The Big Shave

Martin Scorsese's third short film before he graduated into feature film making is,despite being only six minutes long,a considerable cinematic achievement.Even at this early stage in his career,Scorsese shows considerable technical excellence,distinctive style and panache,showing that in just the simplest,most banal of settings(a bathroom)on a zero budget,he can produce memorable images and moments that most other film directors can't manage in films three hours long. Apparently intended as a black joke against the then on-going conflict in Vietnam,the contrast between the clean,white bathroom and the young man's visceral,gory,but seemingly unconscious gradual self-harm while taking a shave brings sheer gasps and giggles of astonishment at it's sheer audacity.A taster of the brilliance to come in the next four decades.

The Big Shave (1967) D: Martin Scorsese. Peter Bernuth. Excellent Martin Scorsese short film about a young man who is shaving and cuts himself, with the results symbolic of the Vietnam War, which Scorsese was opposed to. The camerawork is fluid and flawless, the scene very bloody, but wonderfully done, one of the best short films I've seen. RATING: 9 out of 10.

Big Shave, The (1967)

**** (out of 4)

Six-minute short from the now legendary director feature a lot of his trademark even though this is basically just a student film. A young man goes in front of the mirror to shave and it goes fine until he decides to do it again and this time he butchers his face with the razor, which sends blood all down the sink. I've heard this was an anti-Vietnam film but I really didn't see it as such, although I guess you could draw a message out of what happens here. To me this is a wonderful little black comedy that's certainly going to hit home to anyone who has ever cut themselves shaving. The film doesn't go for minor little cuts but instead it's a real bloodbath and I might even go as far as to say this contains some of the most blood ever put on film during this time. You have the H.G. Lewis films of course and I can't help but wonder if Scorsese was a fan of those since there's a lot of the same humor here. The movie has a nice music score, great editing and in the end is just painfully funny.

Saturday, the 8th of April was one of those days when I didn't have a lot of free time to watch a movie. On days like that, sometimes it's nice to watch a short film because at least it's something, and part of me feels compelled to at least log something every day.

So I picked the first short film that came to mind, which is one of the earliest things Martin Scorsese ever made: a dialogue-free horror film about a guy shaving. He keeps shaving more than he needs to, and things get bloody. That's about it.

It's kind of effective for something so simple? But I wish it had gone a little more extreme than it did (even though it gets pretty gross, I feel like even a young, possibly film student Scorsese could've done a bit more). Some of the editing has the feel of his later films, which was cool. And it gets a bit of an emotional reaction out of me as a viewer, as many of his longer and better films also do.

So I'm not the only person who's had this particular spooky dream! Plainly influenced by Kenneth Anger, this eye-watering short looks more like an early work by David Lynch than Martin Scorsese.