“I've been consulted by Franklin D.,
Gretta Garbo has had me to tea,
Still I'm broken hearted,
Cause I can't get it started,
With you”The Big Shave [The Big Shave… or, Viet '67] (Martin Scorsese, 1967)
Dec
2
Safety Razor Day
A young man (Peter Bernuth) shaving in front of a mirror. The bathroom is clean, white, with chrome fixtures. DP: Ares Demertzis.
Accompanied by the sweet tunes of Bunny Berigan and Ira Gershwin's I Can't Get Started, a young man shaves his face. The Big Shave is a short commissioned film which contains many of the hallmarks of Martin Scorsese's later, more accessible work.
–Ira Gershwin, I Can't Get Started (1936)
There's also the obvious influence of #KennethAnger to be found, in nostalgic show tunes, the fetishisation of chrome and clean lines, followed by lustful, by ways erotic, violence. #Scorsese theme here is not homoeroticism, not on the surface at least, but the carnage laid upon so many young men sent off to the smouldering battlefields of #Vietnam. There'd be another six years of that. And meanwhile, some young men came back. And some picked up a job, driving a cab.