Shaft
Issac Hayes’s score for “Shaft” is an all-time great. The song won at the Oscars, yes, but the score it leads off is one that does more than just underline emotions and actions- it creates the world Richard Roundtree’s private detective occupies. The song that starts the movie off tells us who John Shaft is, but it’s the music that tells us how he lives.
Gordon Park’s film is not as great as its score, but it honestly doesn’t need to be. Based on a novel by Ernest Tidyman, who adapted it with John D.F. Black, the film is a boiler plate crime drama about kidnappings and violent streets and tough cops which finds Shaft at the center of a plot in which a black gangster’s daughter is kidnapped by Italian mobsters, and the tensions that arise from it. The plot exists for Shaft to look cool in working his way through it- expecting anything else is a fool’s errand.
Like “Black Panther” from Marvel, it’s easy to see why “Shaft,” one of the key films in the blacksploitation genre, mattered to people when it came out in 1971. Any time a change in how Hollywood approaches representation in cinema, and in opportunity, is important to mark, and “Shaft” was part of such a moment. I’m not quite sure if I would put the film itself with “Black Panther” as far as quality- it’s a solidly entertaining crime drama, and not much else- but I do feel like its significance goes beyond the content of its narrative. Parks is a filmmaker who has inspired many that came after him. Hayes’s score brought a musical attitude to cinema that is still being felt. And Roundtree became instantly iconic for his performance as John Shaft. There’s not a lot to Shaft beyond what his theme song describes, and there doesn’t need to be- he’s no nonsense in every part of his life, and he’ll get the job done. It’s great watching him work. The question is, do I dare watch the sequels?
There’s more to this than just Roundtree and Hayes’s score, of course. The dynamic between Shaft and Charles Cioffi as a police detective is entertaining to watch unfold. The way Shaft navigates the underworld, especially with Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn), whose daughter is the one taken, is entertaining in the same way you expect private eyes to operate in movies. This isn’t a film noir, though (although that might be an intriguing spin if the upcoming legacy sequel, which includes both Roundtree and Samuel L. Jackson, who played the role in the 2000 movie, takes off, and re-energizes the franchise); this is a crime thriller for fans of police procedurals with blasts of action in the third act, and the final shootout is an exciting thing to watch. The cast adds flavor to the film, but in the end, it comes down to those primary elements of Parks, Roundtree and Hayes. Without them, Shaft is hardly the bad motherf*^$er he became. If you doubt it, I suggest shutting your mouth.
