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Michael Verhoeven

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Michael Verhoeven
Verhoeven in 2009
Born(1938-07-13)13 July 1938
Berlin,Germany
Died22 April 2024(2024-04-22)(aged 85)
Munich,Bavaria,Germany
Occupation(s)Film director, screenwriter, producer
Years active1967–2024
Spouse
​
​
(m.1966)​
Children2;Simon Verhoeven,Luca Verhoeven
Parent
RelativesLis Verhoeven(sister), Mario Adorf(ex-brother-in-law)

Michael Alexander Verhoeven(13 July 1938 – 22 April 2024) was a German film director, screenwriter, film and television producer, and actor. He was also a qualifieddoctor of medicine.He was considered a political filmmaker.[1]

Biography[edit]

Michael Verhoeven stemed from a theatre and film family, the son of the German film directorPaul Verhoeven(1901–1975) and actressDoris Kiesow(1902–1973).

Michael Verhoeven married Austrian actressSenta Bergerin 1966 and stayed with her until his death in 2024 – in what is considered one of the longest-running scandal-free marriages inshow business.Their sons are screenwriter/director/actorSimon Verhoeven(born 1972) and producer/actorLuca Verhoeven(born 1979). Verhoeven and Berger met at the Berlinale in 1960 and played together in front of the camera in the 1963 filmJack and Jenny,where he was supposed to kiss her in one scene. The two fell in love during filming. The couple had two sons,Simon Vincent(born 1972) andLuca Paul(born 1979). The children followed in their parents' footsteps: Simon Verhoeven is a director and screenwriter, whereas Luca Verhoeven is a producer. Both sons started out as actors and also work in the family businessSentana Filmproduktion.

Verhoeven died after a short and serious illness in the presence of his family at hisGrünwaldhome, on 22 April 2024. He was 85.[2]

Career[edit]

Michael Verhoeven began his career as an artist as a nine-year-old in plays (including a stage adaptation ofPünktchen und Antonbased on the novel byErich Kästner,a friend of the family) and subsequently appeared in films in the 1950s (such as Kästner'sThe Flying Classroom,The Juvenile JudgeandThe CrammerwithHeinz Rühmann). He directed his first play at theTübingen Zimmertheaterin 1962.[3]

As a young adult, however, Verhoeven decided to studymedicineagainst the wishes of his parents, who encouraged him to continue his acting career. He obtained his doctorate in 1969 with a thesis on psychiatric masking ofbrain tumorswith special consideration of misleading findings and worked as a doctor for several years – including in the USA, where he had followed his wife Senta Berger, who was acting inHollywoodfilms in the 1960s alongside stars likeCharlton Heston,Dean Martin,Frank Sinatra,Richard Widmark,John Wayne,Kirk Douglas,andYul Brynner.

Back in Munich in 1965, he founded Sentana Filmproduktion together with his wife and began directing films – starting withThe Dance of Deathbased onAugust Strindberg'splay of the same name.[4]He followed up with two frolickysixtieslifestyle comediesUp the Establishmentwith Mario Adorf andGila von Weiterhausenin the leading roles (1968),[5]andStudent of the Bedroom(1969), both produced byRob Houwer.

Verhoeven's political and experimental 1970 anti-Vietnam Warfilmo.k.was entered into the20th Berlin International Film Festival,but led to a scandal[6]that forced the collapse of the festival without the awarding of any prizes:[7]The then jury presidentGeorge Stevensfelt offended and threatened to remove the experimental film from the program because of its supposed anti-American invective.[8]The Berlinale regulations were subsequently reformed. Later that yearo.k.went on to win theGerman Film Award in Gold.For its 50th anniversary,MoMAconducted a special screening in 2021.[9]

In the 1970s, Verhoeven worked increasingly for television, including directing one of the first episodes of Germany's longest runningcrime proceduralseriesTatort(for which he would direct another episode 33 years later in 2005). After becoming a father for the first time in 1972, he wrote and directed the anarchic children's seriesKrempoliin 1975, in which he played a smaller part and also cast his father Paul Verhoeven and his sister Lis Verhoeven alongside Senta Berger. In 1980, he made the television filmDie UrsachewithOtto Sander.In the same year his theatrical releaseSunday Children(Sonntagskinder)got screened at theCannes Film Festivalin 1980.

In 1982, he wrote, directed and co-produced the story of the resistance fighters against the Nazi regime, the siblingsHans and Sophie Scholl,inDie weiße Rose(The White Rose). TheGerman Foreign Officebanned official screenings abroad when Verhoeven refused to remove a critical commentary from the credits. The film won Silver at the German Film Awards. Based on the true story essay book “A Case of Resistance and Persecution, Passau 1933-39,” byAnja Romus,he wrote and directedThe Nasty Girl(Das schreckliche Mädchen) in 1990, which won theSilver Bearfor Best Director at the40th Berlinale,theBAFTAforBest Foreign Language Film,Best Foreign Language Film at the56th New York Film Critics Circle Award,and gained anOscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Filmat the63rd Academy Awards.These two films cemented his international reputation as an important political voice in European film. Along with his adaptation ofGeorge Tabori'smemoireMy Mother's Courage[de](with music by his son Simon Verhoeven who also played a supporting part), and the documentaryDer unbekannte Soldat(The Unknown Soldier), Verhoeven was praised for his relentless examination of theNazi regime in Germanyand its aftermath.

PromotingThe Nasty Girlin the US in 1990, Verhoeven explained his interest in rememberence culture or rather the lack thereof: “The danger is that we will really forget. But we are very rich right now, and it could happen that we become not quite so rich. Many social problems will show up with the so-called reunification, and with the social problems it could be that Germans again look for enemies. This is what I am scared of. We know so little about Eastern Germany, and the eastern people also don’t know too much about our history. What they were told in school is even more wrong than what we were told.”[10]

In 1992, he became a member of the jury at the42nd Berlin International Film Festival.[11]

Verhoeven became a professor at theFilmakademie Baden-WürttemberginLudwigsburgin the 1990s, passing on his knowledge to the next generation of filmmakers. For decades, Verhoeven also ran movie theaters in Berlin: theToniat Antonplatz and theOlympia FilmtheaterinPrenzlauer Berguntil he sold the properties in the late 2010s.

In 2000, Verhoeven wrote and directed the controversial television filmEnthüllung einer Ehe(Uncover of a Marriage),which deals with the then still taboo subject oftransgender identity,for which he won theRobert Geisendörfer Preis,as well as twoFIPA Awardsat theInternational Festival of Audiovisual Programmes[12]inBiarritz.

Together with wife Senta Berger he was awarded theFederal Cross of Meritin 1999 as well as theBavarian Order of Meritin 2002. In 2005, Verhoeven received theMarion Samuel Prize,which honors particularly effective ways of combating the forgetting, suppression and relativization of the crimes committed by Germans during the Nazi era.[13]In 2006 he got an Honorary Lifetime Award from theBavarian Film Awards.[14]

In 2000, Verhoeven made his first documentary:Der Fall Liebl–Ein Bayer in Togo,about a late repatriate who was unfamiliar with German bureaucracy and was threatened with deportation. In 2006, after seven years of work, his second documentaryThe Unknown Soldierabout reactions to theWehrmacht exhibitionwas released. In his 2008 documentaryHuman Failure(Menschliches Versagen), Verhoeven dealt with the question of the extent to which the German civil population profited from the confiscation of Jewish assets during the Nazi era. The film was screened at theJerusalem Film Festival.[15]In his 2011 documentaryThe Second Execution of Romell Broom(Die zweite Hinrichtung – Amerika und die Todesstrafe), made in collaboration withBayerischer Rundfunk,Verhoeven took on the subject ofCapital punishment,following the death sentence forRomell Broom,found guilty for rape and murder, and his execution on September 15, 2009 inLucasville, Ohio,which failed 18 times and was finally aborted.[16]

However, Verhoeven was no stranger to light entertainment, most notably with his 1989 - 2002 television seriesDie schnelle Gerdi(Fast Gerdi) which starred Senta Berger as a smart and self-reliant Munich cab driver.

Verhoeven was one of the founding members of theDeutsche Filmakademie(German Film Academy, an organisation akin to theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) in 2003.

His last directorial and screenwriting work,Let's go!,was adapted in 2014 from the autobiographical novelVon Zuhause wird nichts erzähltby Laura Waco about her Jewish family in post-war Munich.

In 2015, Verhoeven co-producedWelcome to Germany(Willkommen bei den Hartmanns) written, directed and co-producted by son Simon Verhoeven, in which Senta Berger played the leading role. This sharp-tongued comedy about the2015 refugee crisisbecame the most successful German cinema film of the year (3.8 million viewers) and won the German Film Award, the Bavarian Film Award for Best Production as well as the Audience Award, thePeace Prize of German Film,theGoldene Leinwand,and theBambi Award,among others.

Awards[edit]

Selected filmography[edit]

Director[edit]

Film

Television

Documentary and short films

  • Tische(1970)
  • Bonbons(1971)
  • Coiffeur(1973)
  • Liebe Melanie(1983) – film aboutMelanie Horeschowsky
  • Das Mädchen und die Stadt oder: Wie es wirklich war(1990)
  • The Legend of Mrs. Goldman and the Almighty God(1996) – withGeorge Tabori
  • George Tabori – Theater ist Leben(1998) – film aboutGeorge Tabori
  • Der Fall Liebl(2001)
  • Die kleine Schwester – Die weiße Rose: Ein Vermächtnis(2002)
  • Der unbekannte Soldat(The Unknown Soldier,2006)
  • Menschliches Versagen(Human Failure,2008)
  • The Second Execution of Romell Broom(2012)

Producer[edit]

Actor[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Press, Scott Roxborough,The Associated; Roxborough, Scott; Press, The Associated (14 December 2006)."Verhoeven tapped for lifetime nod".The Hollywood Reporter.Retrieved10 May2024.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^krone.at (28 April 2024)."Senta Berger:" Michael was my life "".Kronen Zeitung.Retrieved10 May2024.
  3. ^"On the death of filmmaker Michael Verhoeven".Retrieved10 May2024.
  4. ^"German director Michael Verhoeven turns 80 – DW – 07/13/2018".dw.Retrieved10 May2024.
  5. ^"Up the Establishment! (1969)".The A.V. Club.Retrieved10 May2024.
  6. ^"20th Berlin International Film Festival".berlinale.de.Retrieved10 May2024.
  7. ^"Berlinale: 1970 Prize Winners".berlinale.de.Retrieved7 March2010.
  8. ^"On the death of filmmaker Michael Verhoeven".Retrieved10 May2024.
  9. ^"MoMA Presents Michael Verhoeven's O.K."7–21 January 2021.
  10. ^Weinstein, Steve (1 November 1990)."Filmmaker Forces a Hard Look Back: Movies: Director Michael Verhoeven uncovers secrets buried in Germany's past".Los Angeles Times.Retrieved10 May2024.
  11. ^"Berlinale: 1992 Juries".berlinale.de.Retrieved27 March2011.
  12. ^"Michael Verhoeven".jewishfilm.org.Retrieved10 May2024.
  13. ^"Marion Samuel Prize".Marion Samuel Prize.25 August 2007.Retrieved10 May2024.
  14. ^Press, Scott Roxborough,The Associated; Roxborough, Scott; Press, The Associated (14 December 2006)."Verhoeven tapped for lifetime nod".The Hollywood Reporter.Retrieved10 May2024.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ^Klein, Uri (15 July 2009)."Reconciling with the past".Haaretz.Retrieved10 May2024.
  16. ^"REVIEW: The Second Execution of Romell Broom @ CIFF | CoolCleveland".coolcleveland.Retrieved10 May2024.
  17. ^"Berlinale: 1990 Prize Winners".berlinale.de.Retrieved20 March2011.
  18. ^Bayerischer Filmpreis – "Pierrot"Archived25 March 2009 at theWayback Machine
  19. ^Ministerpräsident Stoiber verleiht Bayerischen Filmpreis 2006Archived9 February 2012 at theWayback Machine,press release(in German)

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Verhoeven&oldid=1234284659"