The Big Shave

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.

This is six minutes of introduction to the world of Martin Scorsese. You may anticipate a story but it is only portrait of an obsessive shaver who shaves until he makes a bloodbath out of his face. A gruesome sight to average spectator ,and in one shot even to a more sophisticated one when the man pulls the blade from one end of his neck to another and acts very convincingly, this short film is an unblinking portrait of violence and especially personal violence for that matter, with a strong streak of masochism familiar to the fans of Scorsese. A man shaves or punishes himself for no apparent reason but cleansing(his face or his soul?). Also you can see the making of a director infatuated with the montage who will use its techniques for years to come.

The Big Shave also displays an effective use of two colors in jarring contrast for an aesthetic purpose: white of the bathroom and red of the blood. White and Red devour the character and the viewer and signal the world of a director in love with radical shifts and juxtapositions. overall a student film from Scorsese in retrospect is a lesson in film history. Experiment is the prerequisite of perfection. The jazz song which accompanies the whole film and unites its images has been wonderfully used.

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.

So I expected to hate this short film, I was only watching this film to have watched an unknown Martin Scorsese film. But I actually kind of digged it! It was well done even for a 5 minute short. I really liked the camera work and lighting of it all. I thought the song chosen for it was perfect and it just made me think. I don't think the film has a particular meaning (it might I have not looked into the history of it at all), but it really just kind of let my thoughts run wild. The blood effects were good as well, forgot to say that. But I don't know, it was waaaaaaaayyyy more enjoyable than I thought it would be, looking forward to checking it out again.