Martin Scorsese
Monday, February 15th, 2010
UPDATE 2/16: Screen reports that the remake rumors are just that.
The biggest news so far to come out of the Berlin Film Festival is on a film that was made 36 years ago.
Spreading all over the blogs, Lars von Trier and Martin Scorsese are supposedly mulling over the idea of remaking Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro to reprise the role of Travis Bickle. In Variety, Gunnar Rehlin reports:
The idea behind the project is similar to the film The Five Obstructions that von Trier and Danish helmer Jorgen Leth made in 2003. In that film, von Trier challenged his colleague Leth to do a remake of his own 1967 film The Perfect Human. Von Trier gave Leth the taks of remaking five times, each with a different obstacle, such as making the film animated.
Now don’t head over to the ledge just yet. So far no one is talking but that should change as both Scorsese and von Trier are in Berlin and there’s supposed to be a statement coming out shortly.
Scorsese has always toyed with the idea of making a sequel to Taxi Driver, but I don’t know how a remake could be (dare I say) watchable. To be continued…… Read the rest
Saturday, September 15th, 2007
You either love it or hate it. So it shouldn’t be that hard of a decision if you’re even remotely considering buying this 2-disc DVD set, a vast improvement from the previous version released in 1999. If you love Taxi Driver, then this is a must-have. If you hate it…you actually might want to give it another go around…
So, ya’ll know the plot. OSCAR WINNER Martin Scorsese directed this cult-classic film about “honorably discharged” Vietnam-vet Travis Bickle (a brooding Robert De Niro) who returns home to a disheveled New York City and finds himself working graveyard shift for a taxi service, living in a scabby apartment building, condemning society and plotting mayhem. It’s an experience that envelopes you more and more in its dark shroud every time you watch it. So many scenes remain permanently ingrained in people’s memory (for me it’s not so much the ‘mirror scene’ as it is the slow-mo shot of De Niro, grinning and pointing his finger like a gun toward his head as a bright-red stream of blood trickles off the tip).
It’s as visually arresting as it is perfectly scripted (by Paul Schrader) and expertly acted (De Niro is obviously gold, but so is Cybill Shepherd, Albert Brooks, Peter Boyle, Harvey Keitel and Jodie Foster in her infamous child-hooker role). While I’m at it, the haunting jazz score by Hitchcock alumni Bernard Herrmann, his last, is possibly one of the most complimentary pieces of music ever composed for film.
It’s interesting to point out that for as much praise as Scorsese’s opus on loneliness received back in 1976, it received a seemingly equal amount of criticism – and still does today. Veteran movie critic Leonard Maltin, who is usually dead-on with his reviews, calls Taxi Driver the “gory, cold-blooded story of a sick man’s lurid descent into violence, ugly and un-redeeming.”
But so many disagree. Especially Oliver Stone, Roger Corman, Robert De Niro, and many others who pay their tribute to the film and its director in an extensive featurette entitled … Read the rest
Thursday, August 11th, 2005
I’ve only recently glommed on to The Reeler, a new blog hosted by Indiewire, and I have enjoyed editor S.T. VanAirsdale’s (really!) funny and sometimes combative take on our industry.
So I was sorry not to bump into him at our Filmmaker “25 New Faces” launch party last week. In his blog he asks readers to email him if they actually spotted a real live filmmaker at the soiree since he didn’t see one there other than a few friends of his. Well, S.T., sorry you didn’t make it to the V.I.P. room, but I was back there chatting with Mary Scorsese, who dropped by after a day of shooting at the Brooklyn Navy Yards. Darren Aronofsky screened an early cut of The Fountain off his laptop for anyone who was interested. And I tried to console Michael Bay, who was still bumming over the opening of The Island.
Um… seriously, though, I missed the party as I was up at the yearly Creative Capital retreat in Aurora, New York with a bunch of filmmakers — like two of our “25 New Faces,” Brent Green and Jake Mahaffy — and folks like Indiewire’s Eugene Hernandez. But I’ll try to attend the next one — and yes, there will be a next one — with some real live filmmakers in tow for S.T. to meet.… Read the rest
Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
While in Europe recently I heard about a documentary Martin Scorsese was making about Airbus, the European consortium of British, French, Spanish and German aircraft manufacturers formed in 1970 to rival the dominant American companies like Boeing. Of course, Scorsese recently memorialized an American aerospace pioneer with The Aviator. Today via Variety comes more details about the new project:
“Scorsese will team with Spanish docu producer-director Jose Luis Lopez-Linares (Un instante en la vida ajena, Strangers to Themselves), who will take a co-director credit.
Per Spanish monthly movie magazine Fotogramas, the doc will establish a parallel between the creation of Airbus airliners and a cathedral, recording the contribution of a factory worker, engineer and architect. Pic will shoot in Toulouse, France; Bremen, Germany; and Cadiz, Spain.
The Airbus docu is the latest project from Coleccion Inmortales, a joint venture created in 2003 by Madrid’s Morena Films and Fernando Sulichin’s Paris-based Rule 8 to produce theatrical docs directed by maverick filmmakers.”
The Variety story runs, in what may just be a strange fluke of timing, on the day, according to the Washington Post, that the “Bush administration announced… that it planned to bring a case before the World Trade Organization charging the 25-nation European Union with providing illegal subsidies to Airbus.” According to the paper, the action at the WTO will most likely trigger a competing trade case accusing the U.S. of illegally subsidizing Boeing.
On a certain level, the trade war is a doc-maker’s dream, and it will be interesting to see if there’s room for a discussion of the geopolitics inside Scorsese’s church.
.… Read the rest
Sunday, February 27th, 2005
From an interesting article in Forbes.com:
“Later [today], when Clint Eastwood faces off against Martin Scorsese in the battle for the Academy Award for best director, they could be fighting over much more than a gold statue. Life itself could be at stake. A study by a University of Toronto physician suggests that winning an Oscar can extend a director’s life-span dramatically.
In fact, Oscar-winning directors live about two years longer than those who were just nominated, the result of a 24% decrease in the risk of death over their lifetimes. Those with multiple wins saw their average risk of death decrease 48% compared to those with only one statuette.
The results — a repeat of similar findings in actors — are thought to provide a powerful window into the ways that success is good for us. Donald Redelmeier, a researcher at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, saw in Oscar winners a perfect laboratory for helping to explain 20-year-old data that show that success has a powerful influence on a person’s health.”
There is an interesting anomaly in this research however:
“Redelmeier and hs colleagues tried the same technique with screenwriters, and what they found shocked them. ‘The screenwriters are a real anomaly,’ Redelmeier says. ‘Generally, they live shorter lives and their survival is not improved by winning an Oscar.’
In fact, statistically speaking, Oscar-winning writers actually die on average 3.6 years sooner their peers who are just nominated. Redelmeier offers two possible explanations. First, professional prestige has less of a direct impact on screenwriter’s careers than it does on actors and directors. After all, screenplays are read anonymously and who remembers who actually wrote Driving Miss Daisy? Another possible factor? Unhealthy lifestyles. Award-winning actors and directors wind up with entourages of personal trainers and nutritionists who make sure they take care of themselves. Writers don’t. Indeed, the financial security brought on by winning an Oscar may even allow them to indulge more deeply in their unhealthy habits.
‘It’s very difficult to sort out the writers because their lives are lived in such obscurity,’ he says.”
.… Read the rest
Thursday, November 11th, 2004
One New York indie I’ve been tracking over the last year is Kevin Jordan’s Lobster Farm, the story of two generations of one Brooklyn family struggling to hold onto the family business, a Sheepshead Bay lobster shop. Jordan’s previous pic, Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire, received much festival acclaim, and as he readies his new one for a fest premiere, he’s already picked up one high-profile supporter. Reports Michael Fleming in Variety, Martin Scorsese has agreed to put his “Martin Scorsese presents” label on the film, assuring it some degree of critical buzz. Jordan connected with Scorsese when he was a student at NYU; he sent him one of his student shorts and Scorsese liked it enough to give him a scholarship and invite him onto the set of Kundun.
Lobster Farm stars Danny Aiello and Jane Curtin and was filmed at a real lobster store, which happens to be owned by Jordan’s parents. He says profits from the independently financed film will go towards saving the store, which, paralleling the film’s storyline, is up for auction.
… Read the rest
