“Basic Instinct” director Paul Verhoeven slammed the new “puritanism” he perceives has taken over cinema during a charged Cannes press conference for his latest film “Benedetta,” saying critics “don’t want to look at the reality of life.”The Belgian auteur has received a generally positive response to his risqué new film, which stars Virginie Efira and Daphne Patakia as two nuns embarking on an illicit lesbian affair in their convent.
It is based on a true story from 16th-century Italy, as Verhoeven stressed multiple times during the press conference, even at one point reading a passage from a book depicting the women’s trial.Fielding questions about feminism, blasphemy and nudity, Verhoeven, who recently denied “tricking” Sharon Stone into her infamous leg-crossing scene in “Basic Instinct,” appeared to grow increasingly defensive as the press conference wore on.“I don’t really understand how you can really blaspheme about something that happened,
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