Arnold, Gary (June 30, 1971). Shaft and one of Ben's men go to the roof and prepare to enter the room where Marcy is being held captive. Their sexist views were felt to be a reaction to the hierarchical power structure already prevalent in society. "'Shaft': Diverting Thriller". "[11] The entire dynamic of the film, its later success, and the future of blaxploitation films were all greatly impacted by Parks' decision. [37], The film's score was also selected as a possible candidate for AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. The website's "Critics Consensus" quotes the movie's opening song: "This is the man that would risk his neck for his brother, man. Listen to trailer music, OST, original score, and the full list of popular songs in the film. [41] "The 45-single release of the record topped the US charts, hit number 4 in the UK and is still popular today, enjoying a new lease of life as a cellphone ring tone."[11]. Shaft informs Vic as a result of the rescue there will be a huge mess to fix between the uptown crew and the mob in the near future. This story has been told several times by director Melvin Van Peebles. Theme from Shaft", List of songs written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter, High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'), Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theme_from_Shaft&oldid=1006759408, Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songs, United States National Recording Registry recordings, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz work identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, The song has been played or parodied in television shows, including, Another Burger King commercial from 2002 promoted the Shaq Pack, where the lyrics alluded to, Since very early in the 1970s, the Swedish national television network, Also since the early 1970s, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio current affairs show, An instrumental version of the song served as the news theme for Memphis television station, In Australia, an edited instrumental version was used as the theme for "Seven's Big League". Learn how and when to remove this template message, Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture, Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special, https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Shaft-(1971)#tab=summary, "Richard Roundtree Discusses 'Shaft' at Virginia Film Festival", 'Shaft'—At Last, a Good Saturday Night Movie, "African American Films in the National Film Registry", "AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores Official Ballot", "The 50 Greatest Heroes and the 50 Greatest Villains of All Time: The 400 Nominated Characters", "America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies: The 400 Nominated Films", "Tim Story To Direct New Version Of 'Shaft' For New Line", "Warner Bros. Moves 'Tag' Up, Sets 2019 Release For 'Shaft' & 'The Goldfinch, "Look at us, living together, driving together. Shaft was adapted from Ernest Tidyman's novels by Tidyman and screenwriter John D. F. Black. And the movie was groundbreaking as well. Vic says to close it for him, meaning he wants Shaft to fix the trouble. It turns out Bumpy's daughter has been kidnapped, and Shaft is asked to ensure her safe return. Shaft's economic independence was a crucial part of his persona. In the British gangster film Sexy Beast, Don Logan (played by Ben Kingsley) tells Gal Dove (played by Ray Winstone) that his fake name is "Roundtree, like Smarties, like Shaft.". Songs On Screen Shaft (1971) Introduction and comments following Shaft, 1971, with TCM s Dave Karger and guest Chris Isaak. "[13], After production, in an effort to entice a large black audience to see the film, MGM hired UniWorld, a black advertising firm, who "popularized Shaft by using the rhetoric of black power. MGM put their full faith behind Parks, long before the unexpected underground success of Sweetback, and it paid off in being one of the few MGM films to turn a profit in 1971. Released as a single, this version reached number five on the Billboard R&B chart, number 19 on the Easy Listening chart, and number 22 on the Hot 100. For the song "Theme from Shaft". This was after the Academy tried to disqualify it, too, saying, because I can't write music, it wasn't my composition. One way that Shaft's blackness was showcased was through his attire. alone. The synthesized keyboard is played by Hayes. As the others get away in the remaining cabs, Shaft walks to a phone booth to call Vic. [38], The character John Shaft was considered a possible candidate for AFI's 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains. "Robyn Wiegman argues that the members of the Black Power Movement defined the politics of race within 'a metaphorics of phallic power,' which developed out of male activists' desire to counter cultural articulations of black male inferiority, and that this perspective is readily seen in the writings of influential figures such as Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and Amiri Baraka."[13]. The core rhythm for the tune, the springboard for the whole soundtrack, we'd cut in under two hours."[9]. Three vocal selections are included: "Soulsville", "Do Your Thing", and " Theme from Shaft ". [11], In February 2015, TheWrap reported that Shaft would be rebooted by New Line Cinema with John Davis producing the new film. Shaft initially had two sequels called Shaft's Big Score! Instead, "the implication is that the wise black (Shaft) will want to sever ties with the people of Harlem and find a place among whites. Melvin Van Peebles claimed that the success of his film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song caused Shaft to be changed from a "white movie" into a "black one". In November 2017, the film was revealed to be entitled Shaft and was released on June 14, 2019.[47]. [1] The theme was released as a single (shortened and edited from the longer album version) two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label. Another prominent characteristic of this movement was its strong focus on masculinity. In the Community episode "Anthropology 101", Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase) refers to his living situation with Troy Barnes (Donald Glover) as like "Batman and Shaft".[49]. “Hot Buttered Soul” (1969), “The Isaac Hayes Movement” (1970) and “Black Moses” (1971)— works that featured exploratory musical outings with songs that often ran for more than 15 minutes. [34][35], In 2003, Shaft was chosen as one of The 1000 Best Movies Ever Made by The New York Times. After tracking down Ben Buford as Bumpy suggested, a shootout ensues; Shaft is told by Androzzi after the shooting that Shaft himself, and not Ben, was the target, and that tensions brewing between the uptown hoods belonging to Bumpy Jonas and the downtown Mafiosi have culminated in a couple of murders. Once there, a gunfight ensues during which two Mafia hoods are killed and Shaft takes a bullet in the shoulder. Hayes recorded the rhythm parts on the theme first, scored the entire rest of the film, then returned to the theme song. also uttered by Hayes, and "He's a complicated man/but no one understands him/but his woman/John Shaft." View the TCMDb entry for Shaft (1971) share video. "[30] Riley also harshly stated, "Mediocre is the only word to describe the work of Gordon Parks, the director of this nonsense, inept is the kindest thing to say about the performances of Richard Roundtree as John Shaft, a Black private eye on the prowl for kicks in the Big Apple underworld. Paul Newman had established his Harper in 1966, (the character reprised 1975, in The Drowning Pool). They tested me by giving me the opening scene – footage of Shaft coming out of the subway – to take away and see how I got on. [11] When he won for Best Original Song, it was the first time an African American composer had won an Academy Award. In Good Eats, Alton Brown performs a parody of the film's theme song about puff pastry. The opening sixteenth-note hi-hat ride pattern, played by Willie Hall, was drawn from a break on Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness", a Stax record on which Hayes had played. Also, after a white woman slept with Shaft, she told him, "You're pretty good in the sack, but you're pretty shitty afterwards. Bowman, Rob and Chuck D (2004). "[24] Gene Siskel awarded two stars out of four and wrote that the film "offers little more than a rousing opening fight and a chance to see Roundtree glower while he models some fancy leather outfits. Shaft surmises that mobsters are watching his apartment from a local bar. Hayes immediately defends himself by replying "I'm talking about Shaft", with the back-up vocalists replying, "We can dig it." The "Theme from Shaft" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and has appeared on multiple Top 100 lists, including AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs. "[19] Parks responded to Riley's social criticisms with a letter to the editor in The New York Times, stating that "Riley seems sadly alone among blacks in this reaction. Released as a single on September 30, 1971, "Theme from Shaft" rocketed up the charts, slamming into #1 on the Hot 100 for the week of November 20, 1971. Hayes' utterance of the word "damn" made this the first No. [8] Guitarist Charles Pitts' wah-wah effect was common in 1970s funk; the riff had originally been written for an unfinished Stax song. In Desperate Housewives, Richard Roundtree appears as a private detective. Within two months, it hit No. He also shows Shaft some pictures of two of the Mafia men who just arrived in New York. Academy Awards, USA 1972 Winner Oscar: Best Music, Original Song Isaac Hayes. The result of this inauthentic portrayal of blackness in early 1970s blaxploitation films like Shaft had an effect on black audiences viewing them. The screen detective genre in the late 1960s had been dominated by the big movies, big stars. As late as 1990, censors at the Fox Network thought it too risqué to be sung on The Simpsons (until it was pointed out that the song had been played on television before). Quite an achievement for 47 years ago! "Instead of laying out a series of lengthy, chilled-out raps and jams, the episodic nature of a movie structure obliged him to focus on shorter instrumentals, featuring laid-back, jazz-infused riffs and solos. / You're damn right / Who is the man / That would risk his neck for his brother man? [11] "Vulgar, shallow, and crudely done, Shaft distinguished itself mainly by having the best musical score of the year. The theme was released as a single (shortened and edited from the longer album version) two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label. [3] The song is considered by some to be one of the first disco songs.[4][5]. (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973), with "neither capturing the soul of the original", according to author Howard Hughes. "[29], Other critics like Clayton Riley mainly found fault in the films' failure to "deal with Black life in serious terms,"[19] writing that "Sam Spade is all right for the field hands because the White folks don't want to carry that weight any more. Since then, the song has appeared in numerous television shows, commercials, and other movies, including the 2000 sequel Shaft, for which Hayes re-recorded the song. It held the top spot for two weeks before it was dethroned by Sly & the Family Stone's "Family Affair" on December 3, 1971. "While he ha[d] a black girlfriend, which would satisfy the expectations of cultural nationalism, he is not above sleeping around and having random sex with attractive white women. It was produced at a cost of $1.2 million while earning $10.8 million in its first year of distribution,[12] $7 million in the U.S. "[41], For Hayes' remarkable composition, he received a combination of public praise, notable critical reception, and awards. Find album reviews, stream songs, credits and award information for Shaft [Music from the Soundtrack] - Isaac Hayes on AllMusic - 1971 - Of the many wonderful blaxpoitation soundtracks… This emphasis on the male effort to improve black life was accompanied by sexist beliefs by many leading activists. The inclusion of a group so strongly identified with the Black Power movement was clearly an effort to appeal to black audience members. "[9], Later that year, Hayes performed "Theme from Shaft" live at the Wattstax concert in Los Angeles. Instead of the collective nature of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power movement in the 1960s, these films helped to usher in a decade of self-indulgence, material gain, and drug consumption. In the Black Power movement, leaders ardently fought to gain greater presence and control for their people, because even after desegregation, African Americans were still greatly excluded from the economic, political, and cultural systems engrained in white American society. The song was also well received by adult audiences, reaching number six on Billboard's Easy Listening chart. )", a fifth-season episode, includes a Shaft-themed wedding for Will and his fiancée, Lisa. Shaft was intentionally created to "appeal to a black urban audience, along with contiguous white youths. Ben and Shaft go to the apartment where Marcy Jonas is being held to make sure she is alive. [46] In August 2017, it was revealed that Richard Roundtree and Samuel L. Jackson would reprise their roles from previous films, and Jessie T. Usher portraying the son of John Shaft II (Jackson). Nominee Oscar: Best Music, Original Dramatic Score Isaac Hayes: Golden Globes, USA 1972 Winner Golden Globe: Best Original Score - Motion Picture Isaac Hayes: Nominee Richard Roundtree was the only person to ever play John Shaft, appearing in all four films and the television series. This film was created less to impact black consciousness and more to simply to show a "'fun film,' which people could attend on Saturday night and see a black guy winning. Shaft later goes to the police station to set a meeting to find where Bumpy's daughter is being held captive. The following year, "Theme from Shaft" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song,[1] with Hayes becoming the first African American to win that honor – or any Academy Award in a non-acting category – as well as the first recipient of the award who both wrote and performed the winning song. At the beginning of the film, Shaft was approached by two police officers seeking information. He is allowed to return to the streets for 48 hours. Spatially, he also was much taller than the officers, further boosting his position of control. "[45] In January 2017, Deadline reports that Tim Story will direct the film, a sequel, which will follows the son of John Shaft. Audio commentary track for, Isaac Hayes winning an Oscar® for "Shaft", The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 1971, "The Greatest Songs Ever! [13] "Equally important, Riley points out that the narratives about, and images of, blacks in these new films are no more than thematic templates reworked with black casts and updated stereotypes that reconfirm white expectations of blacks and serve to repress and delay the awakening of any real political consciousness."[12]. The theme was released as a single (shortened and edited from the longer album version) two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label.

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