Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven (; born 18 July 1938) is a Dutch filmmaker, who has worked variously in the Netherlands, the United States, and in France. He is known for directing genre films with strong satirical elements, often featuring graphic violence and explicit sexual content and nudity. He later directed successful Dutch films including the period film Keetje Tippel, the World War II film Soldier of Orange (1977), the adolescent drama Spetters (1980) and the Gerard Reve-adapted psychological thriller The Fourth Man (1983).

In 1985, Verhoeven made his first Hollywood film Flesh and Blood and later had a successful career in the United States, directing science fiction films such as RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Starship Troopers (1997) and Hollow Man (2000), as well as the erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992). He also directed the 1995 film Showgirls, which was critically panned on initial release but has developed a cult following and undergone critical re-evaluation.

Verhoeven later returned to Europe, making the Dutch war film Black Book (2006), the French psychological thriller Elle (2016) and the religious drama Benedetta (2021), all receiving positive reviews. Black Book and Elle were both nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language and Elle won Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and César Award for Best Film. Black Book was also voted by the Dutch public, in 2008, as the best Dutch film ever made. Verhoeven's films have received a total of nine Academy Award nominations, mainly for editing and effects.

Early life Paul Verhoeven was born in Amsterdam on 18 July 1938, the son of a schoolteacher, Wim Verhoeven, and a hatmaker, Nel van Schaardenburg. Despite what is sometimes reported, he is not related to German filmmaker Michael Verhoeven, whose father was also named Paul Verhoeven.

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 has compared himself with the character Bill Rowan in Hope and Glory (1987).

Verhoeven's father became headteacher at the Van Heutszschool in The Hague, and Paul attended this school. Sometimes the two watched informative films at home with the school's film projector.

Verhoeven and his father went to see The War of the Worlds (1953) ten times. Verhoeven was a fan of the Dutch comic Dick Bos, 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 included Frankenstein and the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series.

Career

Short films and TV series (1960–1969) Verhoeven made his first film Één hagedis teveel ("One Lizard Too Many") 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 (1961), The Hitchhikers (1962) and Let's Have a Party (1963).

Verhoeven has not professionally 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 ("The Marine Corps", 1965), which won the French 'Golden Sun' award for military films. starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé. Based on a true story about the Dutch resistance in World War II, it was written by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema. Soldier of Orange received the 1979 LA Film Critics Award for best foreign-language film, and it was also nominated for a Golden Globe in 1980.

In 1980, Verhoeven made Spetters with Renée Soutendijk and Rutger Hauer. The story is sometimes compared to Saturday Night Fever, but it has more explicit violence and sexuality (in this case also homosexuality), which are sometimes seen as the director's trademarks. 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 Dutch writer Gerard Reve, and was Verhoeven's last Dutch production until Black Book (2006). The Seattle Times praised Verhoeven by saying he "often appears to be a one-man Dutch movie industry". The San Diego Union-Tribune called Verhoeven "a busy bee whose movies pollinate the festival circuit".

Filmmaking in the United States (1983–2000) Gerard Soeteman also wrote the script for Verhoeven's first English-language film, Flesh and 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 U.S., he made a serious change in style, directing big-budget, violent, special-effects-heavy hits RoboCop (1987) and Total Recall (1990)⁠ — each of which won an Academy Special Achievement Award: RoboCop for Sound Effects Editing and Total Recall for Visual Effects.

Presentation of Basic Instinct at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Left to right: Jeanne Tripplehorn, Michael Douglas, Martine Tours (Verhoeven's wife), Verhoeven, Sharon Stone and Mario Kassar.

Verhoeven followed those successes with Basic Instinct (1992), an erotic thriller. 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 Award nominations, for Film Editing and for Original Music, and was the ninth-highest-grossing film of the year.

During this time, Verhoeven also worked on creating an historical epic based around the Crusades that would have starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. It went into pre-production in 1993, but a year later the studio backing it, Carolco, pulled funding for the project. Verhoeven would continue to discuss it throughout the 1990s.

Verhoeven's 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. It won seven Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Film and Worst Director; Verhoeven became the first director to accept his award in person. To date, he is one of the few people to have accepted their Golden Raspberry awards in person, and the first to directly attend the ceremony to receive it. Showgirls enjoyed a large amount of success on the home video market, generating more than $100 million from video rentals, and became one of MGM's top twenty all-time bestsellers.

After Basic Instinct and Showgirls, Verhoeven returned to the science fiction genre, utilizing the graphic violence and special-effects tropes that had marked his earlier films, making Starship Troopers (1997), loosely based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein, as well as Hollow Man (2000). Each film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. He also served as an executive producer on an animated TV series called Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, which was based on the movie and novel of Starship Troopers. The series only ran for a single season, from August 1999 until April 2000.

Return to Europe (2006–2021) After about twenty 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 (2006). 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. Beast of Bataan had been announced, but once the shooting for Black Book resumed, the other film was not made.

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 psychological thriller in which 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, it was announced that filming of Benedetta, his next French film, would begin in August of the same year. It is a biopic about the life of Benedetta Carlini, 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, it was announced that Charlotte Rampling would play a key supporting role. The film premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in competition for the Palme d'Or.

Return to filmmaking in the United States (2022–present) Verhoeven is currently preparing his next film, Young Sinner, which reunites him with RoboCop screenwriter Edward Neumeier. An erotic political thriller, it is set in Washington DC and is about a "young staffer who works for a powerful Senator [and] is drawn into a web of international intrigue and danger". Verhoeven hoped to begin shooting Young Sinner in 2024.

Unrealized projects

Other activities Verhoeven was a member of the Jesus Seminar, and he was 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 potential motion picture about the life of Christ.

Personal life In 1967, Verhoeven married Martine Tours, with whom he has two daughters.

Filmography Feature film Year Title Director Writer 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 2016 Elle 2021 Benedetta

Executive producer Hollow Man 2 (2006)

Short film Year Title Director Writer Notes 1959 Cups of Coffee 1960 One Lizard Too Many 1961 Nothing Special 1962 The Hitchhikers 1963 Let's Have a Party 1965 The Marine Corps Documentary short 1971 The Wrestler 2012 Tricked Segment of Entertainment Experience

Television Director Year Title Notes 1969 Floris 12 episodes 1970 Portret van Anton Adriaan Mussert Documentary series 1981 All Things Pass TV movie 1986 The Hitchhiker Episode "Last Scene"

Executive producer Year Title Note 1999-2000 Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles 39 episodes

Awards and nominations

Film festivals