It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since the last Palu Verhoeven film, because work like Robocop and Starship Troopers continues to resonate in film fans’ minds. But after a decade and a half of glorious extravagance, the Dutch auteur needed to find himself again.
Paul Verhoeven on Film
“That was clear,” he joked. “I didn't feel that when I was doing Starship Troopers because I felt that I worked a lot on that script and had a great collaboration with Ed Neumeier who also wrote Robocop. So I felt I could do a lot of political things that were underneath, but with Hollow Man I felt that I'd crossed the line. Basically, it was a movie that anybody could have made. You cannot say that of Robocop. I felt that I was on the way to becoming this formula director basically and then doing Hollow Man 2 or 3 or Basic Instinct 2 or whatever 2, 3.”
Well, at least he said it and not me. After four years of looking for the right project, including a few political stories that just could not get funding, he began developing Black Book in 2004. Now that he’s shown what he can really do, Verhoeven expects to break back into Hollywood.
“I hope so. I live here. I live in the United States. In some way, I thought perhaps it's good or handy and will change the perception of my work that I'm only doing big science fiction action movies and that I can work with actors and basically it's not all bang-bang shoot-shoot. And that I can also work let's say with a budget like this about $21 million instead of the $100 million of Hollow Man and Starship Troopers which gave me partly a bad name I would say. And I was typecast also in it. I tried to get out of that with Basic Instinct but then closed the door with Showgirls. So then the only possibilities left for me were science fiction because they didn't trust me with anything else anymore but they still trusted me with science fiction. I hope that this will make clear to the Hollywood community that basically I can do other things than they thought, yes, sure. On the other hand, of course I want to make the movie. An additional value might be that, yeah, sure. But on the other hand, I don't want to wait to see if that works or doesn't work.”
Black Book
Black Book
Black Book
Black Book
Verhoeven has no hard feelings towards the industry. In fact, he credits Hollywood with improving his craft as a whole. “I learned from the United States the importance of narrative I would say. If you look at my Dutch movies, you will see that they are not driven very much by narrative. It's scenes that are correlated. If you look at one of the best, interesting European movies of the last 50 years which I think is Dolce Vita by Fellini or even 8 ½, it's all big scenes that have something to do with each other. Yes, there is a journalist that wants to be an artist but he ends up in the gutter but the scenes are much more important than the story. I think American movies are driven by narrative. Sometimes overdriven of course by narrative. Sometimes, the last couple of years, the narrative also has disappeared a little bit but I have always admired that, always thought it would be great to have a movie that you don't have to make a brilliant cut or a shocking cut to go to the next scene. If you look at Turkish Delight or whatever, you see that I make many cuts basically because there is no narrative and I have to make the audience wake up again.”
It’s also fun to play in a melting pot. “There are many advantages to be in one location where the industry is together and all the people are there and there's enormous talent. There's also a pleasure of course in the multiple ethnicities that are in the United States actor-wise, that it's not all white. There are many, many shades so I really like that from the beginning. I thought it was great to have all kinds of different actors from Asian or African-American or whatever, that you could use that and change the appearance. So that's all great and of course Los Angeles is a wonderful mixture of all kind of cultures and faces and all that stuff so I think that's all great. Then of course there is this whole industry that is absolutely magnificent. I mean, yeah, the industry is fantastic. There is so much talent in the United States. I'm not even talking about actors, of course that's clear too, but the crews are so specifically detailed. They can do everything you want basically and nothing is impossible.”
Black Book is out in theatres now.
For trailer, poster and more movie info, go to the Black Book
Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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