Word: dutchness
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...TIME: Black Book takes you back almost to your beginnings in film. How do you compare it with Soldier of Orange, which is also about the Dutch during WWII...
...Verhoeven: There's a big difference in that the tone of Soldier of Orange is less shadowy and dark than Black Book; the attitudes of the Dutch are clearly less positive than what we showed in Soldier of Orange in 1977. The darker material we found at that time was useless to us then. But Gerard Soeteman, who wrote both films, and I were fascinated by it, and put it to the side. It was only in 2001 that Gerard solved the script...
...That's based on historical reality, but it's only in the last 20 years that young academics began looking into the archives and finding things that had never been put forward before. The fact that the Dutch embraced Black Book must mean that they are now quite aware that all these beautiful stories about the resistance were only partially true...
...they are. They were put in prisons all over the country, and in the archives I found how the Dutch had treated these people and I was shocked by that, and it never left me. It was always something that I felt that some day should be expressed in a movie, where the protagonists would be more in danger after liberation than before...
...adrenaline that you need to do these acts of resistance might also push you to be very candid and straightforward sexually. My interest in sexuality is well-known, but here I was supported by historical fact. The character of the girl, Ellis, is based on three Dutch women, one of whom was asked by the resistance to start an affair with a German officer, and did so, and then fell in love with him. So that was basically the start of the whole story. Then, of course, her sexuality was transformed into what you would call love...