Paul Verhoeven

This article is about the Dutch director. For the German director, actor, and writer, see Paul Verhoeven (Germany).

Paul Verhoeven
Verhoeven at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2006
Born	Paul Verhoeven July 18, 1938 (1938-07-18) Amsterdam, Netherlands
Occupation	Film director
Years active	1960–present
Spouse	Martine Tours (1967–present)
Children	Claudia Verhoeven (1972) Helen Verhoeven (1974)

Paul Verhoeven (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈpʌu̯l vərˈɦuvə(n)]; born July 18, 1938) is a Dutch film director, screenwriter, and 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 nine 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 seven 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.

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 doctorandus (M.Sc.) double majoring in both mathematics and physics.

First films and TV series

Screenshot from A Lizzard Too Much (1960)

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.

In 1967 he married Martine Tours, with whom he later had two daughters, Claudia (b. 1972), and Helen (b. 1974).

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.

Feature films

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 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 was again featuring 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 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, incredibly violent, special-effects-heavy smashes RoboCop (1987) and Total Recall (1990)—at the time the most expensive film ever produced.^{[citation needed]} Both RoboCop and Total Recall won an Academy Special Achievement Award, for Sound Effects Editing and for Visual Effects respectively.

Verhoeven followed those successes with the equally intense and provocative Basic Instinct (1992), which was characterized as an erotic thriller. The 9th-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 (she does not wear underwear underneath her skirt). The film received two Academy Awards nominations, for Film Editing and for Original Music.

His next film was the poorly received, NC-17 rated Showgirls (1995), about a stripper in Las Vegas trying to make a career as a showgirl. The film won seven 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, Paul Verhoeven returned to the science fiction, graphic violence, and special-effects tropes that had marked his earlier films with Starship Troopers (1997), adapted from the controversial 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 six 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

Crew

• Jost Vacano 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 said that he considered Total Recall one of the best movie scores he wrote.
• 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.
• 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.

Cast

• Rutger Hauer appeared in five of Verhoeven'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
• Sharon Stone featured in two of his highest grossing films Total Recall and Basic Instinct.
• 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 (Dutch: Jezus van Nazaret) 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 radical political activist, downplaying any supernatural events and miracles as unproved or unprovable. "Jesus of Nazareth: A Realistic Portrait," has been 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.

Filmography

Director

Presentation of the film Basic Instinct at the 1992 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)

External links

• Time Out Interview
• Paul Verhoeven at the Internet Movie Database
• Paul Verhoeven 2002 critique by professor Dan Shaw on the Senses of Cinema website
• Literature on Paul Verhoeven