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Post by drystyx on Oct 9, 2020 2:06:18 GMT
It's hard to pick just one Verhoeven classic to be his master piece, but I give this one the slim edge over his other classic films.
A fascinating middle ages saga that doesn't just concern itself with the love triangle characters. Indeed, at about tenth billing, Verhoeven apparently allows Bruno Kirby to steal the show as a homosexual soldier. We see this with the dramatic, theatric, and pivotal scenes involving "Orbec", notably when he announces his own doom to a clap of thunder.
But all of the supporting characters are treated with an amount of dignity. Even a doomed soldier at the beginning shows quickness of hand in stealing a gold coin in flight from main character Martin, like Paul Blair snagging a fly ball.
Not to mention that the heroine is purposely shown to be the plainest Jane of the vagabond group, totally paled by the other three women in the group. A statement, quite obviously, on the inferiority of "blue blood" pedigree. Of course, this is a man's point of view. Women love the film for the very fact that the plain Jane is the underdog heroine.
I don't say that to discredit Leigh. She was "paled down" for the movie, and her body is still great.
While Orbec steals the show for the vagabond group of mercenaries, Blackwood steals the show for the side of the nobles, as a leader of the soldiers.
The mercenaries have a cardinal with them. The film never mentions why, but the fact is that cardinals in the middle ages had their bands of mercenaries. In the middle ages, cardinals were more like warlords than men of the cloth. The "church" really wasn't a "church". In fact, it was an estate that desperately tried to destroy the church and become an estate. The cardinal in this film goes back and forth from being "inspired" to being "mercenary", and attempts to rationalize his mercenary needs. Make no mistake, this mercenary band was hired by him, and when the noble refused to pay the mercenaries a "bonus", it meant a refusal to pay the cardinal a "bonus" as much as anything.
This film has the "in your face" approach that Verhoeven is famous for. Tarantino comes closest to using the "in your face" stark violent approach to directing. However, Tarantino uses it for satire. Verhoeven does it for art.
Motivation is high in this film. If you love credible characters in incredible circumstances, this is the middle ages film to watch.
FLEHS+BLOOD 10/10 and in my top 20 all time films.
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Post by dirtypillows on Oct 9, 2020 2:09:52 GMT
I have not seen FLESH+BLOOD, but maybe I should seek it out as I love Paul Verhoeven movies. "Turkish Delight", "Spetters" and "The Fourth Man" are my favorite PV films. "The Fourth Man" has one of the most homoerotically charged scenes I've ever come across. Intense!
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Post by politicidal on Oct 9, 2020 2:51:20 GMT
I have not seen FLESH+BLOOD, but maybe I should seek it out as I love Paul Verhoeven movies. "Turkish Delight", "Spetters" and "The Fourth Man" are my favorite PV films. "The Fourth Man" has one of the most homoerotically charged scenes I've ever come across. Intense! Flesh + Blood is amazing. I'd recommend it.
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Post by wmcclain on Oct 9, 2020 12:21:42 GMT
Flesh + Blood (1985), directed by Paul Verhoeven. When mercenaries, promised loot and pillage of a town they have taken, are betrayed by their captain they strike out on their own and become land pirates. They have their own women and a crazed omen-seeking Cardinal who makes them zealous but crazed religious bandits. I saw bits of this on cable long ago and remember it being really nasty. It still is, but is an odd combination of romantic action/adventure with filthy sadism and violent sexploitation. Verhoeven confessed a cynical outlook and intended an "apocalyptic" story. We're not cheering for anyone shown. Seeing the poster:  ...audiences were probably expecting a fantasy like Ladyhawke (1985) (Rutger Hauer again!) or Krull (1983), or maybe something slightly edgier like Excalibur (1981). Instead they got: - A stillborn baby, buried in a mud puddle.
- A nun, accidentally slashed in the skull with a sword, suffers seizures and convulsions thereafter.
- Young lovers having a meet-cute beneath the legs of rotting hanging men. They dig up the aphrodisiac mandrake root, which we are told grows from the final emission of a dying man.
- Kidnapping and gang-rape of the young woman...
- ...who has to pretend to enjoy it so she can ingratiate herself with the leader, surviving and biding her time.
- Appearance of the Plague, where a man hugs a child and unknowingly bursts a large pustule and smears the infected fluid on his face. ("That was too much", admitted the director).
- A dog laps up infected blood, sickens, is killed and dismembered and the pieces flung over over the castle wall and down a well to serve as an early bio-weapon.
- The young woman's betrothed is captured, chained like a dog and used for target practice.
(The film was much edited to get an R rating, so I don't know how much of the above was shown in the US theaters). And yet: we have Jennifer Jason Leigh (age 23) lovely when she's cleaned up and sporting with Rutger Hauer in the hot tub, surrounded by romantic candles. As always I am floored by the courage of actresses willing to give their all to these difficult roles, in this case scenes of rape and complete nudity. And as is often the case, I am conflicted. Erotic displays in film have their appeal but the violence and general nastiness of the context make it seem wrong and guilt-inducing. After all that, the film does turn into a over-the-top fantasy in the final act, with an impossible da Vinci-inspired siege engine, a statue of a saint that falls and stabs our crazed Cardinal, and lightning striking a tree and melting the iron chain of our young lover. (Verhoeven: "We lost the sense of reality there. Actually, we lost it in several places"). Rutger Hauer and Brion James are reunited from Blade Runner (1982). Also with a small part and slight nudity is Nancy Cartwright, later a voice actress well known for The Simpsons. Basil Poledouris score. Filmed in Spain. Available on DVD; not a very good image. This is the complete cut. When released in theaters a lot of nudity, violence and sexual violence had been removed to get an R rating. The director gives a non-stop commentary track. This was his first American picture and his fifth and last with Rutger Hauer. He says it took him a while to learn how to make American movies. That form requires clean heroes and happy endings. When making a European film he doesn't mind showing everyone as just plain bad, doing whatever Darwin or Nietzsche requires to survive. Orion Pictures put up most of the money and insisted on story changes, which may be the source of the inconsistent tone. For Verhoeven it was about the betrayed friendship between Rutger Hauer and his captain; the studio wanted a romantic triangle between Hauer, Leigh, and her betrothed. He had seen Leigh in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and tested her for the part, warning her about the extreme sex and violence, and he praises her for her courage and sense of adventure. She defended the film and objected to the theatrical cuts. 
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Post by dwightmachinehead on Oct 9, 2020 21:38:51 GMT
Apparently the original ending was darker.
I've only seen it once, it was good, I'll need to see watch it again.
Verhoeven has a really interesting filmography, I saw the 4th Man (1983), Elle (2016) and Soldier of Orange (1977) last year. If you like Verhoeven and haven't seen them, check them out.
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Post by petrolino on Oct 9, 2020 23:32:25 GMT
Awesome movie.
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Post by drystyx on Oct 10, 2020 0:09:16 GMT
Apparently the original ending was darker. I've only seen it once, it was good, I'll need to see watch it again. Verhoeven has a really interesting filmography, I saw the 4th Man (1983), Elle (2016) and Soldier of Orange (1977) last year. If you like Verhoeven and haven't seen them, check them out. I'm wondering how the original ending could have been darker? If you get a chance to look into that, and see the specifics, that would be great. I'll look, too, but I generally can't find anything.
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Post by dwightmachinehead on Oct 10, 2020 10:56:14 GMT
Apparently the original ending was darker. I've only seen it once, it was good, I'll need to see watch it again. Verhoeven has a really interesting filmography, I saw the 4th Man (1983), Elle (2016) and Soldier of Orange (1977) last year. If you like Verhoeven and haven't seen them, check them out. I'm wondering how the original ending could have been darker? If you get a chance to look into that, and see the specifics, that would be great. I'll look, too, but I generally can't find anything. In the blu ray booklet it said Rutger Hauer's character was supposed to die at the end but the studio objected. Yeah, check them out, he's a great director, I'm going to have to get Turkish Delight and Spetters next.
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Post by Prime etc. on Oct 10, 2020 19:36:48 GMT
Not interested in a rewatch--Bart Simpson in a sex scene was kind of jarring.
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Post by drystyx on Oct 10, 2020 20:28:48 GMT
I'm wondering how the original ending could have been darker? If you get a chance to look into that, and see the specifics, that would be great. I'll look, too, but I generally can't find anything. In the blu ray booklet it said Rutger Hauer's character was supposed to die at the end but the studio objected. Yeah, check them out, he's a great director, I'm going to have to get Turkish Delight and Spetters next. I'm not sure that makes the ending any happier, to salvage the man who deliberately exposed his followers to plague and by that murdered two of his most faithful followers, and who tried to murder a woman he had sex with. I'll admit he had likable qualities, and motivation for his evil acts, which is more than most movie villains have, and which makes this just a superior film, and Stephen was just as evil, with motivation. Most of the likable characters were killed in the end fight Kars, the homosexual soldiers . It was good to see the boy have a fighting chance at the end, and the gorgeous chick of the film, who drank poison water didn't seem to get the plague. Her character, in contrast to the other pretty girl (the boy's mother) presented flip sides of the same coin that were stunningly credible for the circumstances. It was these frequent shows of character, among the supporting characters, that made the film a classic.
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