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Whenever Martin Scorsese’s filmography comes up, it’s quickly followed a discussion on his iconic gangster movies like Goodfellas, Casino, or The Departed. But did you know that in addition to making those classics and so many other great dramas over the course of the past 60 years, the Academy Award-winning director also made a body horror film way back in his younger days? I’m talking before Who’s That Knocking at My Door put him on the map.
Recently, while looking for something to watch with my HBO Max subscription, I stumbled upon a short film from 1967 called The Big Shave. Clocking in at six minutes in length, I decided to give it a watch, not realizing until the end credits that Scorsese was behind this bright, vibrant, and bloody short that was full of ’60s-era social commentary.
The Short Starts Off Harmless But Slowly Turns Into Blood-Soaked Trauma
Remember those old government PSAs from the ‘60s showing people being functioning and upstanding members of society? They’d be eating properly, driving the right way, being courteous to neighbors, and so on. Well, The Big Shave starts out like that by showing a young man played by Peter Bernuth delicately and meticulously shaving his face in an all-white bathroom. I thought it was going to be some play on conformity until the blood started to shed. And shed it did.
Over the course of a few minutes, the once clean and pristine bathroom (and young man) becomes covered in blood. And I’m not talking a knick on the chine that you can fix with a small piece of toilet paper. Remember how Travis Bickle looked at the end of Taxi Driver? It’s like that and then some. There is just so much blood, and the guy just doesn’t stop shaving…
Not only is The Big Shave an intense and surreal body horror short film, it’s also a biting commentary on America’s involvement in Vietnam, which had started a few years earlier and would go on for nearly another decade. Also known as Viet ‘67, the short follows the seemingly everyday man as he inflicts violence upon himself, which Bilge Ebiri described in a 2020 Criterion essay, “A Singular Voice, in Short,” as being a metaphor for the United States tearing itself apart after entering the complex conflict.
Much like George A. Romero with his landmark zombie film, The Night of the Living Dead, one year later, Scorsese accomplished two things with his intense body horror: shocking the audience and making them think about the world around them through a different lens.
There’s A Surrealist Comedy Short By Scorsese That’s Just As Wild
On top of recently stumbling upon The Big Shave, I also discovered another one of Martin Scorsese’s old short films on HBO Max. Released a few years earlier, What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? is a black-and-white surrealist comedy about a young writer named Algernon (Zeph Michaelis) or Harry, as his friends call him. Over the course of the nine-minute short, the struggling author becomes obsessed with a nondescript painting of a boat on a lake, making it difficult to eat, sleep, write, or function in society.
It’s wonderfully surreal, utterly hilarious, and a little dark at times, making it a feast for all the senses. It’s out there, which is honestly fun to see from a young filmmaker before he became one of the all-time greats.
You can watch both The Big Shave and What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?, as well as some of Scorsese’s other short films, on HBO Max or as part of a massive collection available from the Criterion Collection. I think I’m going to dive into more of these…
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