The (Un)Hollow Man: Paul Verhoeven Discusses the Politics of Pulp
Interview By Xavier Mendik

Fritz Lang made a career out of it. Douglas Sirk changed the nature of authorship theory on the back of it. Now Paul Verhoeven has proven that he is the latest example of a European director who relocates to Hollywood in order to subvert the content and clichés of American genre cinema. For Sirk, it was the hyper-sensitised domain of melodrama that he manipulated as a way of commenting on the constraints and tensions within 1950s American society. For Verhoeven, it is the excesses of �male� genres such as science fiction and the erotic thriller that the director has parodied in order to send up male sexual identity and the American power-elite. The typical Verhoeven male finds himself in situations in which his sense of identity, sexuality and past, are profoundly undercut by either duplicitous individuals or corrupt social structures, as indicated in works such as RoboCop (1987) and Total Recall (1990).

In terms of his representations of sexual difference, Verhoeven�s women are repeatedly cast as vamps whose bonds with other females� function to exclude the depicted male hero from the domains of knowledge and sexual power. This frequently results in the theme of a vengeful Verhoeven woman whose pleasure is derived from subverting the dynamics of male power, sexual obsession and the voyeuristic desire to watch. While this trait was most famously demonstrated in Sharon Stone�s scene stealing �crotch shot� in Basic Instinct (1992), earlier Verhoeven films such as Flesh and Blood (1985) also feature women well equipped to dislodge patriarchal prowess. Here, Jennifer Jason-Leigh�s kidnapped heroine turns the tables on a potential rapist (Rutger Hauer) by gesturing her legs towards the anal penetration of her would be male assailant. As I.Q. Hunter recently noted in his contribution to the collection Unruly Pleasures: The Cult Film and its Critics, even lambasted films such as Show Girls (1995), reveal the Verhoeven woman as a sexual cynic, able to exploit masculine assumptions for self gain.

While Verhoeven�s recent sci-fi horror hybrid Hollow Man (2000) received mixed reviews, its relocation of the figure of the 'final girl' from the domain of horror to post-modern science fiction confirms the director as one of the most intelligent and challenging figures working within contemporary Hollywood. In this respect, Verhoeven can be seen as a distinctly �un-hollow� man, capable of fusing complex intellectual concerns within the remit of popular film.

In this exclusive interview with Cult Film Archive Director Xavier Mendik, Paul Verhoeven discusses the political underpinnings to his stateside pulp productions as well as revealing the early influences that moulded his life and career.

Xavier Mendik: There seems to be a longstanding tradition of European directors such as Douglas Sirk, who relocate to America and subvert existing Hollywood genre codes. Do you see yourself as part of that tradition?

Paul Verhoeven: I am sure that it is true, but I have not thought about it too much. For instance, there are directors whose work I know better than Douglas Sirk. I am much more aware of Billy Wilder, or Alfred Hitchcock�s work than say Sirk or Max Ophuls. I was aware of the fact that there were a lot of European directors in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s that tried to go to the United States and work. However what you found was that after the failure of one or two American movies they relocated back to Europe.

Were you worried that a similar fate would befall your Hollywood career?

When I came to the United States, I felt strongly that if I tried to do my own thing I would be on a fast track out of there! I had seen so many other European directors trying to do that and failing. So, I was more inclined from the beginning to go with the flow of what was happening.

Did the type of genre movies you were being offered ever worry you?

Well, when they offered me RoboCop, I was hesitant to do it, because after the kinds of films I had done in Europe, it seemed such a silly movie! The films I was used to making had been much more realistic, dealing with normality, people�s problems and situations. So in Europe I was always working more from reality, whereas RoboCop was of course completely fantastical.

The temptation must have surely been to alter the film along these European lines.

When I read the script for the film for the first time, I really did not think that the project was for me. But then my wife read it again after me and said I should look at it in a more open-minded way, because it is a film with multiple layers which I could see would allow me to bring in my own interests.

It is interesting that you have identified these layers to genre films like RoboCop. This must surely mean that genre movies are very easy to subvert?

Yes, I think that is true. In the case of RoboCop, some of these possibilities were already given in the script, unlike Starship Troopers (1997), where I was involved with the writing from the very beginning. So what I did with RoboCop was to emphasise, to push certain elements harder than perhaps an American director would have done. I had more pleasure in subverting some of the features of American culture as someone who had just arrived there. So I certainly saw some the idiotic aspects of this culture, most notably my feelings that television was so different and so banal from the type of European television I had been used to. I am not so sure I could do that so well anymore, after fifteen years of living there. I feel that I am now looking at the United States with more of an American eye than a European one.

As your career has progressed, your films appear to have increasingly displayed a very cynical attitude to American society and culture. Would you agree?

Yes, well I feel that it took me along time to decode what was going on. I think I understood much more about American society after reading Chomsky, that was what basically opened my eyes, and I have been reading Chomsky ever since! Before that I didn't get all of the paradigms, which is why I feel that although RoboCop is subversive, it is not as politically subversive as Starship Troopers, which I feel is a far more open attack on American society.

Does it bother you that many critics have attached an extreme right-wing reading to Starship Troopers?

That was mostly based on an article in The Washington Post, which was trying neutralise a film that was critical of the United States, by claiming it was fascist. It was that interpretation that was taken over in many of the other European newspapers, without having seen the movie. I noticed that more recently, when I did my tour with Hollow Man, that the perception of Starship Troopers had changed. People are now much more aware of what we had in mind than when the movie came out.

Moving from the social to the sexual, your films have often been misinterpreted as pandering to masculine desires. How do you feel about such readings?

I have never understood these interpretations. I mean, I could understand why people might think or see Starship Troopers as fascist, because it is clearly quoting from Triumph of the Will. So if the film is taken literally, I guess it would be possible to say that it somehow admires Adolf Hitler. But I have never understood why anyone would call me anti-feminine. Actually, I think that I portray the women in my films as very strong characters, even when they are evil.

What is odd about your women, is that they create these female groups that exclude and even feminise the male characters that surround them. Even a film like Basic Instinct, with its famous beaver shot seems to be manipulating, exposing and disempowering male sexual obsession.

That was clearly the intention of that scene, where she uses their desire to look as a weapon against them. So by showing them glimpses of her vagina, she effectively reduces these men to zero!

Beyond your depiction of woman, your work seems to be very much concerned with the homoerotic tensions in masculinity.

Well, it was always there in my Dutch movies, such as The Fourth Man (1983). So from my earliest work you can see that I have always discussed homosexuality. Even if you look at Basic Instinct, you will see that I portray homosexuality as a central part of society. What I did in that film was not to treat it as an issue, which would have been wrong, but rather I used it as a plot mechanism. I felt this was the best thing to do in order to make a pro-gay statement. I have always felt from growing up in Holland, with its tolerance of the gay community and then later working with so many cast and crew that were homosexual gave me a good perspective on this issue. Anyway, I actually think that we are all born bisexually and it is only really in adolescence that our sexual futures are decided.

Copyright © 2002 Xavier Mendik

I wish to offer my sincere thanks to Paul Verhoeven for all his interest and enthusiasm during our interview, as well as the staff at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film for arranging the interview.

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