I first knew of this movie from seeing the poster in one of my teacher’s classrooms as a small child. It must have been around the time of the remake because I have a vague memory of thinking they were the same movie.
What is there to say about Shaft?
This was my first viewing and my reaction was probably the same as most other people.
As soon as Isaac Hayes’ music hit and the title card zoomed on the screen, I was hooked.
Richard Roundtree is an instant movie star, and Parks gives him the perfect introduction. After picking him up in the wide, Parks cuts to low angle close up looking up at him.
I was so struck by this opening, I had to go back and rewatch it a few times.
Roundtree’s Shaft has become such an archetype, it is important to remember how much of a seachange he represented in mainstream Hollywood.
While less radical than Melvin Van Peeples’ revolutionary Sweetback, John Shaft is not working within the system like Sidney Poitier’s Virgil Tibbs (In The Heat of the Night).
He is shown to be at ease with the various strata he has to navigate, and he shows no obvious fear of or deference for the police.
Shaft is also highly aware of the different power dynamics at play in this city, and the stakes his case presents to the safety of Harlem.
While Roundtree is great, the performance of the movie is Moses Gunn as gangster Bumpy Jonas. Slipping between desperate father and calculating mastermind, he is a fantastic, ambiguous foil for Shaft.
Jonas’s presence also sets up an ideological conflict with the younger revolutionaries he holds responsible for the kidnapping. While his products are considered illegal, the gangster is a capitalist, purely interested in accumulating wealth.
Ultimately, it is these same revolutionaries who help Shaft in his final rescue.
Shaft is not a movie overly concerned with plot - its mechanics are familiar, but the way in which Shaft navigates them is what makes it more unique. The fact that he shows no interest in bringing in the police when he needs the cavalry - a sentiment which remains relevant in the current era of militarised policing - is significant.
While the song rhapsodises his potency, I was surprised he had a girlfriend.
This woman, Ellie (Gwenn Mitchell), is only a minor part of the film, and Shaft’s interest appears to be self-serving. Aside from an early sex scene, we - and Shaft - do not see her until he needs her help. He is also shown hooking up a white woman he casually meets during his investigation - indeed, it turns out to be a bit too casual. Shaft dismisses her so bluntly, she cusses him out.
Shaft’s misogyny appears to be an aftereffect - in trying to present him as the opposite of characters like more restrained Tubbs, Shaft tips over into perpetuating the same callousness as other white sexual superheroes like James Bond. It is the one real dated part of the film.
One other thing I found surprising about the character is that he is fallible and physically vulnerable. His first attempt to rescue the girl is a failure, and he is seriously wounded. These kinds of setbacks are not new for thrillers (particularly in the Seventies), but I was impressed by how close to curtains Shaft comes.
It is so rare nowadays for a main character to be shown hurt or at a physical disadvantage, and it shows how far perceptions in Hollywood have shifted in terms of how action heroes are portrayed.
Ultimately, despite his many strengths, Shaft is not a one-man army, and he cannot deflect bullets.
The third act of the film almost changes genres, as Shaft and his team infiltrate the villains’ hideout dressed as staff, before ambushing them and affecting a rescue. It is a fun scene, but what takes it over the top is the button.
If the opening of Shaft is the birth of an icon, the ending cements him into immortality.
Rescue complete, Shaft leaves the villains’ hideout as the familiar theme kicks back and he saunters across the street as though nothing just happened.
At a payphone, he advises his cop pal to tie up the loose ends and heads off laughing into the night. Brilliant.
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