Basic Instinct and Showgirls.
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 wrote all of Paul's major Dutch projects starting with Floris and ending with Flesh & Blood. They reunited again for Black Book in 2006.
Frank J. Urioste was the film editor on Robocop, Total Recall and Basic Instinct (the first and latter were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Film Editing).
Mark Goldblatt was the film editor on Showgirls, Starship Troopers and Hollow Man.
Garrison Nein credited as Paul Verhoeven's "fluffer" on the set of
Showgirls
Cast
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
Jake Busey featured in
Starship Troopers and was a stunt-double in
Robocop
Michael Ironside appeared in both
Total Recall and
Starship Troopers and had been considered for the main role in
Robocop
Other activities
Paul Verhoeven is a member of the
Jesus Seminar. He is the only member who does not have a degree in
biblical studies, although he graduated in mathematics and physics at 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 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. The book may be a preparation for Jesus: The Man, a controversial film project about the life of Jesus.
Filmography
Director
Cannes Film Festival. Left from right:
Jeanne Tripplehorn,
Michael Douglas,
Martine Tours (Verhoeven's wife), Paul Verhoeven,
Sharon Stone and
Mario Kassar]]
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)
Writer
Soldier of Orange (1977)
Flesh & Blood (1985)
Black Book (2006)
Producer
The Winter Queen (2010)
References
External links
Time Out Interview
Paul Verhoeven 2002 critique by professor Dan Shaw on the Senses of Cinema website
Literature on Paul Verhoeven
Category:Dutch expatriates in the United States
Category:Dutch film directors
Category:Golden Calf winners
Category:Leiden University alumni
Category:People from Amsterdam
Category:People from The Hague
Category:Dutch atheists
Category:1938 births
Category:Living people
