John Shaft is an enduring icon of the 1970s. The 2000 remake by John Singleton attests to the character’s continuing appeal to audiences, and probably no sequence in Shaft (Gordon Parks, 1971) has helped maintain its popularity as much as the opening title sequence where Shaft walks to work in the morning while his theme music, written and performed by Isaac Hayes, plays on the soundtrack. This scene’s usage of certain elements of film form, particularly mise-en-scene and sound, are what give the sequence its power and resonance. By examining these elements in detail we can understand more clearly what the opening accomplishes and why it is still so effective thirty plus years later.
In class, Professor Simon defined mise-en-scene as the choices of setting, costume and makeup, lighting, staging, and performance, and their arranging in a particular shot in film; coinciding very closely with the definition of it in Chapter Six of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson’s Film Art: An Introduction. Naturally, all the elements are present in the first sequence of Shaft, but the setting and staging in particular are what give the scene its power and importance within the entire narrative. Before we examine these elements, let us first briefly recall the scene itself.
Shaft opens on a long shot of Time Square from the rooftop or window of a building in the distance. The camera descends and follows along the length of one block of 42nd Street down to a subway exit just as John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) climbs its stairs to the street. He then proceeds to walk towards an unknown destination, and the camera follows his progress. The immediate action without any exposition creates suspense in the viewer: Who is this man? Where is he going? Toward the end of his journey he speaks with a blind newsie, who warns Shaft about two men who were looking for him, and then Shaft cautiously enters a shoe shine parlor. The sequence is composed of 26 shots, and lasts roughly five minutes and thirty seconds.
The first thing we notice in the first shot is the real New York location of the setting. A wide shot of Times Square that pans down to the street below, it is unmistakably New York City. Shaft cuts through real street traffic, passes men and women who do not appear to be actors, sees graffiti, walks through sewer steam. Here, and throughout the film, the very real New York locations will play a part in Shaft’s power. The picture is intended as a gritty crime picture that reflects on the real conditions of crime and sexuality in modern New York City, and the realism of the locations emphasizes that. These locations are not perfect or beautiful, they are dirty and often visually unappealing, like the damaged poster for the Broadway show Hair Shaft walks in front of in shot #19.
Shot #2 is also from an elevated angle looking down on the street, but this time the camera has zoomed in and it pans diagonally down the street, passing the marquees of the movie theaters on 42nd Street. These marquees become a motif throughout the sequence.
This first appearance spends a great deal of time, most of a 27 second shot that is the longest in the entire opening, showing us these marquees and what is on them. Presumably, these are films that were actually playing at the time of shooting, and Parks wanted the audience to read them. In order, the films we see are: The Scalphunters (1968) starring Burt Lancaster and Telly Savalas; Little Faust & Big Halsy (1970) starring Robert Redford, Michael Pollard, and Lauren Hutton where the title is partially obscured but the stars names are clear, on a double bill with an obscured title, likely Barbarella (1968); He and She (year unknown) and The Animal (1967) on a double bill; and finally a School for Sex (1968) and The Wild Females (1971) double bill. Immediately after the School for Sex/The Wild Females marquee clears the frame, the title comes zooming up to the screen and the Isaac Hayes music kicks in. The immediate effect is comic; following these sexploitation titles comes another title that, within the context, suggest more sexual meaning. More deeply, the title’s visual location on the screen, just after all of these marquees seems to suggest its inability to find a place on them, and that it is appearing just outside of the space of these other films. If you examine the titles on these screens they are either sexploitation pictures, or mainstream Hollywood films with extremely white casts. Shaft, released in July 1971 as the first Hollywood produced film in the genre that we’ve come to know as blaxploitation, marks a significant diverging of paths from these earlier films, and the title’s bombastic visual appearance creates the feeling of something new of cinematic importance.
This idea of a new, different kind of movie is further emphasized by the other marquees visible in the opening sequence. In shot #8, Shaft is walking along a street, framed in medium long shot by the camera in a lengthy 25 second shot in which he walks from the back of the space of the frame to the front of it. In the upper right corner of the frame is the bottom left edge of a movie marquee, upon which we can see quite clearly the phrase “NEW POLICY” as if Shaft itself represents a new kind of cinema that Parks is announcing to the audience. The marquee, with its obvious links to cinema, seems an especially appropriate element of the mise-en-scene to place this messages on. The marquee in shot #13, visible over the head of Shaft walking through a crowd of protesters, reads “ALL COLOR” which can be seen as yet another comment on Shaft’s newness and what aspects of it set it apart from mainstream cinema.
Shaft himself never notices these marquees, but he passes all of them on his journey, whose path - the staging of the mise-en-scene - is designed to efficiently establishing his character. Shaft is first viewed in long shot on the tail end of shot #2, but after he rises from the subway exit, Parks cuts in for a close up. This shot primarily establishes Shaft as the character we should keep our eyes on in the sequence, but its extremely low angle also presents Shaft as a very large and powerful presence in the film. His first significant action is to step off the sidewalk and into the street, which he proceeds to cross despite the heavy presence of oncoming traffic. He darts in between cars and is nearly run over by a taxi, whom he angrily flips off and stares down before crossing to the other sidewalk. This single action, and the way in which it is staged, already establishes Shaft as a fearless character (he crosses the street, while others we see stand and wait for the light to change), and one defiant in the face of danger (when the cab driver nearly runs him over he doesn’t try to dodge it, he stands in front of the cab and curses it off). The idea is already clear: you don’t mess with Shaft.
This staging accomplishes a function that seems the most crucial to the opening’s impact: establishing and conveying the maximum amount of story information to the reader in the smallest amount of screen time, which we will refer to with the term “narrative economy.” This brief taxi sequence is roughly 17 seconds in a larger sequence in a much larger movie, but as it is our first impression of our lead character it serves to immediately define him, and allow us to create a framework for his actions that will follow in the rest of the movie.
Shaft’s sound also plays a key role in the narrative economy of the title sequence; the most obvious aspect of which, is Isaac Hayes’ unforgettable score. It starts at the end of shot #2 as the title appears on screen and continues through to the final shot; indeed, its conclusion in shot #26 signals the end of the introduction and the start of the first real dialogue scene. In class, we discussed how sound is often considered in terms of its “added effect,” or the way in which it can contribute meaning to the visual elements of film; the visual being more immediately identified with the act of observing film. Hayes’ score, along with other instances of sound usage, serve to give added effect to the visuals on screen, and again, these effects can be seen as serving to enhance narrative economy.
Hayes’ song is nondiegetic, it comes from outside the story of the film. Yet, if you watch Roundtree’s performance closely, his footsteps frequently sync up with the rhythm of the song, as if he can hear the beat and is matching it with his actions. Often in a shot, like #7, a long take just after the taxi altercation where Shaft walks up the block as the camera slowly zooms out, Shaft will appear to be walking in time with the music, while the other passerbys on the street (most of whom, it should be noted, are white) do not. This ability to sync up with the music gives him a special place within the film, reemphasizing that he is its center.
This connection of visual movement and sound seems less coincidental after you watch “Soul in Cinema: Filming Shaft on Location” which is included on the current DVD release of Shaft. In it, Parks confers with Hayes over the composing of the score. He says to Hayes:
“The sequence we saw this morning...Times Square, pan on off the skyscrapers, along the 42nd Street, over the marquees, and when Shaft pops up out of that subway, that’s when it should really come on, and carry him all the way through Times Square right to his first encounter with the newspaper man. That should be a driving, savage beat... so that we’re right with him all the time.”
This fascinating comment reveals Parks’ desire for the sound of the finished music as well as the fact that Hayes watched the footage and then scored to it, potentially to the degree that he noted the rhythm of Shaft’s footsteps and tried to create a beat that matched them. Similarly, the instrumentation of the song often comments on the action on screen, resulting in additional added effects. When a street vendor tries to sell Shaft a stolen watch in shot #9, the interchange is initiated by a whip pan right to left that finds Shaft as he approaches the salesman. This pan is accompanied by a matching wail of string instruments that stands out from the rest of the instrumentation of the song (primarily piano, bass, and drums at this point). Shaft flips open a badge and the vendor says “Goodbye!” and runs away, just as the music responds with a blast of horns. Its clarity and volume, along with its deviation from the previous instrumentation of the song separates it on the soundtrack, and provides an audio emphasis of the punchline of the joke.
The words of Hayes’ song are especially crucial to the narrative. They are the only element of the film that bears a resemblance to narration or voiceover, and the only exceptions to Shaft’s presentation of narrative discourse in the dramatic mode, in which story elements are presented mimetically (or shown rather than told) without the presence of a narrator. Though the words do not come from Shaft’s consciousness, Hayes’ vocals - mostly spoken, not sung - become an acoustmatic voice, defined in class as “a voice heard without cause or source visible on screen.” Such voices “[have] a power in certain ways” and in this case their power is to authoritatively explicate Shaft’s character. “Who’s the black private dick that’s the sex machine for all the chicks?” “Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?” “Who’s the cat who won’t cop out, when there’s danger all about?” Hayes asks in succession, each time answered by a chorus of female shrieks: “SHAFT!” Now we do not have to spend screen time showing Shaft doing all of these things. Hayes simply states them, and the power and beauty of his song makes it clear that they are true. We learn that he’s a detective, a ladies man, and a badass, and all we’ve seen is Shaft walking while music plays. This is an excellent example of narrative economy.
It is also worth noting that while there is street noise on the soundtrack before the song begins, it disappears once the initial drums of Hayes’ score commence. Afterwards, we only hear diegetic sound when there is important action on the screen that requires accompanying sound to complete it; such as the sounds of yelling, honking, and screeching brakes when Shaft is almost hit by the taxi, and the dialogue of the street vendor when he talks to Shaft. In these cases, the score’s volume is lowered to subordinate it to the action on screen, but each time when the incident is over, it returns to a state of prominence on the audio track. When Hayes’ vocals begin there is no diegetic sound, so that our ears focus on his words, reinforcing their importance to the narrative discourse.
Five and a half minutes into Shaft, when John Shaft enters a shoe shine parlor and has a cup of coffee, its unclear how far he’s walked, but his journey’s meaning to the audience is clear. The actions themselves tell us little, but the mise-en-scene and sound tell us far more. And it does so with a minimum of spoken dialogue and a relative lack of on-screen action. Logistically, by choosing a more diegetic introduction, a budgeted film can save untold amounts of money. Rather than start the film, like a James Bond picture, with an elaborate action sequence, you start with an easier and cheaper to shoot piece about a man walking to work, and let the ways in which he walks, the things we see along the way, and a powerful and direct score teach us what we need to know about him. In this way, a limitation of budget is turned, through the use of mise-en-scene and sound, into an advantage, and fiscal economy gives way to narrative economy.
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