Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not always be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
While his most lambasted films are celebrated in retrospect, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven endured ridicule for a large chunk of his time in Hollywood. RoboCop and Total Recall emerged unscathed and have since become icons in the American pop culture stratosphere, yet his remaining English-language movies — Basic Instinct, Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man — all enjoyed their fair share of controversy or raillery. However, Paul Verhoeven was never a stranger to bad reviews; he left the Netherlands in 1985 because he could no longer get funding after his 1980 film Spetters was met with public outcry. Had it not been for the overwhelmingly negative response, though, Verhoeven might not have gone on to make one of the best movies of his career.
The auteur, who feels he was only appreciated by the Netherlands when it was beneficial to their image, turned reprimand into inspiration when making 1983’s The Fourth Man. Verhoeven and screenwriter Gerard Soeteman found their next project in Gerard Reve’s novella De vierde man, a story originally commissioned for Boekenweek but later rejected due to its subject matter. What was deemed too inappropriate for others was perfectly suitable for a director fascinated with religion, sex, and violence.
The Fourth Man begins with disturbed author Gerard Revé (Jeroen Krabbé) leaving Amsterdam to give a lecture to a literary society in Flushing. There he becomes entangled with the treasurer Christine Halsslag (Renée Soutendijk), a wealthy widow and cosmetologist. Their one-night stand eventually turns into a longer affair after Gerard is aroused by Christine’s other paramour, Herman (Thom Hoffman).
In 1984, New York Times critic Janet Maslin called The Fourth Man a “feature-length hallucination.” Her rundown refers to the incessantly dreamlike and uncertain atmosphere of a film stoked by the director’s ceaseless interest in religious themes and sexual violence. As it turns out, Verhoeven and Soeteman deliberately inserted excessive symbolism as a way to feign arthouseness and fool anyone who accused him of trivial filmmaking. All the same, the suggested imagery and themes within bear examination regardless of intent.
In light of the story’s ambiguity, audiences ask themselves if everything unfolding is authentic or not. After all, Gerard Revé — whose modified surname is the French word for “dream” — is a writer with a fertile imagination. He may not even realize he is using the breadth of his creativity to influence the twilight world around him and explain his tumultuous existence. Gerard’s reverie is potent all thanks to Verhoeven’s sly mise-en-scène and wordplay, and it accounts for simpler misconstructions like mistaking spilled tomato juice for blood or seeing his name in someone else’s funeral sash, but they do not clarify the film’s more severe events. By Occam’s razor, Gerard’s death drive is swayed by alcoholism rather than magic; he wakes up hungover and perhaps never completely sobers up. His intoxication only worsens after meeting Christine, seeing as she plies him with several stiff drinks in anticipation of their carnal encounter.
Verhoeven’s contentious opinion of Christianity plays out heavily in The Fourth Man. Postulating the religion and its denominations as a major symptom of mental illness, the director uses Gerard as a messenger for his train of thought. The film’s Roman Catholic protagonist argues his derided faith has a place in the modern world, and without it, there is no imagination to make science possible. As much as Gerard sees Catholicism as a benefit to his craft, he appears equally troubled by it. His intense and oftentimes morbid fantasies — like his ogling and undressing of an engorged Herman on the cross — are evidence of his complicated relationship with the church. At the same time, though, Verhoeven understands how religion is a source of comfort; Gerard’s is guided by a mysterious, blue-clad analog for the Virgin Mary (Geert de Jong).
Although Gerard’s sexual identity is not formally discussed in the film, he has on-screen relationships with men and women. Both dealings have their caveats; Gerard sees Herman as a mere plaything with no concern for his personality or feelings, whereas with Christine, he is emotionally compatible but physically impotent. Unmistakable chemistry, boyish hair, and androgynous allure are regretfully not enough when Gerard is intimate with Christine — until he covers her breasts with his hands and pictures her as male, he can neither perform nor climax. Meanwhile, Gerard has no discernible affection for men. The dark daydream at the movie’s start, showing Gerard strangling his nameless and apathetic boyfriend with a bra, coupled with his treatment of Herman, implies Gerard’s attraction to men is more sexual than emotional. Soon enough, that lust for young, male bodies is too compelling once Gerard discovers the strategically placed photo of a scantily clad Herman among Christine’s mail. He remembers seeing this strapping specimen back at the train station, where his aggressive and predatory mode of cruising was all for nought as Hoffman’s disinterested character walked away with his apparent heterosexuality still intact. Now, with his sights set on Herman, Gerard convinces Christine he can cure her other lover’s sexual shortcoming if she brings him to Flushing. What Gerard fails to realize is, he can just as easily be the prey.
Among other omens, Gerard’s fate is foreshadowed by obvious references to spiders; a widow spider captures three flies in her web in the opening credits, and the malfunctioned LED sign outside Christine’s salon spells “SPIN” until the other letters light up to reveal “SPHINX.” These and other ominous visual aids are crucial to the film’s foremost identity as a psychological thriller, and Jan de Bont’s cinematography is one reason why fans compare The Fourth Man to vintage giallo and Brian de Palma’s suspenseful output. There is also the notable usage of the femme fatale trope, which this movie decidedly subverts by refusing to punish the woman whose sexuality and autonomy threatens her fellow man. Gerard’s accusations are not baseless and may just be true, but seeing the designated seductress escape harsh judgment is a surprisingly progressive choice when remembering the less favorable denouements in similar narratives both older and newer.
The Fourth Man was partly made with Verhoeven’s detractors in mind; he targeted those who chastised Spetters for its representation of Dutch life and people. A confession like that might put off new viewers, or worse, encourage them to not take the film’s content seriously. On the contrary, though, the final movie in the director’s Dutch oeuvre (until 2006) is a remarkable, psychosexual thriller teeming with religious nuance. An oft overlooked case of Euro-horror like this is well deserving of its growing cult status among cineastes and academics.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3670973/basic-instinct-paul-verhoeven-explored-sexuality-femme-fatale-fourth-man-horrors-elsewhere/
No comments:
Post a Comment