Чёрная книга: История создания и факты о фильме

2006 Dutch film by Paul Verhoeven

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Black Book is not a true story, unlike Soldier of Orange, but Verhoeven states that many of the events are true. As in the film, the German headquarters were in the Hague. In 1944 many Jews that tried to cross to liberated parts of the southern Netherlands were entrapped by Dutch policemen. As in the film, crossing attempts took place in the Biesbosch. Events are related to the life of Verhoeven, who was born in 1938 and grew up in the Hague during the Second World War. The execution of Müntze by German firing squad after the war had ended echoes the notorious May 1945 German deserter execution incident.

The initial estimate of the budget for making Black Book was €12,000,000. According to film producer Rob Houwer, who worked with Paul Verhoeven on previous films, it was not possible to get the job done for that amount of money. San Fu Maltha produced the film together with three other producers. He tried to economize on different parts such as the scenes in Israel, that could have been left out without changing the plot, but this was not negotiable for Paul Verhoeven. In this month it was announced that Black Book received about €2,000,000 support from the Netherlands Public Broadcasting, the CoBO Fund, and the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. There were also several foreign investors, which made the film a Belgian, British, and German coproduction. With a final estimated budget of €18,000,000 the film was the most expensive Dutch film ever, at the time of its release.

The shooting of the film was delayed in 2004 due to financial problems Because of the delay there was a lawsuit regarding lead actress Carice van Houten, who had agreed to act in a play. When van Houten was forced to return to the set, the theater company sued over the costly delay to their own production. The outcome of the lawsuit was that the production company had to pay €60,000 for her unavailability. Principal photography took place from 24 August until 19 December 2005 on locations in the Netherlands, including Hardenberg, Giethoorn, the Hague, Delft and Dordrecht, and in Israel, by Hocus Focus Films. In the opening scene a real pre war farm was blown up in the municipality of Hardenberg. The farm had already been declared uninhabitable and ready to be demolished. Some underwater explosions were filmed in a lake near Giethoorn. In the centre of The Hague they built bunkers to cover up modern day objects such as the entrance to an underground car park. The former chemistry faculty building of the Delft University of Technology was used to film prison scenes. Great attention to detail was paid in the film. Several stage props were reproduced from the 1940s, such as signs, posters and the black book itself. Furthermore, in one of the liberation scenes in The Hague, up to 1,200 extras appeared. During shooting, the general public were able to see "making of" scenes on their mobile phones and on the internet.

The story of the Jewish woman Rachel Stein in Zwartboek is based on Dutch resistant fighter Esmée van Eeghen. Van Gein was based on the lives of Ans van Dijk and Andries Riphagen. Notary Smaal is based on the unsolved murder of 65 year old lawyer H. de Boer in The Hague on 30 May 1945 (shortly after the liberation). During the war, de Boer appeared to have maintained good contacts with the German Sicherheitsdienst.

The screenplay by Paul Verhoeven and Gerard Soeteman was turned into a thriller novel by Dutch writer Laurens Abbink Spaink. The book was published in September 2006 by Uitgeverij Podium and contains photos and an afterword by Verhoeven and Soeteman. Spaink says about the book: "Black Book is a literary thriller. Its form is in between the typical American novelisation, only describing what the camera sees, and a literary novel. The novelisation adds something to the film. It gave Rachel Stein a past, memories and a house. In the film she did not have a personal space."

The soundtrack was released on 2 October 2006 by Milan Records. The album contains four 1930s–1940s songs sung by Carice van Houten as she performed them as Rachel Stein in the film. Three are in German, one in English. The other tracks are written by Anne Dudley. The album was recorded in London and produced by Roger Dudley.

Black Book had its world premiere on 1 September 2006 in Venice, as part of the official selection of the Venice International Film Festival. Here it was nominated for a Golden Lion and won the Young Cinema Award for best international film. The film was also in the official selection of the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. The Prince of Orange and his wife Princess Máxima attended the Dutch gala premiere of Black Book in the Hague on 12 September 2006. Other prominent guests at the premiere were mayor Wim Deetman, minister Hans Hoogervorst, minister Karla Peijs and state secretary Medy van der Laan. The film was nominated for four Golden Calves at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2006. It won in three categories: the Golden Calf for Best Actress (Carice van Houten), for Best Director (Paul Verhoeven), and for Best Film (San Fu Maltha). Black Book was the most awarded film of the 2006 festival. The United States premiere of Black Book was a gala screening at Palm Springs High School on 5 January 2007 during the Palm Springs International Film Festival. On 2 March 2007, Black Book was the opening film of the Miami International Film Festival. The German premiere of Black Book was a gala screening at Zoo Palast in Berlin on 9 May 2007.

Most of the Dutch press were positive about the film. Dana Linsen writes in NRC Handelsblad: "In Black Book, Verhoeven does not focus on moral discourse but rather on human measure, and with the non cynical approach of his female lead and of love he has given new colour to his work." Belinda van de Graaf in Trouw writes: "Breathless we run along burning farms, ugly resistance fighters, pretty kraut whores, spies, traitors, and because the story has to go on the coincidences pile up until it makes you laugh. When Carice van Houten screams 'Will it never stop, then!' it is almost kitsch, and not surprisingly already a classic film quote." She compares this film to Soldier of Orange and explains why this film is not a stereotypical war film: "The war adventure is no longer based on the male character of the type Rutger Hauer, with his machismo and testosterone, but the small fighter Carice van Houten". The international press wrote positively about the film and specifically about van Houten. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports a 76% "fresh" rating based on 160 reviews, with an average score of 7.1/10; the general consensus states: "A furious mix of sex, violence, and moral relativism, Black Book is shamelessly entertaining melodrama.". Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 34 reviews. According to Jason Solomons in The Observer: "Black Book is great fun, an old fashioned war movie in parts, but with deep undercurrents about fugitive Jews, the Resistance, collaborators and the messy politics of war. This being Verhoeven, there's lots of sex and a scene in which the extremely attractive star (Carice van Houten) bleaches her pubic hair. That aside, hers is a star making performance, putting even Scarlett [Johansson] in the shade." In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Dirk Schümer says Carice van Houten is not only more beautiful, but also a better actress than Scarlett Johansson. Furthermore, he writes in his review: "Europe's Hollywood can actually be better than the original. With his basic instinct sharpened in California, Verhoeven demonstrates here the cinema as a medium of individual tragedy." Jacques Mandelbaum writes in his review in Le Monde: "This lesson about humanity and about fear can be situated in the wake of several rare masterpieces, that are solemnly confronted by this story"; he also compares Black Book with classics like The Great Dictator, To Be or Not to Be, and Monsieur Klein. Richard Schickel of Time named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #5, calling it a "dark, richly mounted film". While Schickel saw the film as possibly "old fashioned stylistically, and rather manipulative in its plotting", he also saw "something deeply satisfying in the way it works out the fates of its troubled, yet believable characters."

Before the film was released, the rights for distribution had been sold to distributors in 52 countries. According to the production company Fu Works these sales made the film Black Book commercially the most successful Dutch film production ever, at the time of its release. Black Book received a Golden Film (100,000 tickets sold) within a record breaking three days and a Platinum Film (400,000 tickets sold) within three weeks after the Dutch premiere. The film had its millionth visitor on 12 January 2007 and was the first film to receive a Diamond Film award. Black Book had the highest box office gross for a Dutch film in 2006, coming third overall in 2006 in the Netherlands, after the American films Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Da Vinci Code. As of 31 December 2006, the box office gross in the Netherlands was €6,953,118.