The Fourth Man (1983)
(De Vierde Man)
Country: NL
Technical: col 102m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Jerome Krabbé, Renée Soutendijk, Thom Hoffman
Synopsis:
An alcoholic and hallucinating author journeys to a seaside town for a guest appearance and finds premonitions of death have their focus in an attractive and thrice-widowed beauty salon proprietor.
Review:
Pulsing with surrealist imagery and backed by a haunting modernist score, this literary adaptation put its director firmly onto the international map, and its star besides. It is part supernatural thriller, part knowing humour at the expense of the unbalanced and pretentious protagonist, with both actor and director giving periodic nods and winks to the discerning viewer. The frank erotic content and visceral outbursts of violence foreshadow later films in the Verhoeven oeuvre, particularly Basic Instinct (whose characters indeed seem to be based very much on Gerard and Christine here), but this remains its creator's best film.
(De Vierde Man)
Country: NL
Technical: col 102m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Jerome Krabbé, Renée Soutendijk, Thom Hoffman
Synopsis:
An alcoholic and hallucinating author journeys to a seaside town for a guest appearance and finds premonitions of death have their focus in an attractive and thrice-widowed beauty salon proprietor.
Review:
Pulsing with surrealist imagery and backed by a haunting modernist score, this literary adaptation put its director firmly onto the international map, and its star besides. It is part supernatural thriller, part knowing humour at the expense of the unbalanced and pretentious protagonist, with both actor and director giving periodic nods and winks to the discerning viewer. The frank erotic content and visceral outbursts of violence foreshadow later films in the Verhoeven oeuvre, particularly Basic Instinct (whose characters indeed seem to be based very much on Gerard and Christine here), but this remains its creator's best film.
(De Vierde Man)
Country: NL
Technical: col 102m
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Cast: Jerome Krabbé, Renée Soutendijk, Thom Hoffman
Synopsis:
An alcoholic and hallucinating author journeys to a seaside town for a guest appearance and finds premonitions of death have their focus in an attractive and thrice-widowed beauty salon proprietor.
Review:
Pulsing with surrealist imagery and backed by a haunting modernist score, this literary adaptation put its director firmly onto the international map, and its star besides. It is part supernatural thriller, part knowing humour at the expense of the unbalanced and pretentious protagonist, with both actor and director giving periodic nods and winks to the discerning viewer. The frank erotic content and visceral outbursts of violence foreshadow later films in the Verhoeven oeuvre, particularly Basic Instinct (whose characters indeed seem to be based very much on Gerard and Christine here), but this remains its creator's best film.