Titel Kino 2/2001(2 Alternativ) - German Films
Titel Kino 2/2001(2 Alternativ) - German Films
Titel Kino 2/2001(2 Alternativ) - German Films
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Michael Verhoeven (photo © Sentana Filmproduktion)<br />
Director’s Portrait Michael Verhoeven<br />
Michael Verhoeven was born in 1938 in Berlin, the son of <strong>German</strong> actor<br />
and director Paul Verhoeven and the actress Doris Kiesow, and is married to the<br />
actress Senta Berger. In the 50s, Verhoeven gathered experience as a cinema<br />
and theater actor. He then studied medicine and completed the state medical<br />
examination to become a qualified doctor. In 1967, one year after completing his<br />
medical studies, he directed his first feature film, Paarungen, an adaption of<br />
Strindberg’s Totentanz. Since then, he as continuously worked in film and television,<br />
and occasionally for the theater, as a screenwriter and director. He received his<br />
first <strong>German</strong> Film Award in 1971 for o.k. – the film that initiated the controversy in<br />
1970 at the Berlinale. He received further awards for The White Rose (Die<br />
weiße Rose, 1982), The Nasty Girl (Das schreckliche Mädchen,<br />
1989/90) and My Mother’s Courage (Mutters Courage, 1995/96),<br />
including a Silver Bear in Berlin for Best Direction, a New York Critics’ Award, and a<br />
Golden Globe and OSCAR nomination for The Nasty Girl. My Mother ’s<br />
Courage won the Bavarian Film Prize and the Award of the City of Jerusalem for<br />
Best Film. His most recent film Enthüllung einer Ehe (2000) won a FIPA<br />
D’ARGENT in the feature film section and a FIPA D'OR for Best Leading Actor at the<br />
FIPA television festival in Biarritz. Verhoeven is currently working an a new cinema<br />
project, a film adaptation of Laura Waco’s novel Von Zuhause wird nichts erzählt.<br />
Verhoeven is also one of the very few directors<br />
who began his career in the 60s and has been able to<br />
continually work up to today. In the meantime, he has<br />
made 13 films for the cinema and more than 20 for<br />
television. From the very beginning, he has had the<br />
courage to address uncomfortable topics and has proven<br />
a social conscience: ”With my work, it has always been<br />
important to me that political concerns become private<br />
ones, for the two cannot be separated.” As a result,<br />
such films as A Terrific Exit (Ein unheimlich<br />
starker Abgang, 1973) appeared, a passion play<br />
about a broken young woman, or MitGift (1975),<br />
a wicked satire about a murderous society with a<br />
superficial shine, or Killing Cars (1985), ”a green<br />
action thriller that came out too early because, at that<br />
time, no one gave any thought to whether or not other<br />
types of energy were more environmentally friendly.“<br />
Again and again, Michael Verhoeven looks for the<br />
critical analysis of National Socialism and its consequences:<br />
The White Rose, The Nasty Girl and My<br />
Mother’s Courage are but a few of his exceptional<br />
works.<br />
Often Verhoeven puts women in the foreground of<br />
his films: ”That probably has to do with my experience<br />
that in life, very often the women carry the burden. I<br />
don’t expect a film to change society, but I do believe<br />
that the sum of activities of individuals can make a difference.<br />
A film can only be a building block.“<br />
Hans-Günther Pflaum spoke to Michael Verhoeven<br />
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