Short of the Week: Martin Scorsese does body horror
There’s no other way to put it: Martin Scorsese is cinematic royalty. Throughout his trailblazing career, Scorsese has constantly redefined American cinema through unforgettable masterpieces such as Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, among many others.
Known for his contributions to the American New Wave, Scorsese was pivotal in the reconceptualisation of Hollywood filmmaking during the 1970s. Even though he is going to turn 80 this year, Scorsese has proven that he is ready to fight for the future of cinema until the very end and is currently working on a new film with Leonardo DiCaprio.
For this edition of Short of the Week, we have chosen an early short by Scorsese titled The Big Shave. Made in 1967, it’s a body horror film that’s only six minutes long, but it manages to achieve much more than most of the mediocre genre flicks that saturate the markets.
The incisive allegorical film depicts a man who participates in the grooming ritual of shaving, but the problem is that he just can’t stop. Initially, Scorsese wanted to use the striking imagery of a man shaving his skin off to launch a pointed attack against the self-destructive involvement of the US military in the Vietnam War.
When he made the film, Scorsese wrote: “I feel that the intent of the film is evident in the script. However, I would like to state that I hope the film will express my sad feelings concerning the present general moral condition of my young country and a sentiment (reflected in the song)—a personal one—of an America I never knew.”
However, with time, the filmmaker changed his opinions about the subtext. He later reflected: “Consciously, [The Big Shave] was an angry outcry against the war. But in reality, something else was going on inside of me, I think, which really had nothing to do with the war. It was just a very bad period, a very bad period.”
Watch the short below.
