Gordon Parks Director of Shaft... DEAD

[PapaBear]

<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060308/en_nm/parks_dc" target="_self">LINKY</a></p><p>He turned to filmmaking in the late 1960s, and in 1971 directed the hit movie &quot;Shaft,&quot; one of the first of a wave of &quot;blaxploitation&quot; films that directly targeted a black American audiences and typically featured exaggerated sexuality, violence and funk or soul music.</p><p></p><p>Parks' first movie, 1969's &quot;The Learning Tree,&quot; was adapted from a novel he wrote about growing up poor and black in 1920s Kansas. He became the first black to write and direct a major studio production when Warner Bros. commissioned him to adapt his book to the big screen.</p><p>In 1989, the film was among the first 25 to be deemed culturally and historically significant and was preserved in the U.S. National Film Registry for future generations.</p><p></p><p>It's pretty damn impressive that his first movie got that nod from US Film Registry.</p><p>And Shaft... well... Who doesn't love Shaft?</p>