Dutchman's Breaches - Interview

You know that scene in Starship Troopers with the little kids stomping on the tiny insects? And then their mother starts applauding them, screaming ecstatically. (Laughs.) I mean, that's an expression of the idiotic ideas that go with liking to fight, right? And loving destruction. But it's something of a commentary on myself, too. Saying how crazy it is to think that way.

It's the same way I'm fascinated with religion. As you may know, I'm working on a movie about Jesus. And basically it asks, How can millions and millions of people, for two thousand years-- year m, year out--how can they all believe this and have this, say, this "light psychosis"? It's taken me fifty years of studying even to figure out what I can say that's really different enough to be said. Not to antagonize people--it'll do that anyway--but to say something I believe is true. I mean, it's difficult to find the truth in this story. And, of course, to the postmodern mind truth isn't much of an existing particle anymore anyway. For me the question remains, What do I think really happened there, two thousand years ago? And that's the issue of the movie.

BD: But it's not going to be in ancient Aramaic?

PV: No, that would be too truthful. (Laughs.) Then nobody would want to see it.

BD: So when is the record going to be set straight about Starship Troopers?

PV: I don't know. In retrospect, you could argue that we should have cared about the audience much more--from a commercial point of view. But I didn't, unfortunately.

DR: But from an artistic point of view, who cares?

PV: Yes. But from a commercial point of view--well, we spent a lot of money on that movie.

BD: It's doing well on DVD.

PV: Yes, but it'll probably take the studio twenty years to get their money back.

DR: So it was too much of an art film?

PV: Right. That's lust what [creature effects supervisor] Phil Tippett said to me. He said, "Paul, this is once in a lifetime. Never again will you be able to spend $100 million on an art film."

DR: Showgirls [1995] was something of an art film--

PV: Yeah, but it didn't cost $100 million. (Laughs.) It was much cheaper. But yes, Showgirls was just so negative and so cynical about American society, reducing everything to opportunism. Almost everyone in it was bad, and it was expressed in the most vulgar--or let's say, the most realistic--way. I mean, the ironic thing is that Showgirls is the most realistic movie I've ever made in the United States. It's all based on months and months of interviews with chorus girls, choreographers, producers, and theater owners--and that's really the way they are. Even the singer who rapes the girl at the end--that was also based on things that had really happened and were covered up by the police because it's Vegas.

The same thing happened with Spetters [1980]. That film was also based on interviews and articles. We gathered material for a couple of years to get those characters exactly right. And then everybody in Holland was completely upset when Spetters came out. They said, "This doesn't happen in our society, this male-rape stuff." But it was all from news stories that we'd just gathered and put together.