The most recent issue of Stop Smiling, “20 Interviews,” contains an interview with the Dutch film director Paul Verhoeven in which he discusses Ingmar Bergman, perceptions of America abroad, and “torture porn” in cinema. The part that made it into the magazine was a condensed version of a longer interview, and the rest of it was recently posted on YouTube.

Verhoeven is a hugely successful director whose career spans more than 40 years. Some of his most recognizable films are RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers, and his most recent work, Black Book.

Despite his success, Verhoeven describes filmmaking as a sort of torture — just watching parts of this interview, you’d think it was Verhoeven who tried to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, not Terry Gilliam. Because of money and time constraints that are inherent to filmmaking, “you are basically enslaved in a machine” he says, “where you have to function as the main key, the main motor…it’s the life of a slave.”

The basic gist of the first two clips: Filmmaking will kick your ass. Take, for example Verhoeven’s response to a question about what sort of advice he’d give young filmmakers:

“The advice I would give anybody is, be in good physical health, because it’s heavy and you are not really prepared, I think, as a director. All preparation — everything you have done before — is nothing in comparison to shooting a movie.”

It’s not all about the difficulties of filmmaking though; Verhoeven also talks about Black Book, torture, and his experiences living in the Netherlands during the Second World War. The interview is edited into five parts, all of which are available on YouTube (the 2nd is below).

Photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall