Shaft Blu-ray Review
Still One Bad Mothahfu . . . (hush your mouth!)
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, August 16, 2012
It would be impossible to overstate the impact of Gordon Parks's original
Shaft when it first
appeared on movie screens in 1971. Private investigator John Shaft didn't do anything audiences
hadn't seen before. He openly defied the cops, beat down anyone who got in his way, handled
firearms with aplomb, bedded any woman who caught his fancy and came out a winner in the
end. But Shaft was African-American, and in 1971 much of white America was still unsettled by
confident, self-possessed black men who refused to "know their place". Just the year before
Shaft's release, a Vietnam veteran named Dickie Morrow had been publicly executed in Oxford,
North Carolina, by relatives of a white woman who claimed he'd been "rude"; his killers were
acquitted by an all-white jury, despite eyewitness testimony. (The incident and its aftermath are
the basis for the film
Blood Done Sign My
Name.) In a country where such things could still
happen, the sequence in which Shaft picks up a white woman at a bar and takes her home for the
night, only to have her accuse him of being "shitty" the next morning, was as loaded as they
come—even more so when Shaft and his police lieutenant buddy, Androzzi, turn her complaint
into a running joke.
The Black Panther Party was still active then, and many feared it. Having Shaft not only routinely
brandish firearms, but also recruit militants to assist him in rescuing a kidnapped mobster's
daughter, was like jabbing a finger into a cultural sore spot. Both director Parks and screenwriter
Ernest Tidyman (adapting his novel with the help of John D.F. Black, an experienced TV writer)
knew exactly what they were doing. The film's tone is set immediately during Shaft's famous
swaggering stroll through Times Square, to the sound of Isaac Hayes's Oscar-winning theme,
when he gives the finger to a motorist, saying "Up yours, baby!" Add Hayes's Oscar appearance
to the list of shockers; the TV audience had never seen anyone with his dark skin, cueball head
and gold chains accepting an Academy Award.
Shaft's age is evident both in its suroundings and costumes and in its cinematic style. The
Steadicam hadn't yet been invented, which meant that Parks couldn't follow his hero closely
through the urban landscape that was Shaft's natural habitat, and editing hadn't yet been
transformed into the rapid-fire style that would appear in the next decade with music videos.
Besides, Parks came from the world of still photography. A founder of
Essence magazine and a
veteran of
Life, Parks generally composed a frame, let the actors perform within it (plus wherever
the camera could tilt or pan), then let his editor, Hugh A. Robertson (
Midnight Cowboy),
construct the scene. The result might be considered stately and slow except for two things: the
charismatic performance by Richard Roundtree in the title role, and Isaac Hayes's unforgettable
soundtrack, which feels both timeless and of its time. Together, these two intense presences still
conspire to pull a viewer into the film, even today.
New York P.I. John Shaft (Roundtree) is on his way to his office when he gets a tip that two
hoodlums are looking for him. Not wanting to be unpleasantly surprised, Shaft manages to
ambush the pair, which results in a scuffle that lands him in the office of NYPD Lt. Vic Androzzi
(Charles Cioffi). Androzzi is the closest thing Shaft has to a friend on the force—and they aren't
that friendly. In a classic exchange that captures the tenor of their relationship, Androzzi holds up
a black pen to Shaft's face and says, "You ain't so black." To which Shaft responds by holding a
white coffee mug next to Androzzi's face, saying: "And you ain't so white either, baby." (Shaft
calls
everyone "baby".)
Androzzi has been hearing rumors of something big and potentially dangerous, and he wants
Shaft to tell him what it is. Shaft says nothing, because at this point he doesn't know (which he
won't admit either; it would be bad for his image). He does know that the hoods who came for
him work for a Harlem crime boss known as Bumpy Jonas (Moses Gunn). (The name is a tribute
to Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, who died in 1963 and has appeared as a character in
Hoodlum and
American Gangster, among others.) Shaft makes Bumpy come to
him, which he
does, accompanied by his resentful right-hand man, Willy (Drew Bundini Brown, one of
Muhammad Ali's trainers). Bumpy says that his daughter, Marcy (Sherri Brewer), has been
kidnapped, with no ransom note and no demands. He wants Shaft to find her. Bumpy suggests
inquiring among a radical group that opposes his criminal activities for political reasons.
Shaft can sense that he isn't getting a straight story, but he takes the job and tracks down Ben
Buford (Christopher St. John), an old friend from the neighborhood who is now a leader of the
radical group. (Watch for Antonio Fargas, a future regular on
Starsky and Hutch, as one of the
Harlem characters Shaft pays for information on Buford's whereabouts.) But Shaft is being
tailed, and his meeting with Buford is ambushed by gunmen. Shaft and Buford escape, but others
aren't so lucky. What Shaft can't decide is whether he or Buford was the target.
After Lt. Androzzi questions him again, Shaft confronts Bumpy and learns that he's been drawn
into a war between Bumpy's operation and the New Jersey mob, a war in which Bumpy's
daughter has become a pawn. Buford wants no part of this, but to Bumpy's great amusement,
Shaft is able to persuade Buford of the economic benefits of assisting Bumpy on a temporary
basis. With backup now secured, Shaft begins planning a daring rescue that plays something like
"Mission: Impossible" on a shoestring budget. The iconic image used on one-sheets of Shaft
grasping a rope and firing a gun is taken from that climactic sequence.
If he'd been born twenty-five years later, Richard Roundtree might easily have become an
international movie star. Much of the success and durability of
Shaft are due to Roundtree's screen
presence and intensely physical portrayal of the title character. Unfortunately for Roundtree, he
was so effective in the role that he became typecast, and after the brief era of so-called
"blaxploitation" films that
Shaft helped inspire—a concept from which director Parks tried, in
vain, to disassociate himself—there was little work as a leading man for an African-American
actor in the Seventies and Eighties. After two
Shaft sequels and a short-lived TV series,
Roundtree kept busy with supporting work in film and TV, where his range can be seen in such
roles as the buttoned-down D.A. in
Se7en, the stylized school principal in Rian Johnson's
Brick,
the elderly Hardy Lester in
Soul Food and, of course, the elegantly retired version of John Shaft,
uncle to Samuel L. Jackson's version, in the 2000 remake.
Then again, Roundtree isn't solely responsible for turning himself into Shaft. Not since Monty
Norman penned James Bond's signature theme has a musician so thoroughly embodied a
character in a series of notes as Isaac Hayes did with
Shaft. Once heard, the theme is hard to
forget, and in the summer of 1971, it was
everywhere. Just play a few seconds of it, and anyone
who's seen the movie can visualize Roundtree's Shaft striding through Times Square, long
leather coat flapping in the wind.
Shaft Blu-ray, Video Quality
Shaft's tiny production budget is reflected in its image, but Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray offers a remarkably faithful
reproduction of the film's original look. The source material is in
fine shape, which is especially noteworthy when you consider that most audiences in 1971 saw
prints that had been run through projectors repeatedly and taken quite a beating by the time they
reached the second or third week of exhibition.
Swiss cinematographer Urs Furrer (whose career was cut short by a fatal heart attack at age 40)
was a veteran of documentaries and industrial films, which made him ideal for shooting
Shaft in
largely natural light in the many real locations in and around New York City where the
production filmed. If you don't like grain, you won't like this Blu-ray—and you also don't like
film, because this is what film of this vintage looks like when shot under such conditions. The
same emulsion that created the grain also captured substantial detail (light permitting), and
reducing the grain would be difficult to do without losing detail. Even if you could keep all the
image information with sophisticated software, the degrained result wouldn't look like
Shaft.
This Blu-ray does.
Blacks are deep and inky, which is critical in certain night scenes, e.g., when Shaft and Buford
are fleeing gunmen. Director Parks and his DP place the two men in deep shadow as they hide,
with only a small amount of light falling on their faces; it's a painterly composition that requires
solid blacks for its effect, and the Blu-ray delivers. Colors are generally cool, flat and dull,
consistent with the wintry season and crumbling city infrastructure, but there are exceptions (e.g.,
the apartment of Shaft's girlfriend).
The film runs under two hours; the soundtracks are all mono; and the extras are all standard
definition. As a result, Warner has managed to get away with a BD-25 without compression
issues. My video score for this title is based on fidelity to the source and a remarkable job with
difficult material. Anyone who complains because the video score compares favorably to [fill in
the blank with any non-grainy digitally processed film of recent vintage] will simply demonstrate
their lack of reading comprehension.
