Movies - Paul Verhoeven

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	Movies - Paul Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven (born July 18, 1938) is a Dutch-born film director best known for his sometimes extremely violent science fiction films.

Early life and career

He was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In his childhood he lived in Slikkerveer and from 1943 in The Hague. They lived not far from a German military basis with V2-rocket launchers. His father Wim Verhoeven was a school teacher and his mother Nel van Schaardenburg was a hat maker. In 1960 he graduated from the University of Leiden with a double major in mathematics and physics.

In his last years at university he also attended the Dutch Film Academy. He entered the Dutch Navy as a conscript and it was in that service that he gained his first exposure to film, making documentaries. When he left the Navy, he took his skills into Dutch television. In the sixties he made several short films. His first major success was the 1969 Floris television series, starring Rutger Hauer. The concept of Floris was inspired by series like Ivanhoe
and Thierry La Fronde.

In 1967 he married with Martine Tours, with whom he has two daughters: Claudia (1972) and Heleen (1974).

Feature films

His first film was released in 1971, Wat Zien Ik? was not especially well received. But his first national success did not come until 1973 with Turkish Delight
, featuring Rutger Hauer. This film got an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1974. In 1999 the film received a Golden Calf for Best Dutch Film of the Century. Verhoeven built on his reputation and had an international success with his Golden Globe nominated film Soldier of Orange
. Verhoeven's film The Fourth Man
(1983) was a horror film starring Jeroen Krabbé and Renée Soutendijk. It was written by Gerard Soeteman from a novel by Gerard Reve.

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 opportunites 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 non S.F. but equally intense and provocative Basic Instinct
(1992), the top grossing film of the year. It received two Academy Awards nominations. Then he made the infamous NC-17 rated sex flop Showgirls
(1995), set in Las Vegas. After that he returned to the S.F., graphic violence, and special-effects that had marked his earlier films with Starship Troopers
, based on the noted & controversial S.F. novel by the same name, by Robert A. Heinlein (1997), and Hollow Man
(2000). Both films received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. Hollow Man had some negative publicity after the truth got out behind Sony's fake journalist David Manning.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Paul Verhoeven ]

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