Born in Berlin in 1938 and
trained for a career in
medicine, Verhoeven
developed a unique voice
in post-war Germany. While some denied and others chose to forget, Verhoeven risked popular opinion by daring to tell the truth. He was the first West German director to raise the issues of German resistance against the Nazis in The White Rose, and how modern-day citizens are repressing the truth in The Nasty Girl.
Verhoeven completed his trilogy by telling the miraculous and true story of how one woman saved herself from deportation in My Mother's Courage. While the 50th anniversary of the fall of Hitler was marked with messages of healing between Germans and Jews, Daniel Goldhagen's recently published book, Hitler's Willing Executioners emphasizes the complicity of ordinary Germans with the war. By contrast, Verhoeven tells the little known stories of resistance and of modern-day Germans seeking a relationship with the past.
- San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
©Miramax Films
The Nasty Girl
Germany, 1990, 92 Minutes
German with English Subtitles
Directed By Michael VerhoevenPublic Exhibition 35MM, 16MM, Beta Rental Available
AWARDS
BEST FOREIGN FILM NOMINATION Academy Awards (US)
Based on the true story of Ann Elisabeth Rosmus, Michael Verhoeven's award-winning black comedy uses sharp wit and an intriguing post-modern style to explore a serious subject: Germany's Nazi past. A determined student (Lena Stolze) is dubbed "The Nasty Girl" when she embarks on an investigation of her hometown's secret shame. She sets out to write an essay title "My Town During the Third Reich," and outraged local citizens, intent on preserving their version of history, go to violent lengths to stop her from exposing the truth.
The White Rose
West Germany, 1982, 110 Minutes
German with English Subtitles
Directed By Michael Verhoeven
Public Exhibition 35MM and Beta Rental Also Available
Lena Stolze (The Nasty Girl) stars in this acclaimed feature based on the true story of five German students and their professor who formed a secret society dedicated to protesting the Nazi regime. Known collectively as the "White Rose", the Munich-based group distributed anti-Hitler literature in a resistance effort which cost them their lives. Initially, the German government refused to allow the film to be shown abroad due to an epilogue which pointedly observed that the legal judgment condemning the White Rose society had never been rescinded. Ultimately, the political controversy surrounding Verhoeven's film directly caused the German government to officially invalidate the Nazi "People's Court" system that sentenced the group to death.
- Newhouse Newspapers
- The Village Voice
- Janet Maslin, New York Times
My Mother's Courage
Germany/ UK/ Austria/ Ireland, 1995, 92 Minutes
German with English Subtitles
Directed By Michael Verhoeven
Public Exhibition 35MM and Beta Rental Also Available
From Michael Verhoeven comes this stunning cinematic version of Hungarian author George Tabori's play and novel. Shifting between Nazi-occupied Budapest and present-day Berlin, the film artfully depicts the true story of what happened to Tabori's mother Elsa on a summer's day in 1944.
Pauline Collins' stellar performance as Elsa, plucked from her everyday life and thrown into the surreal nightmare of mass deportation, affords an extraordinary account of one individual's escape from death juxtaposed with that of the millions who did not survive. Verhoeven's skillful adaptation of Tabori's satirical, dark tale about fate and human cruelty forges new ground in cinematic portrayals of the Holocaust.
-J. Hoberman, Village Voice
- Stanley Kaufmann, New Republic
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