Shaft

Author

Gordon Parks

Call Number

• BLU-RAY ACTION (CEN)

Edition

Two Blu-ray special edition.

Languages

English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Performers

Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell, Lawrence Pressman, Victor Arnold, Drew Bundini Brown, Antonio Fargas.

Publication Information

[Irvington, NY] : Criterion Collection, [2022]

Physical Description

2 videodiscs (100 minutes) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 folded sheet (color illustrations ; 17 cm.)

Audience

MPAA rating: R.

Summary

"While the Black Power movement was reshaping America, trailblazing director Gordon Parks made this groundbreaking blockbuster, which helped launch the blaxploitation era and gave the screen a new kind of badder-than-bad action hero in John Shaft, a streetwise New York City private eye who is as tough with criminals as he is tender with his lovers. After Shaft is recruited to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Harlem mob boss from Italian gangsters, he finds himself in the middle of a rapidly escalating uptown vs. downtown turf war. A vivid time capsule of seventies Manhattan in all its gritty glory that has inspired sequels and multimedia reboots galore, the original Shaft is studded with indelible elements--from Roundtree's sleek leather fashions to the iconic funk and soul score by Isaac Hayes."--Container.

Notes

Based upon the novel by Ernest Tidyman.

Originally released as a motion picture in 1971.

Special features: New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack ; alternate uncompressed stereo soundtrack remastered with creative input from Isaac Hayes III ; Shaft's big score!, the 1972 follow-up to Shaft by director Gordon Parks ; new documentary featuring curator Rhea L. Combs, film scholar Racquel J. Gates, filmmaker Nelson George, and music scholar Shana L. Redmond ; Soul in cinema: filming "Shaft" on location (1971) ; archival interviews with Parks, musician Isaac Hayes, and actor Richard Roundtree ; new program on Hayes's score featuring Redmond ; new interview with costume designer Joseph G. Aulisi ; new program on the Black detective featuring scholar Kinohi Nishikawa and novelist Walter Mosley ; A complicated man: the "Shaft" legacy (2019) ; trailers.

Contents

• [Disc one.] Blu-ray one. Shaft (1971, 100 minutes)
• [Disc two.] Blu-ray two. Shaft's big score! (1972, 104 minutes).