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,[2][3] was also known as The Rose and the Sword on early VHS releases. It was Verhoeven's first English-language film.[4]
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.
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.
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 catapults 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.[5]
After tiring of attempting to have his controversial Dutch films subsidized by the government, Verhoeven looked elsewhere for funding for Flesh and Blood, eventually securing most of the budget from Hollywood studio Orion Pictures.[3] 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.[3] Verhoeven later said: "The triangular relationship [of] Martin–Agnes–Steven is now the main story line, but in retrospect I think we should have stuck with Hawkwood and Martin. The failure of Flesh and Blood was a lesson for me: never again compromise on the main story line of a script."[3]
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".[3] 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.[3] 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).[3] 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.[3] This caused a bitter rift to develop between the two, who did not work together again.[3]
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."[6]
Flesh and Blood's musical score was composed by Basil Poledouris, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.[7] 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.[3] 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.[3] 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".[3]
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.[3] 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.[3]
Critical response
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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."[9]
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.
Related Research Articles
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