Shaft is a 1971 film starring Richard Roundtree. The film is about John Shaft, a private eye who is hired by a crime lord to find and retrieve his kidnapped daughter. The film illustrates many racial tensions as Shaft attempts to complete his mission. In addition to dealing with kidnappers, Shaft also has to deal with the racism he encounters. The character Shaft helped to change the equation of typical police films and served as a heroic icon for African-American audiences.

Shaft changes the equation of the typical police film of the 1960s because it shows the corruption that existed in that time period. Prior to the 1970s, most cop movies focused on actors that were white. Black characters were often the sidekicks or underlings that worked at the desk. Shaft focused on a black cop. Shaft is gritty, smart, and sarcastic. He is popular with the ladies, but confrontational with the police force. Shaft is hired because he has connections to the projects and he can do things that the authorities cannot. He exposes that being trustworthy of black people seemed risky to the authorities. Shaft succeeds in the face of corruption by structuring his combat.

The film serves as important for African-Americans because of the culture that is illustrated in Shaft. The film gears on struggles related to their culture. The struggles include money, drug-dealing, ransom, and the dangers of the projects. The character Shaft is the key to the film’s depiction of the African-American culture. His rebelliousness, negativity, and violent behavior depicts the importance of the society that African-Americans have lived through. As he walks through the streets and gets denied by a cab driver (he gets denied because he is black), audiences realize the harsh society that African-Americans had to put up with. As Shaft is already self-centered, viewers are able to notice his aggravation with his life. Whites in the film are shown to be absent minded. This is a twist because generally blacks would be shown as the absent minded people during that time period.

Shaft was relevant for the time period because in today’s society, Shaft would not be considered controversial. This is not much of a big deal because society has progressed. Back then, Shaft was made during the Civil Rights Movement. Therefore, when audiences view Shaft, they are taken back to the time period. Shaft was the break through film at the time. It is hard for some to believe that Shaft was a hit back then. This is because it was one of the first movies where someone who is African-American is the lead and given authority.

Many of the movies that have been viewed have focused on current issues particular to the time period of the movies. Each film portrays its own array of conflicts, disconnections, poverty struggles, and lack of resources. When these issues are the focus of the movies though, it creates an enticing experience that viewers can experience when they pay close attention to the movies. The movies I see as examples that are critical of institutions are Chinatown, Blue Collar, and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. All of these films display many dysfunctions and frustrations occurring during a certain time in history. These two elements are not meant to set the plot of these films, but to establish the particular era of them. All three films are critical of institutions.

In Chinatown, the main character JJ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) plays a detective in the 1930s that falls into deceit, corruption, and murder. He is investigating a crime, but when someone chooses to be an impostor, Gittes has a much harder time solving the case he is assigned to. In this time period, there was not much technology to assist in investigating cases. This shows that Gittes is even in a more dramatic situation since there is lack of resources for assistance. What this says is that in this era, cases were not easy for police to resolve. Detectives’ jobs were harder based on the limited resources and that made issues more controversial. This was because they were not able to tell who was innocent or guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The other film with many dysfunctions is Blue Collar. The film focuses on three characters and they are Zeke (Richard Pryor), Jerry (Harvey Keitel), and Smokey (Yaphet Kotto). These three characters are having issues at their union job of working in a auto manufacturing facility. What happens is that they decide to steal money from the union’s bureau Safe. They believe that they are not getting paid equally based on the work they do. However, their robbery puts them in a shady situation. Once they commit the theft, the union realizes that they have lost ten thousand dollars due to a robbery. The dysfunction of this behavior is chaotic because it is still during the era of race discrimination in the 1970s and both Smokey and Zeke are African-American. Therefore, fingers are being pointed at a variety of characters due to the conflict. There are arguments, a death happens, and people lose their minds where they even break the vending machines of the auto plant. This chaos is caused by the fact that workers feel they are not getting paid equally or receiving the same benefits in the union.

Finally, the movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is critical of the workplace. Specifically, it portrays how difficult it was for women trying to find work. Alice (Ellen Burstyn) is someone who is trying to start her career as a singer. However, she has fallen into several bad relationships and is also trying to raise her own son. Her relationships are generally abusive and therefore, she is trying to flee away with her son to start a new life. The corruption she faces includes money and housing issues. The dysfunction she faces is abusive relationships and her chaotic son. Her son chooses to act out since he feels he is not getting attention from her. As she drives with him on the road, he does lots of screaming and has temper tantrums to provoke her. He does this to get her attention. The institution of family is also referenced here as a single mother struggles alone to raise her son.

Overall, the setting of all of these movies provides a backdrop to showcase a variety of different corrupt environments. A lack of resources, inequality, and racism during specific periods in history are incorporated into these movies, which make them critical of institutions. The effect that various institutions (e.g. police department, workplace, family, etc.) have on the characters makes the lives of these characters much more challenging. Each film illustrates how in society where not everybody believes in equality that people’s daily lives are impacted in serious ways.

Chinatown is a film that is more suspenseful being set in the 1930s because in that time frame, there were not as many new technologies. This element makes Chinatown more suspenseful because with the limited resources, the case cannot be solved fast enough. The reason why the film was set in the 1930s is because the 1930s had more corruption. Therefore, this allowed more looking back in that time period. If the movie took place in the 1970s (the film was made in 1974) the case would have been too easy. The film contains many evidence of a crime where the main character JJ Gittes (Jack Nicholson) falls into a herd of deceit, corruption, and murder.

The corruption in the movie is quite deep and unexpected because the case goes from seeming like a normal case to an actually really serious case. Gittes falls into situations with people who are risky such as Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway): a woman who hires Gittes because she suspects her husband is having an affair. He realizes this when he finds that the real Mrs. Mulwray is dead. Therefore, the case created by the impostor of Mrs. Mulwray develops a confrontational case for Gittes when his life can be on the line due to his behavior with the woman involved in the case. Since there is an impostor, Gittes cannot really distinguish the scenario between what is real and what is not. This adds to the corruption for Gittes because he does not know who he can trust.

The movie is a puzzle that leaves us thinking why the title Chinatown is the name of the movie. The film’s title comes in to show us that the corruption ends in Chinatown. The place is not really recognized much in the beginning of the movie. More towards the end of the movie, we find out that there is a connection with Gittes’s involvement with Chinatown. In the beginning though, Gittes mentions a story of being in a situation in Chinatown. Therefore, it is a metaphor for returning to Chinatown since Gittes stays there at the end.

Overall Chinatown is captivating on terms of corruption. Gittes is corrupted from the very beginning of the movie and his situation gets out of hand. Its setting and its lack of resources creates a dramatic conflict for Gittes. The lies of Mrs. Mulwray take Gittes by surprise. Therefore, Gittes ends up being in a case that is completely unorthodox on terms of what is real and what is not. The disorganization of the case is what destines Chinatown to be a classic because it leaves viewers thinking about how the case is going to end.