I've learned to appreciate Paul Verhoeven's films though I've never much liked them. I think of his style as characterized by an aggressive, harsh vulgarity. People's behaviors are crude and animalistic. Violence and gore are shown explicitly. Human bodies are fetishized, and often so in-your-face that they're rendered alien and grotesque. I still associate him with the 1980s because his boundary-pushing Hollywood efforts like "RoboCop" clearly left a mark on the filmmaking of that era - and not always for the better.
Before Verhoeven came to Hollywood, however, he was a notorious Dutch provocateur, making very sexually frank, uninhibited films that often attracted controversy. They were satirical, lurid, and frankly very culturally specific. I had a rough time connecting to his characters, who felt very remote and driven by forces that I didn't understand. The one exception was "The Fourth Man," the psychological thriller that Verhoeven made in 1983, which attracted wide acclaim, and would help to propel him toward larger, more ambitious films. "The Fourth Man" stands out from the rest of Verhoeven's early work, because it follows the familiar template of a mystery film. Verhoeven had to reign in some of his wilder impulses to get the plot to work, which also had the benefit of making the film more accessible.
However, that plot still features many of Verhoeven's favorite themes, exploring homosexuality, sexual obsessions, and a healthy dose of frustrated Catholicism. The hero becomes ensnared in the machinations of a black widow who murdered three of her former husbands. He's constantly having dreams and visions of impending doom. These dream sequences present the opportunity for Verhoeven to really indulge in stylized, surrealist imagery. He plays with bright colors and iconography to great effect. Memorably, there's the leading man's encounter with a life-size sexy Jesus on the crucifix, and a nightmare where the femme fatale cuts off his genetalia with a pair of scissors. The sex - and there's a lot of sex in this movie - always comes with a sense of danger and foreboding.
There's also a level of camp in the film that may or may not be intentional. The performance of leading man Jeroen Krabbe, especially when his character is supposed to be overcome with religious fervor, is so over-the-top that it's difficult to take the third act seriously. Verhoeven's images of death and gore are so obviously fake, the most violent moments are also the most silly. I don't know if Verhoeven intended to undercut and satirize common mystery film tropes, but the obvious artificiality and deliriously heightened tone of the film helped a lot in making his usual stylistic choices more palatable for me. "The Fourth Man" has a lot in common with Verhoeven's later sexual thriller "Basic Instinct," having a similar focus on trashy thrills and visceral sexuality. The character of Christine, played by Renee Soutendijk, is an obvious precursor to Sharon Stone's voracious Catherine Tramell, with her striking looks and predatory demeanor.
Verhoeven has said that the film is related to his "vision of religion," which is highly critical and skeptical. The hero is ultimately saved and perhaps redeemed by visions from the Virgin Mary, but it also puts him in the hospital, considered mentally ill, with his fate unknown. I think this is the reason why I managed to connect with this Verhoeven film, as wacky as it sometimes is. He gets his point across in a way that doesn't get overwhelmed by what he's doing stylistically, unlike the anti-fascist messages in "Starship Troopers" or the showbiz allegory of "Showgirls." Verhoeven's other explorations of religion, such as last year's "Benedetta," have been less successful.
When it comes down to it, I respect Paul Verhoeven for constantly pushing boundaries and taking risks in his films, but most of them are clearly not made for me. His aggressively masculine view of the world and prurient obsessions tend to leave me queasy. However, the fact that he hasn't lost an ounce of his nasty verve over the years, never allowing himself to become compromised, signals to me that he absolutely deserves the label of great director. And this post, to be honest, was long overdue.
What I've Seen - Paul Verhoeven
Turkish Delight (1973)
Soldier of Orange (1977)
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)
Elle (2016)
Benedetta (2021)
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