Flesh and Blood (1985 film)

Flesh+Blood
Theatrical release poster by Renato Casaro
Directed by	Paul Verhoeven
Screenplay by	Gerard Soeteman Paul Verhoeven
Story by	Gerard Soeteman
Produced by	Gijs Versylus
Starring	Rutger Hauer Jennifer Jason Leigh Tom Burlinson Susan Tyrrell Ronald Lacey Jack Thompson
Cinematography	Jan de Bont
Edited by	Ine Schenkkan
Music by	Basil Poledouris
Production companies	Riverside Pictures Impala Studios
Distributed by	Orion Pictures (United States) Cannon Tuschinski Film Distribution (Netherlands)
Release dates	June 10, 1985 (1985-06-10) (SIFF) August 30, 1985 (1985-8-30) (United States)
Running time	126 minutes
Countries	United States Netherlands Spain
Language	English
Budget	US$6.5 million
Box office	US$100,000 (United States)

Flesh and Blood is a 1985 romantic historical adventure film directed by Paul Verhoeven, and starring Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Burlinson, Susan Tyrrell, Ronald Lacey, Bruno Kirby and Jack Thompson. The script was written by Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman. The story is set in 1501 in early modern Italy, and follows two warring groups of mercenaries and their longstanding quarrel.

The script is partly based on unused material for the Dutch television series Floris, which was the debut for Verhoeven, Soeteman and Hauer. The film, originally titled God's Own Butchers, was also known as The Rose and the Sword on early VHS releases. It was Verhoeven's first English-language film.

Upon its release in August 1985, Flesh and Blood was a box office bomb, earning only US$100,000 on a US$6.5 million production budget. The film has since garnered a small cult following. The director's biographer called it "a crucial Verhoeven film, because the fight between logic and spirituality is one that is very familiar to the director; these are the elements still fighting for priority in his own mind."

Plot

In 1501, a city in Italy was taken by a coup d'état while its rightful ruler, Arnolfini, was away. Arnolfini promises some mercenaries 24 hours of looting if they succeed in retaking the city, and they do so, raping and killing those who stand in their way. In their revelry, Arnolfini decides that he wants the mercenaries gone.

Hawkwood, the commander of the troops, cares for a young nun he mistakenly attacked during the siege. Arnolfini promises to get medical attention for her, while Hawkwood leads Arnolfini's cavalry, betraying his former lieutenant, Martin. The cavalry ejects the mercenaries from the city without their loot. Martin's son is later stillborn. Burying the infant unearths a wooden statue of Saint Martin of Tours—a saint with a sword. The mercenaries' chaplain views this as a sign from God to follow Martin as their new leader.

A statue of Saint Martin holding a sword

Arnolfini's son Steven is betrothed to Agnes. They meet for the first time and eat from a mandrake to magically fall in love, and later the entourage is attacked and robbed by Martin's band. Arnolfini is seriously injured; Kathleen, Agnes' lady-in-waiting, is killed; and Agnes is hauled away, concealed among her valuable dowry. Martin discovers Agnes that evening as they strip the caravan of valuables. The men desire to rape her but Martin decides to take her himself. He rapes Agnes in front of the caravan while she at first taunts him, and then begs Martin's protection when he is finished. Martin prevents the rest of the men from raping her.

The mercenaries come upon a castle where, unknown to them, the inhabitants are infected with the plague. They capture the castle with the help of Agnes. She induces Martin to fall in love with her and works on the other mercenaries to accept her. She appears to have given up on her former life. Determined to rescue her, Steven turns to Hawkwood. Hawkwood only wants to live a quiet life, married to the former nun. Steven, becoming as ruthless as his father, seizes her to force Hawkwood to help his pursuit of Martin.

Steven's party locates Martin and the mercenaries. They do not have sufficient force to take the castle and lay siege to it. In the castle, Martin asks Agnes where her true loyalty lies; she is noncommittal, hinting that the winner takes all. Outside, the plague spreads among Steven's forces and infects Hawkwood. Steven builds a siege tower to storm the castle, and Martin destroys it with something Steven had tried earlier: gunpowder. Steven's soldiers are killed as Steven scales the tower's ladders, and falls into the castle grounds.

The mercenaries capture Steven and shackle him in the courtyard; Agnes joins in his abuse. Using a new medical technique Steven learned (cutting the buboes on the infected body), Hawkwood cures his plague. He cannot continue the siege alone but, before leaving for additional troops, he and the physician, Father George, catapult pieces of an infected dog into the castle. One chunk lands near the chained Steven; he initially warns Martin of the danger of the dog, but flings it into the castle's water well after seeing Agnes acquiesce to Martin's sexual demands. Steven says that she can decide whether to tell the mercenaries.

The mercenaries wish to leave the castle, fearing the plague, but Martin persuades them to stay. At the next meal, Agnes watches as they drink infected water. As Martin begins to drink, she slaps the cup from his hand, just as the mercenaries begin to show signs of the plague. The party blame Martin, and hurl him into the well. Agnes then joins in the abuse of Martin.

After the throng departs, Steven needs Martin's key to escape from the shackles, and Martin needs Steven to get out of the well. The two cooperate, but upon seeing that Hawkwood and Arnolfini recovered from their wounds and returned with an army, Martin flees to the belfry. Using a lightning storm to strike the chain, Steven frees himself and, as the battle rages, races to find Agnes. During the fighting, the belfry catches fire. All the mercenaries, save Martin, Polly, Anna, and Little John, end up dead.

Martin confronts Agnes, who claims that she loves him. He prepares to murder her rather than allow her to return to Steven. As Martin is strangling Agnes, Steven attacks. Martin overpowers Steven and almost drowns him, but Agnes strikes Martin on the head, and she and Steven flee the blazing castle and reunite with Hawkwood. As Agnes and Steven embrace, Agnes sees Martin over Steven's shoulder, escaping from the castle, a sack of loot on his shoulder. She says nothing.

Cast

• Rutger Hauer as Martin, mercenary leader
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Agnes, virgin daughter of an aristocrat
• Tom Burlinson as Steven, learned son of Arnolfini
• Jack Thompson as Hawkwood, a captain of mercenaries
• Fernando Hilbeck as Arnolfini, feudal lord
• Susan Tyrrell as Celine, a drunken prostitute attached to Martin
• Ronald Lacey as Cardinal, a visionary
• Brion James as Karsthans, a mercenary
• Bruno Kirby as Orbec, a mercenary
• Simon Andreu as Miel, a mercenary
• John Dennis Johnston as Summer, a mercenary
• Marina Saura as Polly, a prostitute
• Kitty Courbois as Anna
• Jake Wood as Little John, Anna's son
• Nancy Cartwright as Kathleen, Agnes's lady-in-waiting
• Héctor Alterio as Niccolo
• Blanca Marsillach as Clara
• Jorge Bosso as Sterz
• Mario De Barros as Herman
• Hans Veerman as Father George, a physician
• Ida Bons as Roly Poly
• Jaime Segura as Lord of the Castle
• Bettina Brenner as Lady of the Castle
• Siobhan Hayes as Child of the Castle
• Susan Beresford as Sturdy Woman
• Monica Lucchetti as Tongueless Girl
• Anne Lockhart as Wife

Production

Development

By the early 1980s Paul Verhoeven had estabished himself as the highest profile Dutch filmmaker in the world. He received Hollywood offers including one from Orion Pictures who wanted him to make something like Soldier of Orange. Verhoeven had had a project on file since 1970, a fifty page outline from Gerard Soeteman called The Mercenaries or God's Own Butchers about mercenaries who are fired by their financial backer, a Duke. One of the mercenaries abducts the betrothed of the Duke's son, and the son and another mercenary go to retrieve her. The story was inspired by The Wild Bunch, Floris, Vera Cruz and The Crimson Pirate, particuarly The Wild Bunch. Verhoeven recalled:

Jack Thompson was the lieutenant and Rutger was the sergeant. And after the conquering of this city, they were divided. The one that was thrown out becomes a robber; the other one has to fight him. It was these two people that were friends—and they have to fight and kill each other, more or less. That was basically the issue: two people that like each other—love each other, whatever you want – and have to fight each other, for different reasons. And they cannot escape their destiny. The girl [Jennifer Jason Leigh] was just a minor element.

Orion Pictures agreed to finance $7 million. However, Orion soon requested changes, feeling that the film needed a love interest; thus, instead of focusing on the relationship between Hawkwood and Martin, Agnes was introduced and attention turned to her romantic entanglement with both Martin and Steven. Verhoeven later said: "Now we come to the film, where the girl is in the middle—Tom Burlinson on one side and Rutger on the other—and Jack Thompson is a completely minor character. So instead of this interesting Wild Bunch theme, we ended up with a triangle where this girl is manipulating two guys." The director elaborated, "The failure of Flesh and Blood was a lesson for me: never again compromise on the main story line of a script."

Orion were happy with Rutger Hauer to play the lead but suggested Natassa Kinski or Rebecca de Morney as Agnes. de Morney would only make the film if then boyfriend Tom Cruise was cast as Steven. Verhoeven cast Jennifer Jason Leigh, who had impressed him in Fast Times at Ridgemount High, as Agnes and Australian actor Tom Burlinson as Steven. It was Burlinson's first international film and he called it "Very different in content and style to ‘'Snowy' and Phar Lap. Not really my kind of movie, but it has quite a large cult following."

The movie featured another Australian actor, Jack Thompson.

Shooting

The Castle of Belmonte

Flesh and Blood was shot in Spain, in Belmonte (Cuenca), Cáceres and Ávila.

Filming was extremely difficult. "It was agony all the way," recalled Verhoeven. "What a mess! I have never felt so unhappy as with Flesh + Blood. It just made me livid if something did not work - and hardly anything did. The computer in my head became completely overloaded."<refVan Scheer p 168</ref>

In addition to a cast featuring American, Australian, British, Spanish and Dutch actors, attempting to handle an international co-production funded by multiple sources who all wanted to take the film in different directions overwhelmed Verhoeven, who had also not storyboarded the film in a bid to achieve a "looser visual approach". There were a number of delays and disagreements because of the subsequent improvisational style of filming; many members of the cast and crew also arrived and left when they pleased to party on a local beach.

One of the most notable disagreements was between Verhoeven and Hauer, who wanted to cultivate a reputation for playing heroic characters rather than villains, as he did in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). This was at odds with Verhoeven's intent to portray the moral ambiguity of its characters and the Middle Ages as a "stinking time in which to live" to distance it from typical medieval fantasy depictions of the period. This caused a bitter rift to develop between the two, who did not work together again. In December 1984 after filming Hauer told a journalist "What he does is use my charisma and personality for his smut. It really is two-dimensional. It is fucking, beer-drinking and fucking. Other than that, nothing happens. Not in one of his films. That Soldaat van Oranje rises above that level can be easily attributed to me."

In 1991 Verhoeven admitted "our relationship and friendship was ruined during that picture. We hated each other so much at the end of the picture that it’s going to take a couple of years to bring us together." He later reflected:

I would say he was an asshole, because he had changed so much, because of the film industry, and he was not the same guy anymore. And Rutger probably would say, “Paul was so insecure, because it was his first American movie, that he couldn’t direct me anymore.” Yeah? So we have two very good reasons, two ways of looking at things. And it would be not realistic to say that my version is the best one. [Laughs] I believe my version, of course—but I’m sure he believes his.

And we always got in arguments. I wanted him to play it lighter. My version of the movie was more like Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate. Chk-chk! Much more buoyant. And it never got to that; it was always heavy and straight.

Some of the film was censored, including the rape sequence. This upset Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was opposed to censorship. "It's a hard scene to watch," she said. "Brutal and ugly as rape is, I know it's going to upset a lot of people. But the film is extraordinary. Paul Verhoeven is so gifted."

Flesh and Blood's musical score was composed by Basil Poledouris, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. La-La Land Records released an extended CD of the score in 2013 with almost twice as much music as the original 1985 LP/CD release by Varèse Sarabande.

Release

Though the film received worldwide release in the summer of 1985, in the United States, Orion Pictures gave the film a limited theatrical release on August 16, 1985, in Los Angeles and New York City. Thus, the film did not gross a large amount in the country, and by most accounts, performed poorly. By 1986, the film was showing in the U.S. on HBO, a business partner of Orion Pictures.

Reception

Box office

Verhoeven has hypothesized on the reasons for the film's failure at the American box office in the years since its release, including statements that it was "too cynical and downbeat" to be a hit. Professor of film and literature at California Polytechnic State University Douglas Keesey suggested that the film had "no hero to root for and no happy fantasy element to lighten its unpleasantly realistic depiction of the Middle Ages".

The film's financial failure caused Verhoeven to move to the United States in September 1985 in order to better understand American culture and what films would be suited to its audience. In addition to this, his previous films, notably Spetters (1980), had been protested by members of the Dutch public and it had become difficult to gain financing to shoot productions in his home country.

Critical response

Although unsuccessful at the box office upon release, the film has become a critical and cult favorite. It maintains an 82% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 22 reviews, with a weighted average of 6.1/10.

Hauer later said "I thought the script was a weak, pornographic medieval adventure - I thought it should have been done differently. I wanted to have better scenes, and I was promised them too. But because the wife of scriptwriter Gerard Soeteman fell ill, those improvements never materialized. It all became very malicious."

Noel Murray of The A.V. Club wrote in his review: "From the start of his career, Dutch director Paul Verhoeven has mostly focused on making violent, sexy genre pieces—often punishing, often absurd, and always placed in the context of a moralistic pessimism. Verhoeven’s 1985 English-language film debut Flesh and Blood wallows in mud and misery, with Rutger Hauer playing an early-16th-century mercenary who leads a troupe of undesirables in a revolt against a deadbeat lord, and Jennifer Jason Leigh playing a virginal lady who’s kidnapped by the rebels and becomes Hauer’s (mostly) willing mate."

Cultural impact

The movie inspired Berserk creator Kentaro Miura, who said in a 2003 interview when he won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize's Award for Excellence (2002) that he based the design of Berserk protagonist Guts on the character Martin as portrayed by actor Rutger Hauer.

References

Sources

• Keesey, Douglas (2005). Paul Verhoevene. Taschen Film. Cologne: Taschen. pp. 86–93. ISBN 978-3822831014.
• Fischer, Dennis (2011). Science Fiction Film Directors, 1895-1998 (Revised ed.). New York City: McFarland & Company. p. 633. ISBN 978-0786460915.
• Maltin, Leonard (2017). The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombiese (Reprint ed.). New York City: Plume. p. 475. ISBN 978-0525536192.
• Scheers, Rob van (1997). Paul Verhoeven. Faber.
• Young, R. G., ed. (2000). The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film: Ali Baba to Zombies (1st ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books. p. 218. ISBN 978-1557832696.

External links

• Flesh+Blood at IMDb
• Flesh+Blood at the TCM Movie Database