Remake This!

I've held off the many announcements on the possible reboots of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (really?), Vacation and countless others from the last few weeks. However, I would be remised if I didn’t speculate regarding the rumor coming out of the Berlin Film Festival. Reporting from Ekko magazine out of Sweden has Martin Scorsese talking with Lars von Trier about the two collaborating to rework Taxi Driver. As respected of a filmmaker that von Trier is, I don't see why there's a need to mess around with a film that stands perfectly well on its own. A sequel or prequel following Travis Bickle makes little sense. What more can you do with Bickle’s story? I suspect a more experimental way of remaking the story, von Trier after all is a rather bold experimental filmmaker. I also respect Scorsese and if he is confident that he can make this work then I might have to trust him. Scorsese has taken on remakes successfully with both Cape Fear and The Departed, but neither one of those films was remaking a classic the size of Taxi Driver. This could just be idle speculation, but the head of von Trier's production company is issuing a no-comment, which means Travis Bickle better be worried.