Blaxploitation classic 'Shaft' to screen as part of MFAH's Gordon Parks exhibit

Sep 03, 2023

Richard Roundtree is John Shaft in Gordon Parks' "Shaft" (1971).

Since October, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has featured an exhibit titled "Gordon Parks: Stokely Carmichael and Black Power," which displays all the pictures the African-American photographer (1912-2006) shot of the African-American activist (1941-1998), for a 1967 profile in Life magazine. It's only fitting that, just a few feet away from the exhibit, people can head over to the museum's Brown Auditorium and see another Black-and-proud hero Parks captured on camera: John Shaft.

Yes, "Shaft," that ever-iconic Blaxploitation staple, will be screening Dec. 15 – in glorious 35mm! Parks's 1971 detective story, where Richard Roundtree assumes the role of the sexy and soulful private dick Ernest Tidyman created in his 1970 novel of the same name, was a box-office smash, set off the Blaxploitation film craze and gave a best original song Oscar win to Isaac Hayes (the first African-American to receive the honor), for his equally iconic "Theme from ‘Shaft'."

DJ/photographer/ethnomusicologist Flash Gordon Parks will introduce the film, as well as take part in a post-film discussion with Peter Lucas (who programs the museum's yearly Jazz on Film series), where they’ll talk about Hayes's groundbreaking, Grammy-winning soundtrack. Flash, who also curated a special playlist for the Parks/Carmichael exhibit, suggested that the museum screen not only "Shaft," but "Leadbelly," Parks's 1976 musical biopic of blues legend Huddie Ledbetter. (Parks will also introduce "Leadbelly," which will be shown — also in glorious 35mm! — in January.)

For Flash, John Shaft was just as influential and inspiring a figure in 1970s Black America as Carmichael. "I mean, who was cooler than Shaft at that time," asks Parks (government name: Jason Woods). "That leather jacket, that ability to be sort of above the law as a private detective. But everything about him represented cool, calm under pressure. And, you know, at the end of the day, he gets the case solved and he always gets the woman."

This isn't the first time the MFAH has screened the classic. In 1996, the film closed out "Blaxploitation Bijoux," a month-long retrospective of Blaxploitation films. And, in 2001, it was a part of a retrospective of Parks films titled "The Films of Gordon Parks: Retrospective of a Living Legend."

For a film that's usually more identified as pop-culture shorthand for the funky, Black screen heroes they had in the ‘70s, MFAH film curator Marian Luntz says the theater is always ready to unspool "Shaft" for both hardcore fans and curious neophytes. "I think it's iconic," says Luntz, "and part of what we like to do with repertory filmmaking — whether we have a related exhibition or not — is to present films that people should experience, whether they’ve seen it before [or] inttroducing a new generation to seeing films that are not just being watched at home and being seen the way the filmmakers intended them to be seen, on the screen."

Considering that "Shaft" got a DVD/Blu-ray release via prestigious film distributor The Criterion Collection earlier this year, it appears "Shaft" is finally getting its due by cineastes and other-than-Black audiences as the trendsetting work of cinema it's always been. (In his recently-released Netflix documentary "Is That Black Enough for You?!?" director/film critic Elvis Mitchell visually makes the case that "Shaft"'s memorable opening-credits sequence, with Roundtree walking the streets of New York, inspired John Travolta's opening stroll through Brooklyn in "Saturday Night Fever.")

But, more importantly, "Shaft" gives us another facet of Gordon Parks's long, legendary career as a photographer, filmmaker, writer, musician, and all-around Renaissance man. "In all media, he created work focused on social justice, civil rights, and the African American experience," says MFAH photography curator Lisa Volpe. "Though created four years apart, Parks's profile on Stokely Carmichael for Life magazine and his movie 'Shaft' demonstrate his singular narrative vision and his advocacy for Black stories."

Craig Lindsey is a Houston-based writer.

When: 7 p.m. Dec. 15

Where: Brown Auditorium Theater, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet

Details: $9 ($7 seniors); 713-639-7515; mfah.org/films

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