I remember back in the day when we used to pit Lissener it meant something!
It’s just sad to see how low the bar has dropped.
(trying to salvage something)
Lissener:
Never really having participated in the Veerhoven threads (but having seen much about them in the pit) I was inspired to kind of do a Veerhoven evolution through Netflix. I usually watch a couple of movies a week while on the treadmill. Over the last few months I watched Flesh and Blood, Basic Instinct, Robocop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall, and Showgirls.
I find many entertaining qualities in these films. They are thought provoking for the most part and tend to stick in your mind a little bit longer than they otherwise might based strictly on their subject matter. I thought about this and considered what I liked and didn’t like. Oddly, this turned out to be the same thing. Veerhoven is a subtle satirist in a kind of european tradittion. I sense that he doesn’t necessarily respect his subject matter, and I sense that he is also making an elaborate insult at his audience. One may watch a Robocop or Starship Troopers and not realize that one’s own sensibilities and tittilations are the butt of the joke. That’s ok. I suppose you are allowed to make fun of the audience. What I don’t like though is that it seems like he doesn’t respect or even fully understand his own characters. For example, Starship Troopers works if taken at face value. It succeeds in spite of itself. Robocop does much the same thing. This flaw is most pronounced and obvious in a junior effort like Flesh and Blood which kind of highlights in own flaws and doesn’t work on much of any level **except for looking at tits.[.b]
I think it’s well-hidden in Basic Instinct which takes a little while to sink in. This film works as an effective commentary and satire because it does take its characters seriously. Rico and his Federation buddies gain a lot of their sympathy and credibility because you kind of sense there is somebody that doesn’t think much of them, pushing them around cruelly and toying with them for their own amusement. It takes a while to realize that the person doing this isn’t in the Federation and isn’t a bug, it’s the Director. This unfair treatment is what makes them and their film succeed at face value. Same with Robocop. Basic Instinct is character driven, and you don’t have this artificial outside influence throwing them around. They create their own parody themselves. That’s why that works.
Showgirls looks to me like a return to earlier form, but much worse. Not only does Veerhoven have no respect for his characters it seems to me like he did the same thing to his star actress, Berkely. Not only is her character treated cruelly. She is, herself as an actress. Having seen her in Saved by the Bell I can’t help but wince about how Veerhoven seems to be taking advantage of her and directing her in poor faith. It appears to me that he’s directing her in one fashion and seeking a sincere if over the top (overracting is usually the director’s fault) performance and ownership in her character, while kind of doing a wink wink nod nod to the audience, an “isn’t this pathetic.” Ultimately Berkely mirrors her own character by trusting the wrong people i.e. the director to do the right thing.
That’s my inspired by Lissener to watch a bunch of movies analysis of Veerhoven.
Now in all this time you’ve been a fan of this director, I’ve never actually read what your thoughts were. Those are mine. I think he’s worthy and interesting, and I’ll watch and think about what he does, but I don’t really “like” him, as I feel like his films aren’t really done in good faith. You can’t “trust” them.
Maybe this is a naive conceit or complaint as insisting on a faithful director is probably as fallacious as insisting on a faithful, and reliable narrator in a book. A lot can be done with an unreliable narrator. Even taking that into account, I can’t help but be left with the idea that Veerhoven is “cheating” or not playing fire with his audience and characters. This is much of the fascination and value and I’m sure a lot of it is clearly deliberate, but I still feel unhappy with the effect.