Paul Verhoeven

<p>After a robust career in the Netherlands as the country’s most successful director Paul Verhoeven (b. 1938) built an impressive career in the United States with such controversial blockbusters as <em>RoboCop</em> <em>Total Recall</em> <em>Basic Instinct</em> <em>Starship Troopers</em> and <em>Showgirls</em> before returning home to direct 2006’s <em>Black Book</em>. After a recent stint as a reality television judge in the Netherlands Verhoeven returned to the big screen with his first feature film in a decade a highly anticipated French-language production <em>Elle</em> starring Isabelle Huppert.</p><p>Verhoeven who holds an advanced degree in mathematics and physics boasts a fascinating background. Traversing Hollywood the Dutch film industry and now French filmmaking the interviews in this volume reveal a complex often ambiguous figure as well as a director of immense talent.</p><p><em>Paul Verhoeven: Interviews</em> covers every phase of the director’s career beginning with six newly translated Dutch newspaper interviews dating back to 1968 and ending with a set of previously unpublished interviews dedicated to his most recent work. He experimented with crowd-sourced filmmaking for the television show <em>The Entertainment Experience</em> which resulted in the film <em>Tricked</em> as well as his latest feature <em>Elle</em>. Editor Margaret Barton-Fumo includes “Sex Cinema and Showgirls” a long out-of-print essay by Verhoeven on his most controversial film accompanied by pages of original storyboards from this and some of Verhoeven’s other films. Finally Barton-Fumo allots due attention to the director’s little-known lifelong fascination with the historical Jesus Christ. Verhoeven is the only non-theologian member of the exclusive Westar Institute and author of the book <em>Jesus of Nazareth</em>.</p>