27-05-2012, 05:56 PM
SPOILER ALERT -THIS THREAD ASSUMES FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE PLOTS OF THE TWO FILMS DISCUSSED:
The original Shaft and French Connection movies were playing on satellite recently.
I haven't seen either movie for years, and watching them was a curious and challenging experience.
Both films were released in 1971.
The change in production techniques is immediately striking. Certain technical elements had dated so far that they disrupted the essential suspension of disbelief: never ending, accidentally jerky, zoom shots (abandoned even in documentary years ago); scenes that didn't advance the storyline and should have been dropped in the cutting room or hacked way back to serve an atmospheric rather than narrative purpose; really dysfunctional timing in some of the edits and delivery of lines by actors. Etc etc.
Against that, both films still exhibited raw power. And, eventually, this enabled my belief to be suspended and the films to suck me in.
Shaft is more dated. It's blaxploitation roots (indeed arguably its creation of the genre) are both a boon and a curse.
Starting with Isaac Hayes' soundtrack:
Who's the black private dick
That's a sex machine to all the chicks?
SHAFT!
Ya damn right!
"Shaft" sing the backing singers - Shaft Shaft.
Now, forty-odd years later, the storyline of Shaft feels fairly conventional. Its power resides in its shoving of stereotypes quite literally down the throat of the viewer: an intelligent black man who lives a materially successful life on his own terms, sexually attractive to white women who complain that he's "great in the sack but shitty outside", whilst having a long term relatonship with a black woman, and - crucially - this "black private dick" is both smarter and more dynamic than the American-Italian detective who tries to use him as a bridge into black culture.
Shaft felt like a 2-hour continuation of the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympic Games.
Fuck you, we're human beings, we will break the shackles, the chains, and live life our own way....
John Shaft is as much anti-hero as hero, a street hustler whose only loyalty is to himself. But still a potent, charismatic, figure who challenges bourgeois, (or as we say now MSM), assumptions.
The core strength of French Connection also lies in the reality it lays bare.
With the metallic, discordant, clanging over the opening titles, French Connection dumps you straight into its street life, with the deeply flawed Doyle and Russo hustling bars and dealers. These cops are not heroes, they're as much hustlers as the prey they chase.
Fundamentally, it's a work of nihilism. Every character in the film is fucked up. And the system is fucked up too. So, naturally, during the film's climax, rather than shooting the "bad guy", Doyle shoots a fellow cop, Mulderig, who thinks Doyle is a Grade-A asshole.
Artistic techniques change and evolve (not always for the better).
Ultimately, both films survive and transcend their 1970s technical constraints.
Both give the finger to lazy, numb, consensus reality, and their power resides in this.
And Gene Hackman is an amazing actor. He is "Popeye" Doyle, and he is brilliant.
The original Shaft and French Connection movies were playing on satellite recently.
I haven't seen either movie for years, and watching them was a curious and challenging experience.
Both films were released in 1971.
The change in production techniques is immediately striking. Certain technical elements had dated so far that they disrupted the essential suspension of disbelief: never ending, accidentally jerky, zoom shots (abandoned even in documentary years ago); scenes that didn't advance the storyline and should have been dropped in the cutting room or hacked way back to serve an atmospheric rather than narrative purpose; really dysfunctional timing in some of the edits and delivery of lines by actors. Etc etc.
Against that, both films still exhibited raw power. And, eventually, this enabled my belief to be suspended and the films to suck me in.
Shaft is more dated. It's blaxploitation roots (indeed arguably its creation of the genre) are both a boon and a curse.
Starting with Isaac Hayes' soundtrack:
Who's the black private dick
That's a sex machine to all the chicks?
SHAFT!
Ya damn right!
"Shaft" sing the backing singers - Shaft Shaft.
Now, forty-odd years later, the storyline of Shaft feels fairly conventional. Its power resides in its shoving of stereotypes quite literally down the throat of the viewer: an intelligent black man who lives a materially successful life on his own terms, sexually attractive to white women who complain that he's "great in the sack but shitty outside", whilst having a long term relatonship with a black woman, and - crucially - this "black private dick" is both smarter and more dynamic than the American-Italian detective who tries to use him as a bridge into black culture.
Shaft felt like a 2-hour continuation of the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympic Games.
Fuck you, we're human beings, we will break the shackles, the chains, and live life our own way....
John Shaft is as much anti-hero as hero, a street hustler whose only loyalty is to himself. But still a potent, charismatic, figure who challenges bourgeois, (or as we say now MSM), assumptions.
The core strength of French Connection also lies in the reality it lays bare.
With the metallic, discordant, clanging over the opening titles, French Connection dumps you straight into its street life, with the deeply flawed Doyle and Russo hustling bars and dealers. These cops are not heroes, they're as much hustlers as the prey they chase.
Fundamentally, it's a work of nihilism. Every character in the film is fucked up. And the system is fucked up too. So, naturally, during the film's climax, rather than shooting the "bad guy", Doyle shoots a fellow cop, Mulderig, who thinks Doyle is a Grade-A asshole.
Artistic techniques change and evolve (not always for the better).
Ultimately, both films survive and transcend their 1970s technical constraints.
Both give the finger to lazy, numb, consensus reality, and their power resides in this.
And Gene Hackman is an amazing actor. He is "Popeye" Doyle, and he is brilliant.
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war