Jan de Bont

Biography

Jan de Bont became friends with Adriaan Ditvoorst at the Film Academy. Together they were responsible for the black-and-white camerawork for Paranoia and De blinde fotograaf. The colourful, cheery camerawork for Wat zien ik? (Paul Verhoeven, 1971) was the beginning of a long collaboration with Paul Verhoeven. With him, De Bont made films such as Turks fruit, Keetje Tippel and De vierde man. Particularly the latter film drew international attention due to the surrealistic glow that the images radiated and the constant presence of threatening red colours.

Together with Verhoeven, De Bont left for the United States to do the camerawork for Verhoeven's film Flesh & Blood, an action film set in the Middle Ages. After this experience, De Bont began to specialise in big, expensive action films. He showed he was a master of filming explosions, stunts and large-scale action scenes with a continuously moving camera. Some of the films for which De Bont did the camerawork include: Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988), The Hunt for the Red October (John McTiernan, 1990), Lethal Weapon 3 (Richard Donner, 1992) and Flatliners (Joel Schumacher, 1990). He received much praise for his sensual camerawork in Verhoeven's Basic Instinct (1992).

Through this, De Bont acquired the status of Hollywood's most successful cameraman and he decided to throw himself into a career as a director. Not a bad choice, as it turned out, as Speed (1994) was a box-office hit with its non-stop tempo and action. With this, De Bont proved that he was not just an exceptional cameraman, but a good director as well. His next film, Twister (1996), an action film packed with special effects and tornados, was also a huge success. His next step was producing, and De Bont started up his own production company called Blue Tulip Productions.