The Big Shave (1967)

In the process of shaving, a young man cuts himself. A lot.

Director:

Martin Scorsese

Writer:

Martin Scorsese

Star:

Peter Bernuth

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Peter Bernuth	...	Young Man

Storyline

This short film is a metaphor for the Vietnam War. A man walks into a meticulously clean and sterile bathroom, concentrating on the polished porcelain and shiny metal motif. He then proceeds to shave. When his face is clean, however, he only continues to shave until he pierces through his skin. Blood covers him and falls around him, the red contrasting the perfect spotlessness of the bathroom.

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Plot Keywords:

shaving | blood | three word title | razor blade | independent film | 

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Genres:

Short | Drama | Horror

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

None

Release Date:

1967 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Big Shave... or, Viet '67

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

6 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Scorsese thought of it as a film about the effects of the Vietnam war and considered it at one point ending it with stock footage from that war.

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Crazy Credits

Whiteness - Herman Melville

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Connections

Remade as The Big Shave (2015)

User Reviews

The Big Shave - Don't try to do it at home

This film is closely related to my adolescence ... rather iconic. I've seen it only once a few months after completing fourteen years of age (1970). Back then, the UCSD had a very active cine-club ... and thanks to it I had access to films like La Jetée, Young Aphrodite, Midnight Cowboy, Catch-22, Deep Throat (in which I fell asleep after its first five minutes) and many others.

At first I found it rather boring and unappealing. A man shaving ... definitely isn't something a pubescent male teenager would care for, but since it's only six minutes long ... soon, the whole intended idea started to fall in place. The flowing and perfectly edited strong images left me totally assured that I was watching a powerful work of art and criticism. As the years passed by, the film's images were surely imprinted in my memory ... but the title simply vanished from all recall efforts. Once I got acquainted with IMDb's message boards, I posted a message asking about which could its title be ... promptly and correctly answered by an user signing as Weeping Prophet.

Usually The Big Shave is understood as a hyperbolic criticism towards America's engagement in the Vietnam war. While at a very shallow level it can be understood as so, the deeper message is very prophetic encompassing the whole future of America's mainstream film productions concerning the glorification of violence in itself. Well, in those happy days of open confrontation and anti-war rallies I understood it as a film about our everyday acts of self-destruction undertook as a matter of fact events ... including America's vaguely justified involvement in the civil war going on in Vietnam.

It's a film everyone should watch and one of Scorsese's most powerful films.