Paul Verhoeven has made an about face. The internationally acclaimed Dutch filmmaker, now a Tinseltown resident, is making his American debut with ”Robocop,” a dazzling futuristic fantasy-thriller about a creation that`s part man-part machine, a one-unit law enforcement army set in crime-infested Detroit.
This is decidedly not the kind of movie audiences have come to expect from the maker of such original, innovative films as ”Turkish Delight”
(1973), the Oscar-nominated treatise about sexual options; ”Soldier of Orange (1978), about the humorous yet courageous feats of Dutch students under the Occupation; ”Spetters” (1981), about working-class kids and their frustrations; and ”The 4th Man” (1983), a haunting fantasy about a homosexual writer, a witch, and the fickle finger of fate.
His last picture, ”Flesh and Blood” (1985), cast a harshly realistic look at the Middle Ages, drawing parallels between the cruelty and destruction of the time and our own epoch. Verhoeven, a youthful-looking 48-year-old, has long been a staunch advocate of realism, which he has championed over fantasy. And now comes ”RoboCop.”
” `Flesh and Blood” ` wasn`t well-received, especially here,” explains the director, ”and I myself felt constrained by the limits of realism, locked into a kind of precision. I needed to do something different. European films are considered too slow-paced for American audiences, and I wanted to prove I could do an action film that never lets go, something truly American.”
Indeed, the movie could be seen as a companion piece for ”Terminator,”
which Verhoeven admits having studied. ”I also watched `Rambo` and all of Spielberg`s films,” he says, ”to study the editing and pace. I was certainly influenced.”
He traces his interest in sci-fi to his youth in postwar Europe, where he was exposed to American B movies, often of the genre.
”When I got older, I became interested in `art` films, in the French New Wave, Fellini, and then I got back to what I liked in my youth. Sci-fi was something I could dream in. I realize it`s a kind of escapism, but it`s also an opportunity to do things on a mythological level, things you could never do in reality. Even pictures like `Star Wars` have such mythological elements, which I like–they seem possible either in the very ancient past or in the far future. Archetypal things are better expressed in sci-fi.”
But Verhoeven admits that ”RoboCop” appealed to him especially because of its exploration of the theme of death and resurrection. Murphy (Peter Weller) is a cop who is brutally murdered by drug dealers and is resurrected as the semi-mechanical hero of the title.
”I was very interested in the idea of losing your life and your soul and then finding them,” the filmmaker explains. ”It`s something that has been on my mind for the last 15 years.
”Five years ago, I had terrible nightmares; I dreamed I was dying, falling into a dark pit, finally realizing I was dead. My soul was still alive, but couldn`t connect with anything–I felt completely isolated, forever locked into myself. It was the ultimate portrayal of hell. I embodied these fears in the scene of Murphy`s death.
”At 24, I was very close to losing my grip on reality–I almost joined a religious cult: Pentecostal Christianity, which advocates Christ`s presence all around, and the ability to create miracles, to heal. At that time, I had such nightmares too, and I started to feel schizophrenic about reality. I felt subconscious powers were trying to take over my brain. This is partly why I`ve had to keep reality under control, not delve into fantasy too deeply.
”Maybe it had to do with the fact that I hold a Ph.D. in mathematics and physics. Maybe the mystical was my way of rebelling against the abstract nature of math. Anyway, now I feel I can handle it. In the 20 years that have passed since, I built a life based on reality, with a wife and children–the family is very good protection against the powers of the subconscious; it links you to reality. I tried to deal with that a bit in `The 4th Man.` I`m not afraid of it anymore. Now I could do a picture about a schizophrenic without becoming one myself.`
Verhoeven still considers himself ”a religious man, but not in a Christian or Eastern way, although the figure of Christ is of ultimate importance to me.” Which doesn`t mean his treatment of the subject is necessarily reverential. It certainly wasn`t in ”The 4th Man.”
”That film is about the coexistence of reality and fantasy,” he explains. ”There are two ideas–or levels–in it: One suggests that everything has a logical explanation and that the only perversion is in the mind of this alcoholic, homosexual writer. The other is that he is indeed right and the woman he encounters is a witch who gives all involved the evil eye.”
If ”RoboCop” has one exceedingly violent scene–the depiction of Murphy`s death had to be shortened by a few frames to avoid an X-rating–it`s ”because we`re talking about a futuristic situation in a city controlled by violence. The killing of Murphy had to be brutal. We see too little of him early in the film, and too little of his family, to make him someone you could empathize with.
”So his death had to be memorable. The scene portrays the worst of mankind, a nightmare of evil. The picture was built on that moment. You see, crucifixion and resurrection are closely intertwined–if crucifixion had been less harsh, or Christ`s death less painful, Christianity wouldn`t have existed. People would never have believed in all that had it been less cruel.”
Verhoeven doesn`t believe in holding back as far as sex is concerned, either. ”A lot of people came to me after `Turkish Delight` and thanked me for showing sex as fun and for showing some acts as acceptable,” he explains. ”I don`t always think sex has to do with love, but it`s OK as long as you can look into each other`s eyes. Most people close their eyes in sex and aren`t there anymore. Maybe I believe in being there.”
As to the recurring homosexual motif in his work, the director says he wishes to state that ”many people still feel that homosexuality isn`t normal, which is complete nonsense. I based the hero of `The 4th Man` on an uncle of mine who`s gay and has had a friend for 40 years. It`s the best marriage I`ve ever seen.”
Romance, however, is altogether absent from ”RoboCop.” Practically the only positive person in the movie is Officer Lewis, a policewoman (played by Nancy Allen). She`s the only one to befriend and support Murphy, not to mention being instrumental in helping him recapture his memory–and therefore human identity. But the two are pals, nothing more.
Says the filmmaker, ”I felt if we weren`t careful, we`d fall into a trap of having a robot with a woman and not being able to do something about it, sexually. We knew we had to avoid giving the audience reason to think of these two as potential lovers. They were partners. I asked Nancy Allen to be as non- glamorous, non-seductive as she could. She gained some weight for the part. She`s very good.”
More difficult was the casting of Murphy. For one, Verhoeven`s favorite actor (and discovery), Rutger Hauer, was out. ”We needed someone who was much slimmer, because the costume around him would have looked gigantic and out of proportion to the rest of picture. This excluded Schwarzenegger too.
”We needed someone athletic and nonclaustrophobic who could endure being in costume for 15 weeks without going crazy. Peter Weller was just right. He`s a marathon runner; he`s strong and knows what to do with his body. He`s a good actor who moves well. Just a good actor wouldn`t have been enough. Believe me, dealing with that costume was an ordeal.
”It arrived a couple of weeks late, when we were already in production, and Peter was extremely frustrated by having to perform in it immediately. In the first few days we had terrible fights. I didn`t understand what he was going through. He`d get on the set at 4 a.m. and it would be 4 p.m. when costume and makeup were through with him. But after a couple of man-to-man talks, we figured it out.
”In the beginning, I had to direct him a lot, because he couldn`t see himself in the mirror–he`s an Actors Studio man who wants a strong rapport with the director. But he had to trust me completely, which was difficult, he says.”
In fact, making the costume work was the biggest challenge for all involved. Although the director had a clear stylistic notion as to the way he wanted the film to look, the costume, which was made of chemically treated latex and fiberglass, had to look metallic. Not only did RoboCop have to appear as a solid unit, a man-machine combination rather than a man in a suit, but he had to look right.
”Usually,” says Verhoeven, ”this kind of creation is shot in half dark, to get rid of inconsistencies, to hide the deficiencies of costumes and special effects. The theory is to not give away too much. But my cinematographer Jost Vacano, who worked with me on two pictures and made `Das Boot,` wanted to make the costume as glittering as possible, so he used overhead fluorescent light, which is always reflected and mirrored.”
If the film`s look doesn`t correspond to the norms of the genre, its bleak view of the future isn`t shared by its director. ”I believe that the feeling for order in human nature is ultimately stronger than that for disorder,” he says. ”Nature includes the possibility of a paradise-like situation.
”I don`t think we`ll be able to build a robot who could perform a law and order function. I don`t think you could program a robot with all the complications a real cop faces. It`s not even something to hope for,” he says.
”But in a couple of million years perhaps, the human mind and body may merge with computer chips and then we`ll reach for immortality. If we haven`t destroyed ourselves by then–and I`m talking about a future as far away from now as the dinosaurs were back in the past–we`ll reach immortality by cloning and people will be like gods.”
