Last February I reported on an astonishing news piece that came out of the trades proclaiming that the twisted Lars Von Trier had 'challenged' the legendary film director Martin Scorsese to remake his 70's psychological classic Taxi Driver (re-released in the U.K. with a new print from today, but more on that later), but under five strict stipulations. It's actually something Von Trier has done before to another guy his Danish mentor Jorgen Leth eight years ago, who was challenged to remake his own 1967 short The Perfect Human over and over again with more difficult and quite frankly impossible presets. Poor Leth was put through the ringer, some of challenges involving adapting his short into animation form and another where no shot lasted longer than 12 frames but still answered questions posed in the original production. The whole saga is chronicled in The Five Obstructions and it was a remake of that 2003 documentary which would find Scorsese working under these conditions. After the sensational news hit everywhere, the story quickly became rumour and was denied by Von Trier's production company Zentropa and in all honesty we forgot about the whole thing until The Hollywood Reporter broke the incredible news out in Cannes that it looks like it is actually going to happen after all. The trade says Scorsese & Von Trier are 100% definitely teaming up for a remake of The Five Obstructions and add;
It's unclear which of Scorcese's films will form the basis of the Five Obstructions remake. Possibilities include remakes of Scorsese's earlier shorts, such as The Big Shave (1968) or What's a Girl Like You Doing In A Place Like This? (1963) or remakes of one of the many iconic scenes in Scorcese's feature length films.
Presumably with Taxi Driver spoken of previously, that movie will be in there somewhere. Watch the trailer for the excellent original documentary below;THR say filming on the new version, co-produced by Scorsese's Sikelia outfit and Von Trier's Zentropa will begin later next year after Scorsese has finished shooting his long-gestating jesuit drama Silence with Daniel Day-Lewis that starts early 2012. What an exciting prospect both films are... and let's not forget Scorsese has the small matter of Hugo Cabret coming later this year!