There's an interesting Cafebabel.com 'snack' on the Dutch film director responsible for ‘Total Recall’, ‘Robocop’ and ‘Basic Instinct’ ...
Paul Verhoeven answers questions and talks about his latest movie, Black Book ('Zwartboek', 2006).
What is special about this Dutch director? Well, besides his enviable sense of timing, he has an acceptance of human beings that has allowed him to connect with many types of public, whilst acknowledging criticism at the same time. ‘It would be a lie to say that the world is full of decent people, because man will be man; nearly all of us lie at some point. There aren’t goodies and baddies in real life. This is the case with the Nazis in my last film. Over the years, a stereotype has developed of the German soldier whose only mission is to kill, kill, kill. It just wasn’t like that. There were also decent people who were not involved in all of that.’ As the words pour out of his mouth, his gaze is fixed on mine. His tone of voice, somewhere between the serious and the sarcastic, belongs to somebody who really believes what he is saying. He has convinced me.
4 comments:
I guess there are no easy answers, because although our lives can be so simple, we are incredibly complicated, and adapt to the things around us.
In some ways it great you cant put us in rigidly defined boxes, on the other hand we seem to be able to justify a larger number of responses to external influences.
Perhaps only trial by the masses, is the only way to ensure our "excesses" can be validated?
Trial by the masses ... hmmmm, are you sure? We'll have to talk of this one to see if I understood you but I immediately thought of smalltown NZ and what 'trial by the masses' means ... witch trials or the French revolution.
Having written that, did I understand you correctly?
Youre never online to chat these days Di. :)
I didnt mean a trial per-say. More like a trial by blogsphere where people can actually disagree or agree about any given point of view without being controlled by the thought police.
This internet is perhaps the last bastion of free speech. I hope it lasts.
Okay, blogosphere is good ... mostly. I like it and I think the weight of opinion stretches beyond the 'village mentality' that I fear ... the hysteria of emotions, crowd mentality ... all that stuff.
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