The Fourth Man (De Vierde Man)

Deep solo dive into Paul Verhoeven's 1983 Dutch masterpiece "The Fourth Man" (De vierde man), arguably his best film from his Dutch era! This psychological erotic thriller, adapted from Gerard Reve's provocative novel, blends surrealism, Catholic iconography (Mary, Jesus, spiders, Delilah/Sphinx), homoeroticism, unreliable narration, and gory horror. We explore the story of alcoholic bisexual writer Gerard Reve (Jeroen Krabbé) who suspects seductive widow Christine (Renée Soutendijk) is a black widow killer targeting him as her fourth victim , or is it all in his mad, guiltridden head?

Tying into Verhoeven's real life "cancellation" in the Netherlands (post-Spetters backlash, funding denials, cultural jealousy/"act normal" mentality, producer Rob Houwer feuds), how this film was his defiant triumph, previews Basic Instinct (film noir remake), and showcases Jan de Bont's stunning cinematography. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for good reason, surreal visions, blood drenched symbolism, and ambiguity that leaves you questioning reality!

Spoiler-heavy scene by scene analysis included. If you're into Verhoeven, erotic thrillers, Dutch cinema, or psychological horror, this is for you. Let me know your thoughts, is this his best Dutch film?

Creators and Guests

Host

Sicco

What is The Director's Chair Network?

Join Ryan and many featured guests and other hosts as they break down and review a variety of directors and their films!
So far, this podcast has featured films from Edward Zwick, John Hughes, Brian De Palma, and Michael Mann.
Soon, we will feature Edgar Wright, Sam Peckinpah, Paul Verhoeven, and David Fincher!

0:19
Welcome back to the director's chair featuring Paul Ferhovven. Today we will be covering arguably his best Dutch
0:26
movie, 1983's The Fourth Man, or as they say in Dutch,
0:31
Demon, produced by Rob Hower, a producer of German cinema, most famously most
0:38
notable for the movie M tolak or when it was re-released in English, Degree of
0:45
Murder, received a palm door nomination. Rob Hower worked for four almost five
0:52
decades. Rob and Paul would work together for many of his projects throughout the 70s and this one in the
1:00
early 80s directed as I said by Paul Verhovven. Uh the story is done by and
1:07
the uh regular screenplay writer um cole
1:12
screenplay writer Kimon. Cinematography done by Yon Deont, longtime
1:18
cameraman of Paul Verhovven and later Hollywood director of Speed and Twister.
1:25
The score is done by Luke Dicker, a 60s jazz musician turned composer, another
1:31
one who worked for four or five decades. This film stars Yiru Cab. You will know
1:36
him from his role in The Fugitive amongst others. It stars Renee Sundike,
1:42
the lead actress of Paul Verhovven Spatters, and she was in the American production Eve of Destruction. Third
1:48
lead is Tom Hoffman, who would uh star in another uh of stories called The
1:56
Evenings. Writer gives a lecture. Instead of the hotel,
2:04
he stays he stays at the home of one of the organizers. He is a widow and her
2:09
three husbands have died under mysterious circumstances. Isra to be the fourth man
2:16
in art. Artists, art lovers, and critics. All
2:23
three influence the art in good and bad ways. Success leads the artist to repeat
2:28
himself or to compromise his vision because the market takes him elsewhere.
2:34
Critics try to destroy it and are usually knowledgeable enough about art
2:39
itself to make the asset they spew really bite. A lot of artists fall prey to critics.
2:46
This is the dynamic Paul Forhovven is in in 1982 when they shot this film.
2:54
Now, why am I flying solo today? I'm watching the Dutch movies so you won't
3:00
have to. No one should be subjected to Dutch films uh without informed consent
3:06
certainly and I I cannot in good conscience make an English-speaking guest watch this film read that book uh
3:15
read Paul Verhovven's book um read biography
3:20
I can't expect him to understand the extremely layered and nuanced Dutch context of this film uh as you will
3:28
learn on this episode. So get ready for a deep dive. I spend about three months prepping for this episode. Where's
3:34
Pulver Hovind in his career? After the soldier of Orange, the offers
3:40
start rolling in. Hollywood is calling, but they call the wrong guy. They call
3:45
the production office. And the production office is run by Ro Power. And all Ro Power does is
3:52
hang up the phone after he said, "Well, no, sorry. Her hovven works exclusively
3:57
for me. That's what Steven Spielberg learned
4:02
when he called. This was of course the Paul's great annoyance once he found out. Um
4:10
he and Rob Hower had been in a very tenuous relationship. Hower had kept
4:15
taking credit for his work and bastardizes his movies by making bad
4:22
edits with horrible overdubs for foreign markets. Basically, he's dumping Paul
4:27
Forhovven's movies without any of his consent.
4:33
Where is Paul for Hovind? Paul is getting cancelled. Paul left Rob Hower after a big blow up from Soldier of
4:41
Orange and started a production company with his coowwriter Sultan and a variety
4:47
promoter called Yope Fonden and a name you will probably be in some way familiar with because he's world famous
4:53
for amongst others making very lucrative musicals. The company they start is to
5:00
be known as VSE limited for Hovven South and they apply for grant money from the
5:06
National Film Fund but there's a new sheriff in town. He hates for Hovind. He considers his work banal trite beneath
5:13
contempt father for the masses anything but art and supporting art is what this
5:20
film fund is intended for. Paul gets canled.
5:26
Seriously, Paul leaves uh Robau after a blowup, after Soldier of Orange. There's
5:32
been a u change in politics in the Netherlands. Uh they've gone from a right-wing government to a left-wing
5:38
government. And liberal thinking people, as you know, are experts in knowing just what kind of art is good for the
5:44
population. So VC promises to rewrite the script for a
5:50
movie called Spatters. They reapply and they ultimately win over the commission with the rewrite
5:57
because they completely denuted it of everything for Hovind.
6:03
Hall subsequently double crosses the commission because he ignores the rewrite and just writes his original
6:09
script. The gamble of course works. Spre is a massive success. The critics of course hate it. Not just the critics,
6:16
segments of the population hate it as well. picketing action groups and there are organizations even organizations
6:22
founded to stop the film. Uh feminists and gay people are they scream at him in
6:29
talk shows and he dutifully shows up to defend himself. Basically Paul gets the 1980s version of cancellation. Vhovven's
6:36
reputation as a filmmaker is in tatters. Nobody has ever drawn so many movie
6:41
goers to the theater. He's the absolute box office king and receives critical
6:47
acclaim abroad, but in the Netherlands, not so much. Some praise his success, but don't understand why he must make
6:54
these artouse movies. The art house elites turn up their nose because he has
6:59
commercial success. He can't win with these people. To them, commercial success is a sign that the film is only
7:06
there for the unwashed heathen masses. In general, Dutch people think he's just he shouldn't act too big for his
7:13
britches. Everybody assumes he will just go to Hollywood and they will be rid of him. Unfortunately, Verhovven is stuck
7:19
in purgatory. He's trying he's really trying to go to the United States. He's traveling back and forth. He's trying to
7:26
get projects. Uh he doesn't understand the Americans and in turn they don't understand him.
7:33
Now to understand Paul Hovind, you have to understand the culture he's from. The
7:38
best analogy I can come up with is imagine a farmer's field, a grain field
7:44
as far as the eye can see. They represent the population. Now imagine a
7:49
size swishing back and forth cutting off the heads of any plant that
7:55
dares to grow above that level. There's this Dutch saying,
8:02
roughly translated, it means just act normal. It's crazy enough.
8:08
If you stand out in our culture, you are suspect. If you are an artist or an athlete or
8:16
anything of note, first people will doubt you.
8:21
Then if you succeed, they will fear you and finally they will be envious and try
8:26
to use you to further their own ends. And when they find they can't, they cancel you. And this is the situation
8:34
Paul Verhovven is finding himself in despite massive successes. For an artist like that, a side is
8:42
coming at him to chop his head off because it is unfair to the rest. All grain must have the same height.
8:49
Equality of outcome. Does that sound familiar? It should. Does it sound woke?
8:55
Sound SJW commie even? The Netherlands went through this phase in the late 70s,
9:02
early 80s maybe. The socialists gained power because we're we were Calvinistic and that is very similar in many ways.
9:10
It's very austere and and egalitarian and it was starting to fade out obviously like in in most western
9:17
countries and the commies just stepped in. uh they got their meat hooks into everything and in this culminated in the
9:24
90s and it has basically cost us our prosperity. So welcome to Dutch culture where everyone is jealous of your
9:30
success, suspicious of your talent and afraid that you might think or do something they don't approve of. In this
9:36
landscape, the greatest filmmaker the country has ever produced is trying to make his film. Why the fourth man? Once
9:43
you look at it, it's actually very simple. The novel The Fourth Man written by written by The Dra is provocative.
9:50
It's surreal. It's it has an unreliable narrator. It's full of Christian
9:56
iconography. It has a strong female antagonist. It's a wild departure from
10:02
Rever's regular work. This film will create instant buzz. If it succeeds, it
10:07
will be a triumph for reasons I will explain in a minute. And most importantly to for Hovind, he gets to
10:13
stay in the Netherlands and remain a European filmmaker where he's the most comfortable. At this point, he's in his
10:19
mid-40s and he's really not really looking to uproot. However, in the hostile climate of the Netherlands,
10:24
Fairhuven was out to prove a point. Um, he was about to win on his own terms,
10:30
hence this novel. Now, what is the novel all about? It's actually a departure from Rever's normal fair because he
10:37
wrote it as a special project. It's funnier than his usual work, it's more self-conscious
10:43
and even by Ra's own admission, it's extremely heterosexual. Ra typically
10:48
writes about homosexual themes, depression, death and for that he is considered the greatest of the postwar
10:54
writers. Welcome to Holland. Who is this cat? Okay, Rea is one of the big three.
11:03
There's Rea, there's Harim Mullish, and there's Vim Frederick Heralds. Those are the three main writers who um were
11:11
celebrated for their works after World War II. Uh most of their work deals with
11:17
World War World War II and the social trauma everybody went through, hence their popularity. Who is the best of the
11:23
three? Well, that is a subject of debate for academics. My tiny kingdom drowns in
11:30
literary master degree holders. So, I will leave the reasons for that to the experts. I don't step on anyone's tiny
11:35
member. If you ask me who is the greatest sports war writer, it's Renato Dorstein.
11:41
And I'm not just saying that because I'm biased. Uh Renato was my teacher. She was also my idol, truth to be told. But
11:49
she wrote a book called Heart of Stone, which was an international bestseller, and that is an absolute literary
11:55
masterpiece translated in multiple languages. And it sold out sold all of these three so-called greatest writers a
12:02
dozen times over. and it is as good or better than anything they ever produced. As for Raa, I always appreciated Raa for
12:10
his pros and his wit and as did many others. It's in fact one of the reasons I don't write in Dutch, but instead
12:18
write English. Dutch literature um isn't about story. It's not about character. It's about theme, mood, conveying that
12:25
through very ponderous what I'd like to call words smithing. Okay, at it, but
12:30
I'm not exceptional. then you might as well not try. Uh Vaver's works are
12:36
ingeniously worded. They're depressing. They're anxious. They are very air constricting pieces. They're not really
12:43
stories. Um they're actually not really novels. They are kind of in their own class and they are just enjoyable for
12:52
his overwhelming mastery of the word of the Dutch language. His books are
12:58
actually mandatory reading in school. So I know most of them just from from school and I reread them since. The
13:06
Dutch language is large. So Raa has some over 400,000 words to choose from. It's
13:11
in fact larger than most literary most Latin languages. For example, French language has only 300,000 words, but
13:21
because it's a Latin language, it's much more accessible. Uh the Netherlands has something called the Dutch Book Week. Uh
13:28
it's a week where a lucky writer is commissioned to write a basically state
13:33
sponsored book. It's usually a novellet and it's promoted throughout that month. When you buy any book in the book week,
13:40
you get a free copy of this book. They're always written by competent but
13:45
middle of the road writers. Uh it's a great honor. Offers a small financial reward. So it's really kind of a star
13:53
making vehicle for publishers. It's not something major authors really waste their time on. However, in 1981, his
14:00
publisher pitched the legendary. He accepted. Uh he submitted his
14:07
manuscript and was promptly rejected. They said the themes were too horrific, too gay, too full of eroticism and
14:14
death. I mean, had they read a previous GA book? I mean, bookw week books tend
14:19
to be more mildmannered. uh Raa Shrugs published it anyway and it became a huge
14:25
success. It sold like 250,000 copies. Now
14:30
is an institute. He truly is Kunel's fad was born in Amsterdam in 1923. He
14:37
published his first novel at 23 1947 uh called the Aundon which is translated
14:44
to uh the evenings and it was hailed as a literary masterpiece. He's born of
14:51
communist parents. No real communist parents. They were in the communist party. They were fanatics.
14:58
However, became a devout Catholic and defender of the church. He's very outspoken, very public homosexual and a
15:06
proponent for uh gay men to only enter into long-term relationships with men.
15:11
He in fact married his last boyfriend. He's one of the first people to do that.
15:16
Now, this was in an age when dating men for any protected amount of
15:24
time, especially for public figures, was very uncommon. You were in the closet.
15:30
Um, he wasn't. Nobody closets. Fat was ahead of the curve and he really
15:38
dragged our culture with it. He was provocative. He was eccentric and he was
15:43
incredibly funny. Now, Rever had a way of eloquently defending both
15:49
his lifestyle and his faith, and he somehow would manage to dispel any
15:56
seeming contradictions. Oddly enough, did did really normalized attitudes towards homosexuality or at least his.
16:03
Um, now I bring all this up because this all ends up in some form in the movie
16:09
similar to Turkish Delight. the uh film from the early 70s where the um
16:16
writer uh young vulkers is the central character in the film. Um the same goes
16:22
for the fourth man. The underpinninging of the film meshes the narrative of the book and the phenomenon of the
16:30
brilliant author um his madness and his insane life. Paul Ferhovven had
16:36
approached other writers for this. Um he in the 60s he approached Young Vulkers
16:42
to adapt one of his short stories into a short film. He was still a film student at the time and they hit it off and they
16:49
came really close but headstrong as Paul Verhovven was they he they couldn't
16:55
agree on an ending. Ultimately however Paul would of course film Turks frat which is Turkish delight the um great
17:03
masterpiece by youngers. This ultimately changed the tra trajectory of his career and now that he's in hot water, he more
17:12
or less returns to this concept like okay I covered a major literary work before everybody was happy it was
17:19
successful why not repeat it but this time this time we go for the author the greatest
17:25
of all time now I hammered this home because I tried
17:32
I'm trying to impress on you what a monumental thing. This is Dave is a big deal to the establishment.
17:39
Uh he's sacred. The royal family even awarded him the title commander in the
17:45
order of the lion which is a very big deal. This is usually postumous reward for politicians. It's a very high civil
17:52
commendation. Reva has won every significant literary award there is. Um
17:58
I think to Dutch culture his American equivalent would be Mark Twain.
18:03
Verhovven has committed to make the greatest literary literary adaption ever. He needs to um this is his only
18:11
shot to get funding because after his little trick with Speters by screwing
18:16
over the commission I mean regardless of how successful it was they are pissed. Rutra Hower is at this point in America.
18:23
Paul eararks one of his other stable actors which is Yung Cabay who he had worked with in Soldier of Orange and who
18:30
co-starred with Rutra. Yungab is fickle and he dithered because he didn't like
18:36
Yokon ended. To get the actor, Paul disbands the company. He was unsatisfied
18:41
with it anyway for different reasons. To get Junab, he makes another pact with the devil. The devil himself, his mortal
18:48
enemy power. After Soldier of Orange, a bitter
18:53
feud ensues between Fair Hovind and his longtime producer Lower for many
18:59
different reasons, most of them to do with their personalities. That and Howard has been writing off Berhovven's
19:04
coattails. Uh he has structurally underpaid Paul for Hovven who needs to
19:10
get unemployment benefits between movies. He's that poor basically undercuts for Hovind at every
19:16
turn. He's he's sabotaged offers from American film companies. He has re-edited the cheap dubs and dumped them
19:23
in foreign markets. Now Vonda enda stepped in by offering to finance
19:30
betters. He wanted Paul to focus more on television because that is fond's medium. Vonda ultimately would end up in
19:37
endol amongst many other TV shows. They would for example produce like the first three four seasons of broken mirror.
19:44
This is not what Paul Verhovven wants. The fourth man has Raver, has Hitchcock, has horror
19:51
elements, has Burkeman, has homoeroticism, has Christianity, and
19:57
it's all packed into a very fast film
20:03
because it this just this film will just come at you with breaket speed. This is the ultimate Dutch Paul Verhovven movie.
20:11
He takes it to the very limits of what uh Dutch society at least at that time
20:16
could stand uh and a film that would and could never be made in in Hollywood
20:23
or would it because Basic Instinct is in fact the direct
20:30
remake of Ferhovven's the fourth man but instead of surreal Paul and screenplay
20:36
writer Joe Esther chose film noir or basic instinct
20:41
Now for the fourth man at the start of the film the protagonist
20:47
explains in his lecture that he is a unreliable narrator as are many of uh
20:56
Paul Verhovven's antagonists and protagonists. The
21:02
character here in the film says, "A writer must lie the truth to achieve
21:09
suspension of disbelief." Now, this is of course an essential hint. You can't trust this guy. He's nuts. We'll get
21:16
into how nuts later on, but the reality is that this entire story is probably happening in the imagination of the
21:22
writer himself. Now, much of the Gothic imagery in the film is uh based on the romantic agony by Mario P. Uh Sautimon
21:31
drew heavily on it. Uh you could argue they depict the entire contents of his book. They really throw everything but
21:39
the kitchen sink at this. Paul was looking to emulate Deli Burkeman. There's more than a little Hitchcock in
21:45
here. Um it's quite a mix. The widow in the film is in effect Delilah who cuts
21:51
Samson's hair and who robs him of his strength. In the film, she's a
21:57
hairdresser who cuts hair. In her shower, she has a bottle of shampoo called Delilah.
22:04
She's also a Sphinx. Now, Sphinx is a half lion, half female who devours men.
22:10
Uh, it's the name of her salon. And she even has a figurine in her house.
22:17
of a sphinx. And then there's these spider images because of course she's a black widow.
22:23
She eats her men. At some point you see her salon and you see the neon advertising malfunctioning
22:31
and it forms the word spin. That's just the Dutch word for spider. And there are a lot of spider images
22:38
throughout the film. And then of course there's the crucifix.
22:44
Uh, the crucifix symbolizes impending death or destiny.
22:52
And of course, there's the Maria figure. She's everywhere. She's in fact an actual character, uh, imagined or
23:00
otherwise. She's on the train with baby Jesus, and she's cut a wreath made from
23:07
an apple peel and holds it over the baby's head. She's married to a construction worker, carpenter, and his
23:15
name is Joseph. At least that's what it says on the truck. She's in the graveyard a lot. She's in the beauty
23:21
salon. She's in the hospital. Uh she's in a bunch of flashbacks. Basically, she's there to warn the
23:26
protagonist of the danger he's in constantly as the main character gets more neurotic as the movie goes along.
23:34
Then of course there's the Jesus on the cross who turns into his lust object, a
23:39
young man called Herman. He almost has sex with the statue. All of these elements are are silent or very obvious
23:47
nods to the gave works and his relationships past and and um at the
23:54
time. And in the movie this his uh boyfriend is um portrayed as a whiny
24:00
violin player who disturbs the great artist Yandons. Everybody loves Yand Bons. He got the best reviews for this
24:07
film and he's really showing off here. It's he has his typical daring powerful
24:12
style of camera work that will ultimately make speed and twisters so
24:17
fun to watch. And you'll notice in this film, if you care to watch it, that
24:23
normally when you make a close-up, you use a camera zoom. You see the face and there is blurs. They purposely
24:29
uh decided to show more detail to to create a closeup with as much detail
24:36
surrounding the character and that enhance the surreal elements of the
24:41
film. Couple that with the filters and the lighting and you just get a very
24:46
very undutch film. Paul was really worried about this uh because Howard could throw his weight around because he held he held the purse strings. Yandon's
24:53
solution was to just not send the rushes for the first two three weeks uh which is about half the shooting shooting
25:00
schedule. Howard finally got wise to it when uh he he started getting a lot of bills for really expensive light filters
25:06
but by this time uh it was too too expensive to reshoot all the scenes conventionally. You'll notice that um
25:13
Verhovven uses a lot of red and blue tones. There are roses all over the place. What else is red? Blood, of
25:19
course, there's a lot of blood. There's a lot of blood. Uh, this film just drips
25:25
with it. It drips into giant copper containers full of it. So, the practical
25:31
effects bill uh are are outrageous. But for Hovind, yeah, just really needed
25:38
that eye to droop down the face or down hotel doors or or on three or four
25:44
different occasions. Yand at this point is mostly known for the film Roar, where
25:50
actors are co-starring with and living with wild lions. This film was insane,
25:56
dangerous, and amongst the cast uh was Melanie Griffith and her mother Tippi
26:01
Hedrin. Uh they were almost killed during shooting. A lion bit Yand Bond in
26:06
his head. His scalp had to be sewn back to the top of his head. In fact, the
26:12
film took four years to complete. According to Yand Bond, lions are bad method actors. The aftermath for Rever
26:19
for Fhuva, for Ra was really satisfied with the end result and he considers it the best
26:25
adaption of his novels. U argue you could say that it's the greatest praise this movie could ever get. He praised it
26:31
until he decades later. This is very untypical because uh could be um well he
26:38
was prone to change his mind. Let's put it that way. Visited the set once. Uh this was a major occasion for everyone
26:44
because uh the crew, everyone was in awe of him because he is but this I think the satisfaction of the film is in no
26:51
small part to the ridiculously high compensation for the rights. They paid
26:56
100,000 gilders. In today's money, in today's currency, that's €623,000.
27:03
In dollars, that's 734,000. That's just a ridiculous amount of
27:08
money. Reva moved to France and bought a nice house and u then lived in Belgium anywhere but
27:17
Holland where he continued to write until his death in 2006. Now, the fourth man is the film is critically acclaimed
27:25
outside of the Netherlands uh winning festival prizes. Uh but it was completely panned by Dutch critics. Uh
27:32
they could barely manage that he did an okay job. Uh and he would they would
27:37
mostly praise Yand. Admittedly, his camera work was exceptional and everybody loves Yand. Paul promptly left
27:43
uh Rob Power, pitched Flesh and Blood to Orion pictures and they let him make it so he would ultimately reconsider and do
27:50
uh Robocop and the rest is history. Now as for Junab he would receive offers
27:56
from Hollywood most notably starring in um The Fugitive with Harrison Ford and
28:02
Tom Lee Jones. Now there's a cut off penis scene.
28:09
This is based on real life. Like all of Paul Verhovven's
28:15
um insane scenes, they are usually rooted in reality. Um as is this one
28:22
had a real life altercation with his uh lifemate husband Yopta in 1979. Thus
28:28
while writing the novel they needed new scissors. So Reva to the flea went to
28:34
town, little French village where they lived and bought new scissors.
28:40
Well, a domestic uh spat of immense proportions ensues. Uh he bought the
28:45
wrong scissors. Like most writers, is a raging alcoholic. So he hits the bottle. He goes late to bed and ends up uh
28:53
pissing himself. And he writes in his diary that you know he counts himself lucky that Matos which
28:59
was the nickname for his boyfriend husband that Yope didn't use those very scissors to cut his dick off and that
29:07
ended up in in the in in the book and in the movie during principal photography uh Junkabay who is deathly afraid of
29:13
dogs is attacked by a German shepherd supposedly an accident but they kept it in the film. The owner of the dog had
29:21
released the leash. The leash hits the owner right in the eye causing a mess.
29:27
And then John Cob gets attacked. Fairhovven was extremely impatient as usual. Uh at some point uh he thinks Tom
29:34
Hoffman's driving is too slow. Of course, they didn't have a stunt driver. The actors were just, you know, expected
29:40
to perform their own stunts. Welcome to Paul for Hovvenland. Uh Tom Hoffman gets the third degree and at some point uh he
29:47
tells them you're driving like old ladies and and this is the third take and this is taking up too much money. So
29:53
for Hovind always happy to show uh his actors what he wants from them. Gets in the car, throttles up, speeds down the
30:00
road, turns the corner, screeching tires and all. Then backs it up again at the at the same high speed and then he tells
30:08
Tom, "You get it now? You get it now, you [ __ ] I love Paul Verhovven.
30:16
Now, The Fourth Man is the only Dutch film that has 100% rating and did better
30:21
in international markets. It's one of Verhovven's least successful films in the Netherlands. I guess not everybody
30:26
loves a good book, but let's get to the movie. Normally, I don't do this, but I'm going scene for scene because of the
30:33
high surrealist nature of the film. Uh, we need to disseminate it. So, I I'm making an inception here. So, keep these
30:40
the surrealist elements I I noted before in mind as we go along. The opening credits are interesting enough. It
30:46
actually betrays the plot of the film. Uh you see a fly caught in a spider's
30:51
web. Uh the spider grabs him and then we see Jesus on the cross and a spider
30:58
crawls up its web to the next victim. Crawls over the face of Jesus and starts
31:04
sitting on his eye. Now, on the back of the spider,
31:10
we zoom and we see a white cross. So, that's a female. That's a black widow.
31:16
And then another fly is caught, the third fly. Again, the spider crawls up.
31:22
Now, then next thing we know, the spider web is on some old dusty piece of artwork, and the shots start panning
31:28
down. This is one long shot. It's beautiful. Uh, so we see a clay figure of a dead pig.
31:35
Notice the dead pig blood. Um there's another Jesus on um on the cross, a
31:41
little statue. And finally, we see Maria Magdalene um holding Jesus. And then the
31:47
writer gave is lying in bed. Did he just wake up? Is that spider a resident of
31:54
his bedroom or did he dream it? Um so he we see him getting up. He's very hung
32:00
over. He's shaking. He's he's not wearing underwear. Uh, so we get a nice
32:06
uh full frontal nudity here. Welcome to Dutch movies. And then we start hearing why he got up uh or at least why he woke
32:12
up. You see, you hear a violin practice noises. Uh so he stumbles down the stairs. He's slowly tying his robe as we
32:19
are forced to notice his really small dick uh obscured by a real gigantic bush of pubic hair. Thanks for that image. Uh
32:27
so he's you see him trying to shave, but he's way too shaky. Um, so instead he we
32:32
we see the cause of why he's so shaky. He starts pouring wine, toasts um, Maria and he downs the wine.
32:41
Perhaps he feels better now, less hung over, I don't know. He looks really annoyed at the violinists and he was
32:47
concentrating on his practice and then he sees a bra hanging. What's a bra doing in their apartment, you might
32:54
wonder? Uh so he takes it and he wraps it around the throat of the player
33:00
and he chokes him and you see the player crushing his own violin. Next scene
33:05
walks dressed into the room again and the battling is continuing. So what was that a hallucination? What what was
33:12
that? What was that scene? So Kira tells the violinist he has to go. He has a lecture in place singing and he's going
33:18
to be late and uh so the violinist just says goodbye without any interested and
33:24
and he he just goes to back to his music. So says, "Can I have the keys to the
33:29
car?" And um his boyfriend actually stops playing and says, "No. Um I we
33:36
agreed that I have the car this week. That's the deal." Um and then he asks,
33:41
"Well, can you take me to the station at least?" and he just goes, "No, you have young legs. Ciao." And he returns this
33:48
violin. So this they have a very warm relationship. And this kind of sets up why why he's
33:56
subsequently why he's so susceptible to the widow he's about to meet in the film. Now ends this with like this
34:04
spiteful thing where he just knocks over the the music book that the uh boyfriend
34:10
is practicing on. And I you have to wonder is this another kind of weird wishful thing fulfillment dream? What is
34:17
reality here? We're already at the point where Fairhovven has established that we
34:22
don't really know what is real and what isn't or if any of it's real. Next thing we know, we see at the station. This is
34:29
Amsterdam Central Station for those who want to know. And he's he picks up a magazine and he tucks it in a newspaper.
34:36
He's stealing it. Then he sees a young man who he finds very attractive who was reading and he's reading and he's like
34:43
folding out a Playboy just you know stalks him. He just uh you know stares at him straight at him and so this guy
34:50
just turns around just turns right with him. It's interesting way of um coming
34:58
on to people. The guy, the kid leaves and so Aira wants to buy his newspaper real fast,
35:06
but the the sales lady finds the magazine in the newspaper. So he just throws the paper at her and he starts running after the boy. Just catches him
35:13
entering a train to Cologne, Germany, and the train is leaving. Uh so the next
35:18
thing we know, he's on his own train to Fissinger and he's ordering coffee. You actually see the salesperson selling
35:24
wine, which was uh normal uh back in the day. uh it was a more civilized time. So
35:32
uh he notices an ad for Mau's house which is a large museum in the H and it
35:37
has a picture of Samson and Delilah by Manfred from their el
35:43
if you ever get get the chance visit Mar's house. It's awesome. Now a woman
35:48
enters the train with a crying child turns to look out the window and it shows this large billboard sign and it
35:54
says Jesus is everywhere. The woman has cut the peel off the apple at some point
36:00
and she holds it up for the child to wander at and then the peel for forms a halo. Uh looks at another picture on the
36:07
wall and it zooms and then he sees a hotel. It's called the Belleview and in
36:13
this apparent daydream or whatever it is, he walks into this hotel. He sees
36:18
the c the keys to room four number four uh lying there. And when he
36:24
gets to the door, the room number four turns into an eye and that eye starts
36:31
oozing and actually falls out of its socket. And so Groat is of course shocked and and uh it's because the
36:39
child has started crying. The woman notices what Gat is staring at, sees red
36:44
streaks dripping down the picture. It it's it coming from her bag. She the
36:50
tomato juice in her bag had started leaking. departs the train. You see, you
36:55
hear a man shouting hello and he comes running up and so thinks, "Oh, that's I guess that's for me." But no, he's there
37:01
to pick up the woman and the child and he's happy. And um so walks down the station and then there's this man
37:07
waiting and he asks, "Are you here to pick me up?" And the guy just smirks and he he motions the a couple of polebears
37:16
who are pushing a casket. Um so no, I'm not here for you. And so asked him to
37:23
stop. He says, "Yeah, you were here from it. It says," you see his name sort of.
37:28
And he says, "That's my name, too." Hint. So this this smirking
37:34
undertaker just opens and folds out the ribbon and it says Hermons instead of.
37:40
And so they move on. And so the undertaker tells him the um uh person in
37:45
the casket died in Spain in Benorm. and he makes the sign of u that he was
37:52
having sex while u he met his demise and he says it's a beautiful death and then
37:57
there's a man coming up running's name and it turns out that's his ride. Um
38:04
they walk to the car and explains what you know what he was just talking about and how he's thinks about death all the
38:10
time and he quotes this poem and so this doctor actually finishes uh the lines of
38:15
the poem and is actually impressed. He's like, "Wow." And so this doctor just sort of sarcastically remarks, "Hey,
38:21
you're not speaking for barbarians tonight." And so they're driving down the beach. Fleing is a uh harbor town.
38:27
It's on the south part of Holland. Lots of beaches, tons of beach. So after they
38:33
arrive at the um uh venue, there's this blonde woman filming him and is
38:38
introduced and the lights dim and he notices that this this camera again and
38:44
he does this like run running his hand through his hair. He seen him do that throughout the movie because he is
38:50
Samson and his hair is his string. So he starts explaining that he's lying the truth. The he as a writer can't tell the
38:56
difference anymore between real and fiction. And that's what makes his pros his uh his work uh compelling. And while
39:04
he's saying this, he's looking straight at um the woman with the camera in red. And later on we see signing autographs.
39:11
You actually see um Paul Verhov set designer and you see his wife and I think his daughters are also doing
39:17
cameos. They really didn't have much of a budget. So there's the woman in red, her name is Christina Holles and she's
39:23
introduced and Christine tells him she's um you know she got him the best hotel room in the city. Don't worry about it.
39:30
You're going to be fine. And she actually shows it to him. It's right over uh it's right across the street. And it's actually the Belleview the
39:37
hotel he saw in his vision. they are just freaks. And he says, you know,
39:42
hotels, they're they're just there to hang yourself in. Uh, you know, what else can you do in it? You know, read the Bible or jerk off. He says this to
39:50
shock Christine, who's completely unfaced, and who just matter of factly says, well, you know, you could sleep at
39:55
my place. So, this is basically a come on. K does a Q&A with the audience and,
40:01
you know, he has this really cold but witty nonulance about it. This is very
40:06
much like Ra was in real life. So uh uh Paul obviously studied him and then you
40:13
we see the clock strike 12 and it had been 5 to 12 in the u hotel vision. So
40:21
there's a lot of chiming clocks striking clocks as a warning
40:27
throughout the film whenever there's something significant happen about to happen and we strike we
40:34
have striking clocks. So, he's driving back with Christine in her uh uh
40:40
very cool Peugeot convertible and they have the top down and so they they're passing an accident, this terrible
40:45
accident, and there's like dead people on the on the street and they're drenched in blood and Christine is
40:50
completely unfaced. So, they arrive at the house with the uh neon lettering
40:56
that's spells spider because the uh uh it actually uh it's
41:02
supposed to spell swings, but the uh the h and the x don't work. And she
41:08
complains about it. And so, they move inside the house and she turns the lights on and turns the lights off again
41:14
because, you know, he wants to set the mood and take control. and it's a full moon outside and they open the balcony
41:20
doors and it's supposed to be romantic but it's really kind of weird. So they start making out and she offers him
41:26
whiskey and he says, "Oh, just give me lots of water." So she just grabs the whiskey and just tops off the glass and
41:32
he just suggest for them to sleep together. So the next thing we know they're in the shower or at least
41:38
getting out of the shower and he finds a bra and he ties it up the a bra again
41:44
and he does it in the same way like he's you know about to choke someone. In the book this is much more elaborate because
41:51
um the writer has an inner monologue which is very heavy with BDSM and he has
41:56
all kinds of ideas of spanking her and and humiliating her. So they kept that out uh because they wanted to have more
42:03
sexual tension. Christine actually catches him messing with her bra because she's in the bathtub. So he's he notices
42:08
the towels and it's like his and her towels and he's like, "Is there a boyfriend or a husband? What's happening here?" So opening the u the cabinet and
42:17
hers is full and his is empty. That's telling him something and he's actually
42:22
relieved by this. So he has some plans u because he has a shitty boyfriend and
42:28
this woman is obviously loaded. So, you know, so he's um walking
42:35
over to the bed naked. You should get to see more of uh Jun's penis.
42:41
Uh Christine disroes now I should say that Rene Sandike is uh very fit. Of
42:48
course has a different perspective on it and he says, "Oh, you look you you look like a pretty boy." And she just str she
42:56
strides onto the bed, stands over him, sits down, her breasts are hovering over
43:01
his face, and she just sort of dares him. He's like, "Do these look like a little boy to you, and he he bites down
43:08
on a nipple, and he's he's, you know, um, and then he pushes her boobs flat."
43:14
And that's interesting. I I when I originally saw this film in the theater, I think I was like nine or 10 years old.
43:21
I was with my mother and this scene freaked me out and that made my mother laugh. She thought that was hilarious.
43:28
They have sex, Christine starts riding him and then his [ __ ] slides out. Uh
43:34
must have been a while since he's done a woman. And so she said, "Yeah, I'm a little clumsy." Now he's not he's not used to
43:42
um um something this wet, I suspect. Anyway, um they continue to have sex and
43:50
starts watching himself have sex with her in the mirror and then that makes him come
43:57
and the next thing we see is that he's he's lying awake and he's looking at the window. It's it's all of a sudden it's a
44:04
clear blue day outside. There's a woman walking in a forest and he notices it's
44:10
a graveyard. Um she's carrying bright red flowers. This is the woman from the
44:16
train. uh the one with the uh the one with a child, but now she's holding a very large key. And she enters a majim
44:25
and he follows her and then he sees three slaughtered pigs hanging upside
44:30
down and they're bleeding out into um blood brimming copper buckets.
44:38
And she puts flowers in the fourth one. While he's dreaming this, Christine
44:44
touches him. And then we see scissors and the next in the next second, she
44:49
cuts his dick off and and throws it out. And just wakes up screaming. She just sort
44:55
of innocently asks, "Did you dream?" And says, "Yeah, had this weird nightmare." So the the next morning, uh, he gets up
45:03
and he stumbles around and, um, he he hears her talking to the maid that they
45:09
she just skipped the bedroom. He hears Christine coming back up the stairs and she's bringing breakfast in a large
45:14
tray. Really cute. And so he jumps back into bed and pretends to sleep. So he he
45:21
wakes up pretending surprise and and um then brings up her husband and she's she
45:29
becomes distraught and he's like, "Yeah, I don't have a husband anymore and you had an accident." And he's like, "Oh,
45:34
I'm so sorry." And then, you know, so we see Christine painting her nails. That's something you see a lot in Paul
45:41
forhovven films. And she's calling him over for coffee and she suggests he should just stick around. He says,
45:47
"Okay." And follows her, taps the large decorative sphinx.
45:53
And she shows him around the salon and he goes, "Well, what do you think of my
45:59
hair?" And she's like, "Hey, I'm happy to cut it for you." Cuz she's Delilah. At that point, a woman who's getting a
46:06
facial in the chair is uh talking about having dreams of premonition that if you
46:12
are being warned, you should listen. And it's the woman from the train and from
46:18
the cemetery. And right at the point where she's saying something significant, Christine starts blowing drying his hair so we can't hear what
46:25
she's saying. Now, they're back in her office later on and and she brings out a little cash box just filled to the brim
46:31
with money. That's a lot of money for, you know, destitute writers like Fraven. Christine puts way too much money on the
46:38
table. And she actually leaves him alone with it, you know, creates temptation
46:44
and Fra backs away. He's like, I'm not touching that. And um then he looks down
46:49
and he sees a letter that she sort of purposely left
46:54
laying there so he would read it. You know, it's a letter from a lover from a kid called Herman. It's a love letter.
47:01
and he sees the photo and it's the guy from the station, the model he saw leave
47:08
on the train and is just smitten and and
47:13
he hears a sound and he he he sees the woman with the child leave and she's
47:19
greeting the kid and the truck driver and on the side of the truck it says Yoseph because she's Maria. Anyway, Christine
47:26
gives him too much money. You know, she starts lamenting that I inherited all of this from my husband, but it's so
47:32
lonely. And um of course, sees an opening to stick around because now he
47:37
has a reason to stay. Um he wants to manipulate her to bring Herman around.
47:43
So, they're hugging and they're both looking crafty and meanwhile just
47:48
looking at the picture over her shoulder. So he doesn't actually have to forhovven in this way just just conveys
47:56
what uh Grav's true intentions are.
48:02
Forewarned is forearmmed as they say. Now next thing you know a noose is lowered.
48:09
Well we've seen nooes in uh Paul for Hovven's films before. So, it's the the truck driver, uh, Yseph, and he's tying
48:16
off metal rods to be lifted, and Christine is speeding up, and they just
48:21
barely miss the metal rods. It almost hits the driver, and he's and
48:27
Yseph is screaming and cursing, and Christine just laughs and and speeds up.
48:34
And in town, they buy paper and a fountain pen. And Christine, of course,
48:39
is happy to pay for it all. And we see them running down the dunes and going into the water. And Fra is teasing her
48:46
that he's drowning. And this for some reason freaks Christine out. And she starts explaining, "Yeah, this is how my
48:52
husband and died. He drowned." And hey, I was only kidding. I was only kidding. I'm sorry. Traumatized woman. And so
49:00
they're eating lobster and they're drinking cherry. And Christine is back in red again.
49:06
The color blood and temptation. Uh during dinner, uh Kira is hallucinating again and uh he sees Herman coming out
49:13
of the water wrapped in a in a blood drenched uh sheet and one eye is gouged
49:19
out and hanging down his face. Um and this for some reason doesn't stop him
49:26
from having sex sex with Christine on the beach later on. Um the next day Christine leaves to pick up Herman while
49:34
starts to write because the the meeting he had with that undertaker inspires him. So that's the first scene. And then
49:39
he stops and um he picks up a picture of the dead husband and he realizes he's
49:45
wearing the same shirt as the man in the picture. Christine had had blown them earlier. Wants to continue writing but
49:52
the windows open and it just blows the pages away. So this killed the mood, I
49:57
guess. and he decides to take a walk. So, he's on the beach and a seagull dies
50:03
and flops out of the air straight at him. That's a hint cuz that's how husband number one died. Um, then so he
50:11
walks on and he sees like EMTs pulling a drowned man out of the water. Hint, that's the death of husband number
50:17
three. Um, so next thing we know, he he's entering a church and he's lighting
50:23
a candle and he's he uh prays to Mary and he looks around and sees Herman
50:29
Herman hanging on the cross instead of Jesus in his bathing suit, his little red bathing suit. So he walks up to him
50:36
and and starts like feeling him up and uh he actually pulling down the speedo,
50:42
but suddenly this woman interrupts him. She kneels in front of the statue and it's like just a regular statue of
50:48
Jesus. So just leaves disturbed weirdo. So outside there are red flowers
50:54
flying everywhere. Um uh there's a is very windy and there's a
51:00
German shepherd growling and it suddenly attacks him. Uh so returns to
51:06
Christine's empty house. He hears a you hear a clock chime and then he grabs the
51:12
whiskey. I think it's Valentine's from the the liquor cabinet and he said he pounds down a glass and then he notices
51:18
a key. That's the key Maria showed him in his dream. So he opens the cabinet.
51:23
It's in the bedroom and he finds these home movies and they have names on them.
51:30
Uh so he decides to watch these home movies and he's getting more and more drunk and you know he's making sarcastic
51:38
remarks and he's watching the the home movie of their wedding and she's cutting
51:45
his hair and he's a hairdresser so he's the owner of the salon and next thing you know we uh he's he's off to go
51:52
skydiving and um he's we see Christine uh joking with the camera. She's like
51:58
making the cutting motion in the in the parachute cord with her fingers. Next
52:04
thing we know, the second husband, nobody ever mentioned him before heads.
52:11
Uh we see him, he's he's in the army. He's a he's driving a tank and u Christine puts on his beret and then Kat
52:19
is suddenly awake and he's like, "Wait, she got married twice." And so we see
52:26
them uh on their honeymoon. They're at the safari park, which is a famous Dutch safari park called Bakes Aar. It's
52:33
basically you drive through it and uh the animals are all uh free roaming and
52:39
uh you have to stay in your car. That's the point. And so uh Christine bought some yummies for u the animals. And so
52:47
Rey in uh who's I guess not very bright um decides to go out of the car and feed
52:55
um the steak to uh uh the lion he sees lying there and that's how he dies. He
53:02
gets attacked um in this really gruesome shot. Of course it's done by Yond and he
53:09
knows a thing or two about you know shooting lions. So this looks pretty cool. And particularly he gets his head
53:16
bitten off. But at this point is so drunk he's not paying attention anymore. So he's like up next is Hank, the third
53:22
husband. And he likes goldfish. And um they see their third marriage
53:28
celebrations. He's like what? Another one? That's like three. And
53:33
there's apparently a really annoying drunk. And so he sees Hank going fishing. And um then old Hank is pulled
53:42
out of the water. He drowned. So uh the freaks out and he dumps the movies back
53:48
into the cabinet and um we see the Sphinx looming in the background. So he
53:54
wakes up in the middle of the night and and he stumbles up right thinking, you know, Christine might be back. Uh but it's not Christine. It's actually Herman
54:01
who's whistling in the bathroom naked. And uh Christine actually introduces them and u you know he's the famous
54:09
author and etc. And so he says, "Well, we'll see you in the morning." And so they go into the bedroom. The [ __ ] And
54:16
so uh who's a voyer, he uh watches them through the keyhole and he sees like
54:21
Herman's ass uh while he's banging Christine and he starts jerking off to it and it's kind of sad really. So at at
54:29
breakfast, Herman is bragging. He's running. He ran out of cigarettes. So he says, "Well, I'm going to go get more."
54:35
And so as soon as he leaves, he's like, "Oh, what do you think? What do you think?" At some point, he says, "We shouldn't talk. Tell Herman, you know,
54:41
what we did. When he leaves, we'll you know." And so they have like this little
54:47
thing. And so, uh, Christine has to work and Herma starts complaining like, "I
54:53
came all the way over here for you and now you're working. What is this?" And so she says, "Well, you know, you could show around. You know, you guys could
55:00
use the car. I'm not using it anyway. And so says when she leaves says to Herman, you know, I've seen you before
55:06
at Central Station. And so Herman just sort of koi about it.
55:11
He's like, "Yeah, yeah, well, you know, we should take that ride." And so, you know, really can't be bothered, but you
55:17
know, I wouldn't mind talking to you privately. And so they have like this really heavy
55:24
eye contact. It's like Yeah. And so
55:31
Hert and Herman are racing away and Christine is filming. Uh the two guys flirt with each other in
55:37
the car and of course Herman wants to know all about what it's like to be famous and is it easy to get girls that
55:42
way? And then they almost run over uh Maria in her blue coat and uh with her
55:49
red flowers. panics and urges Herman to stop and it's like they get into like this little spat and so runs out into
55:57
the graveyard and it's the graveyard from his dream and he runs after her
56:03
into the same grove and he loses her amongst the gravestones and Herman
56:08
ultimately finds him just then there's a thunderstorm so they look for shelter
56:14
and it's they find this like maleum that's open and that's in fact the very
56:20
one from the dream or the vision or hallucination or whatever is happening
56:26
in uh Raa's brain. So now it gets a
56:31
little rapey. Uh grabs Herman from behind. Um Herman of course puts up a
56:37
little lame protest and her starts to seduce him and they start making out and
56:42
now this is a Dutch movie kiss so you know this isn't like you know polite. It's lapping tongues and saliva. It's
56:50
everywhere that there's basically sucking face. Uh Herman drops because he's going to give him head and K starts
56:56
looking around during the proceeding and then he sees these like three urns and
57:02
Christine's name and he starts putting two and two together is from the whole movies. He's like, "See, these these are
57:09
all the guys from the marriages." And he he imagines their gruesome deaths and
57:16
and then he starts thinking he's the fourth man. So he he he pulls Herman up
57:22
and he shows it to them. He's like, you know, the guy's just amused. He's like, "Yeah, don't be silly. They were just
57:28
idiots, etc." And so they start arguing o over whether Christine's guilty or not. Herman won't have it. and uh he
57:35
says he's insane and and you know so pissed and he walks off and Herman
57:40
catches up to him says look I'll I'll drive you to the train if you want. It's all fine. He gets uh in the car and and
57:46
then they get stuck behind a hearse by behind three uh by a funeral procession.
57:51
The same guy from the train station. It's the undertaker. And we see further up the road there's construction
57:57
happening and that's why got they get stuck. So they um veer off the road. We see metal rods
58:04
tied by a red sash. Danger notices the name on the coffin and it says Herman.
58:10
And he points that out. He's like, "Look, look, it says your name." And um then they almost hit a truck and they
58:15
have to swerve and then drive straight into the construction area and they hit the crane and then the metal rods slam
58:22
right into Herman's eye. So sees Herman is dead and he just goes
58:29
into shock. Pulled out of the ambulance. Herman is under the tarp next to him. U doctors are pronouncing him dead.
58:35
Meanwhile, um Fartard is babbling about the fourth man and he tries to warn the
58:41
doctor that Christine is responsible and of course he doesn't believe him. This is the same guy who drove him from the
58:48
train station to the uh to the gig. Then Christine shows up and Ra attacks her
58:53
because you know he in his head she tried to kill him or Herman. Next thing we know is wrestled to the ground. Then
59:00
we see Maria and she has a big needle and she's about to sedate him and Kra is wheeled out of the emergency room as
59:06
Christine is comforted by the doctor. Next thing we know she has met someone new and she puts on her red scarf and
59:15
tells the guy she would like to come along if he goes surfing cuz she has like really has like this nice Range Rover with big surfboards on the on the
59:22
roof and the guy's cool with it, right? Cuz she's hot. And so, um, we see nurse
59:28
Maria and, uh, she notices him leaving and she pets hair as he sleeps and then
59:36
there's the crucifix on the wall over her shoulder and then the spider returns
59:41
and it's back in its web. So, was this all a dream?
59:49
was lying the truth while he was inventing this story based on banal
59:54
everyday events where the fear of his own demise, his lust for young men and the Catholic guilt this gives him is
1:00:01
making him nuts and and hallucinate and and is this the writing process? What is
1:00:07
happening here? Or is Christine really a serial killer? Paul Verhovven doesn't show you a clear ending. He just puts
1:00:14
you in Vera's crazy head. In much the same way in the remake when he uh leaves
1:00:20
it up to the viewer to decide if um Katherine Termell is going to use the ice pick on Shooter
1:00:28
and if she's actually a killer. And so ends the fourth man. Arguably
1:00:34
well I would say his best Dutch movie. Some would say Turk Scr would say
1:00:40
Soldier of Orange. But this is quite a compact little universe. I think it's one of the reasons I covered it in right
1:00:46
in the middle because I felt it was a major turning point. The calculated risks he would take from here on in. How
1:00:53
little or how much surrealism is still in his subsequent films, certainly in
1:00:59
Robocop, certainly in Total Recall, certainly in Showg Girls. And you see a
1:01:07
lot of it in Beneta. and use of surrealism is a very powerful tool in
1:01:13
Paulhovven's toolkit. I thought that covering this film in detail would um
1:01:20
shed some light on this. So, I'll see you for the next one. Bye for now.