Shaft (1971 film)

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Shaft is a 1971 film used as a model for blaxploitation films, but many debate whether it actually falls under the category of blaxploitation itself. It tells the story of a black detective, John Shaft, who travels through Harlem and to the Italian mob in order to find the missing daughter of a black mobster. It stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell and Lawrence Pressman. The movie was adapted by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black from Tidyman's 1971 novel of the same name. It was directed by Gordon Parks.

Shaft's character embodied standard movie-detective coolness, but brought it to a new level by adding pronounced blackness. John Shaft was cool, confident, sexy, and represented the black point of view. In being rational, real, and Afrocentric, Shaft outclassed other black stereotypes in the film, including black urban junkies, black activists, and black gangsters.

A crucial scene emphasized Shaft's Afrocentrism, and unwillingness to accept racial hypocrisy: Lt. Androzzi (a police detective) compares Shaft's skin tone to a black plastic Bic pen, saying "You ain't so black." Shaft replies by holding up a white ceramic coffee cup, asserting "And you ain't so white, baby."

The film was a box-office success grossing $12 million. The budget was $1,125,000. It won an Academy Award for Best Music, Song for Isaac Hayes for "Theme from Shaft". It was nominated for Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.

According to one version of events, "Shaft" was originally written as just another detective movie, with a white detective in the lead, but, after the success of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), the film was rewritten and recast as a blaxploitation movie. This story has been recounted many times by "Sweetback" writer-director Melvin Van Peebles [link], who claims that he read the original "Shaft" script before the movie went into production; however, Van Peebles' story seems doubtful, since Tidyman's novel (the basis for the film) is about a black detective, not a white one.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Ernest Tidyman, who was white, was an editor at the New York Times prior to becoming a novelist. He sold the movie rights to "Shaft" by showing the galley proofs to the studio (the novel had not yet been published). Tidyman was honored by the NAACP for his work on the "Shaft" movies and books.

Two sequels were made: Shaft's Big Score in 1972, and Shaft in Africa in 1973.

In 2000, a sequel was made featuring Samuel L. Jackson in the title role (see Shaft (2000 movie)). Jackson plays the nephew of Richard Roundtree's character; Roundtree returns as John Shaft, but is now a private eye, trying to get his nephew to join him.

In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the original film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

References

["Baadasssss is back!"], interview of Melvin Van Peebles by Jason Solomons, The Observer, June 5, 2005

External links

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