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SCORSESE AND VON TRIER OR SCORSESE, DE NIRO & FELLINI?
We’ve kinda been down this road before. In early 2010, around the time of the Berlin Film Festival, reports rumors hit the blogsphere that Lars von Trier, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro were planning a remake of Taxi Driver in the vein of The Five Obstructions by making it five times, each with rules created by von Trier.
Now out of Cannes, Scorsese and von Trier are bringing up the idea again. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Scorsese project to be dissected has not been decided yet but shooting will begin after Scorsese is done with the Daniel Day-Lewis-starrer Silence.
This news got me thinking about another project Scorsese has on the back burner — he and De Niro making a Fellini-like film that looks back on the tandem’s incredible collaboration. The idea, created by screenwriter Eric Roth, goes like this: While making their next film The Irishman — an adaptation of the book I Hear You Paint Houses, which looks at the life of alleged Jimmy Hoffa murderer, Frank Sheeran and also stars Al Pacino and Joe Pesci — Scorsese would shoot a side project that meshes footage from the film with a story based on he and De Niro’s experiences in Hollywood that would be in the style of an 8 1/2 or La Dolce Vita.
Now it goes without saying that pulling this off is a gargantuan task, even for Scorsese and De Niro, but when I spoke to De Niro during the release of Limitless he said he still wants to do it and it still might happen. It probably was a long shot then, but what does the von Trier news now mean not only for the possibility of this project but when The Irishman will be made?
Time will tell. But for now let’s have some fun.
If you could only see one, would you rather see Scorsese and von Trier remake Five Obstructions or Scorsese and De Niro make a film on their careers through the style of Fellini?
