Paul Verhoeven

Verhoeven made his first film A Lizzard Too Much for the anniversary of his students' corps in 1960.[8] 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 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.[5]

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

When he left the Navy, Verhoeven took his skills to 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.

Verhoeven's first feature film Business Is Business was released in 1971 and was not well received. His first national success came in 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 the passionate love story of an artist and a young liberal girl from a 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 again featured Hauer and van de Ven, but it would not match the success of Turkish Delight.

Paul Verhoeven (1983)

Verhoeven built on his reputation and achieved international success with his Golden Globe nominated film Soldier of Orange,[9] starring Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé. The film, based on a true story about the Dutch resistance in World War II, was 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 Verhoeven made the film Spetters with Renée Soutendijk and 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 Dutch writer Gerard Reve. This film would be Verhoeven's last Dutch film production until the 2006 film Black Book.

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 and Total Recall⁠—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 the equally intense and provocative Basic Instinct (1992), an erotic thriller. The ninth-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.[10]

During this time, Verhoeven also worked on creating an historical epic based around the Crusades that would have starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film entered pre-production in 1993, but a year later the studio backing the film (Carolco) pulled funding for the project. Verhoeven would continue to discuss the film throughout the 1990s.[11][12][13]

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. The film won seven Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Film and Worst Director; Verhoeven became the first director to accept his "award" in person.[14] Afterward, the film enjoyed success on the home video market, generating more than $100 million from video rentals[15] and became one of MGM's top 20 all-time bestsellers.[16]

After Basic Instinct and Showgirls, Verhoeven returned to the science fiction, graphic violence and special-effects tropes that had marked his earlier films with Starship Troopers (1997), loosely based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein,[17] and Hollow Man (2000). Each film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.

After about 20 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."[18] Black Book won six Golden Calves at this festival, including Best Director.[19] When the shooting of Black Book was delayed due to financial issues, there was speculation about a new production. The film Beast of Bataan had been announced, but once the shooting for Black Book resumed, the other film was not realized.

Verhoeven at press conference at Berlinale 2017

Verhoeven was knighted in the Order of the Netherlands Lion in 2007.[20]

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 psycho-thriller where 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.[21]

In April 2017, Benedetta, his next French film, was announced to begin filming in August of the same year.[22][23] It is a biographical film about the life of Benedetta Carlini, which will be 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.[24] In May 2018, Charlotte Rampling was announced to play a key supporting role.[25]