Looking for trouble

curiosity of a hormonally-charged teenager in Basic Instinct and Showgirls. Sex, violence, and graphic mutilation have been Paul Verhoeven's trademarks for years and they have made him one of the most controversial directors in Hollywood.

But, he admits, previous protests will pale into insignificance if he proceeds with plans for a feature film about Jesus Christ. The Dutchman hesitates before revealing the provisional title as Christ the Man. This will be no reverent adaptation of the Gospels - the title says it all.

As if a film about Christ were not enough, he is also thinking about a biopic of Hitler as a young man.

''Both of these projects have a really dangerous quality to them, more than anything I've been doing,'' says the bespectacled, silver-haired director, who speaks near-perfect English with an accent. ''I'm not afraid of the controversy . . . I think I know more about Jesus than basically any critic in the world, so I think I could counter anything that would be brought up.'' A lapsed Roman Catholic, Verhoeven is a member of the Jesus Seminar, an academic group involved in historical research on Christ.

Verhoeven describes controversy as ''pleasant''. ''I think it's fun,'' he says - he amazed everyone when he turned up to collect Showgirls's Golden Raspberry for Worst Film of the Year - then he adds, ''as long as it doesn't kill you.'' He is aware of the passions Christ the Man might provoke and that reactions would almost certainly extend beyond intellectual debate. ''If you make a controverisal movie about showgirls in Vegas, it's different from making one about the person who is perceived by a lot of people as the foundation of our culture,'' he says.

Christ might seem a curious choice of subject for Verhoeven. Many viewers will see and enjoy his latest film Hollow Man - a spin on The Invisible Man - as the

latest in a string of brainless action movies. But Verhoeven says his interest lay in the moral questions of invisibility, and he cites Plato as his principal inspiration.

Kevin Bacon plays a scientist who takes a serum and becomes invisible, layer by layer, as his skin, muscles, veins, and finally skeleton disappear. Before long he has graduated from watching girls strip off to rape and murder. ''The dominant question,'' says Verhoeven, ''is, are we good or evil?''

Verhoeven was angered when many reviewers missed the irony in his last sci-fi extravaganza Starship Troopers - in which a human army battles giant alien bugs.

He was accused of militarism and even Nazism. But as a child he learned, first-hand, the human cost of Nazi oppression and modern warfare.

''We were living in the Hague, and the launchpads of the V-1s and V-2s (missiles) were one mile from our house, so the Allies were bombing continuously the area.

''The English destroyed my whole neighbourhood . . . about 30 or 40 streets next to my street, but not my street. This is not a reproach, because I know that basically it's war, and war against a dictator costs lives on both sides.''

He talks quickly and passionately, his leg shakes, his cappuccino sits untouched on the table. ''I remember my father taking me in the early morning on a Sunday to a Spitfire that had crashed, or perhaps it was a bigger plane, and the Germans were picking up the pieces of meat that were the pilots of the plane, and putting them in

little wooden boxes.

''These are pretty dominant memories, of course, and I think my interest in the destruction of the human body, or

basically looking inside the body, has

a lot to do probably with these kind

of memories.''

Verhoeven is at heart a quirky European director who has managed to work very successfully within the Hollywood

framework, raising moral questions in overheated action movies, pushing back the frontiers of screen sexuality in Basic Instinct eight years ago. One scene in particular set male pulses racing - when Sharon Stone crosses and uncrosses her legs, seemingly oblivious to the fact she has forgotten to put on any underwear. Stone claimed she did not know the shot would leave so little to the imagination and lambasted Verhoeven in public.They had not spoken for years when he saw her on the Columbia lot earlier this year, when he was shooting Hollow Man.

''I thought 'This is crazy - for six or seven years we haven't talked to each other at all, and we have still this kind of anger because of that one shot', I walked up to her and just gave her a kiss and said 'How are you doing?' And she said 'Oh it's nice that you come over to me and we shouldn't be fighting any more'.''

Stone suggested lunch, which was followed by dinner; one thing led to another, and before they knew where they were they were talking about the possibility of a Basic Instinct sequel.

Variety reported that Stone had committed to a sequel, but neither Verhoeven nor co-star Michael Douglas would be involved. But Verhoeven is not ruling it out. ''The script must be interesting enough to compete with the first one,'' he says. ''I have postponed judgment until I talk to Sharon Stone and the writers.''

Stone will reprise the character of Catherine Tramell, who was implicated in a series of gory murders in the

original, and had a steamy affair with the investigating detective, played by Douglas. The sequel will be set about 10 years later, with Catherine still at large. She becomes involved in more mayhem and another steamy affair.

Verhoeven still insists however that no-one pulled the wool over Stone's eyes - or any other part of her - when they shot the original. ''She knew what she was doing,'' he says. ''I think what we didn't acknowledge was that the result of that shot would be far beyond what anybody had thought.'' He maintains the graphic nature of the footage was right for the scene, in which Catherine discomfits her male interviewers with her tactics.

Verhoeven has known danger and

conflict all his life. He may have

kissed and made up, but he is not about to rewrite history, either for Sharon Stone or Jesus Christ.

n Hollow Man opens in cinemas

next Friday.