Director: Thorsten Schütte
There never was anyone in rock music history quite like Frank Zappa. In fact, it seems rather limiting to consign his career and music to the rock label; for his work embraced many musical genres. Never eager to please anyone, he nevertheless amassed a loyal, global following who found his highly offbeat music brilliant and uncompromising. After watching director Thorsten Schutte's bracing documentary on the legendary musician, one will find the same adjectives apply to Zappa himself.
Circumventing the conventional narrative methods of rock biopics, Schutte chooses to chronicle Zappa's career--as the title suggests--by letting the musician tell his own story via interviews and television appearances. No talking heads or bland testimonials here; only the man's thoughts and music.
We don't see home movies or any footage from Zappa's early life; only his first television appearance on the Steve Allen Show in the early 1960s'. A very young Frank Zappa; clean-cut and suit-clad, gives the world an idea of the unusual direction his music will take when he attempts to "play" two bicycles with drumsticks while a small orchestra behind him makes odd, discordant sounds. While playing the bicycle spokes and every part of the frames that might yield music, the sound-man in the booth is instructed to contribute his own noises; with the understanding that they not-necessarily be musical. To watch and hear Zappa explain his piece is quite amusing, as is Allen's open-minded, yet playfully dismissive reaction to the music.
We see footage of Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention in the 60's as their unusual sounds firmly establish them somewhere on rock's bizarre fringes. In one interview, Zappa discusses his classical training; whose influence seeps subtly into his music. Though Zappa's music attracts a following, we hear him in early interviews--and later ones too--lament the fact that though many know him as a rock-star, they also have no idea what he does.
Though Zappa's music is the main draw, the interviews are every bit as entertaining. His responses to vacuous interview questions betray a subtle impatience, which we expect from someone highly articulate and mentally sharp. One gets the sense Zappa's mind worked a little too fast for those who interviewed him.
As narrative moves into the late 1960s', we hear Zappa discuss the making of the strange film 200 Motels, which involved much musical preparation.
As counter-culture protests took hold in the 60s' and early 70s', Zappa found his music embraced by revolutionary factions at home and abroad. We see German youths nearly riot at a Mothers of Invention gig. Sensing chaos, Zappa talks about turning the music up to a deafening volume to keep the crowd from overrunning the stage; a ploy he says actually worked. What is particularly interesting is to hear Zappa talk about his opposition to the violent extremes protesters often employed to make a political statement. In his words, he found the left in America to be every bit as fascistic as the militant-left in Europe. German protesters were disappointed to find the musician unsympathetic to their causes. In an interview, we hear Zappa discusses his hatred for communism; a position that probably didn't make him many friends on the left.
Later, interviewers pose questions about Zappa's penchant for obscenities in his songs; a tendency he fiercely defends by saying nothing that ever came out of someone's mouth led to eternal flames. As we see later in the film, reactionary political forces took exception to some of his lyrics as well.
Schutte doesn't forget the music and performances. The music, like the musician, is hard to pin down. One moment it sounds like rock, in another; classical or jazz with Zappa leading his band like a conductor.
As his career made the transition to the 80s', Zappa and a host of fellow rock musicians were beseiged by Al Gore's wife Tipper; who launched a Big Brother-like, censorial campaign to apply warning labels to albums deemed to have offensive lyrics. Zappa's now famous, eloquent and funny testimonial before a congressional committee still stands as a powerful defense of artistic expression. Watching and listening to Zappa volley words with a female senator is very amusing. We also see his appearance on the television program Crossfire, where he parries a priggish columnist's comments in a heated debate about whether the government should ban objectionable videos and songs. Zappa, ever the advocate for free speech and expression, defends his position vigorously (watch the full debate on YouTube; it's deliriously entertaining); with well-thought, intelligently-expressed arguments.
We see more of Zappa in T.V. interviews and later; his visit to Eastern Europe after the Berlin Wall came down.
More performance footage follows, which includes a T.V. appearance inside Zappa's home studio, where his music-gadgetry is discussed in detail. He defends the use of the various electronica and even gives a demonstration of a Synclavier; a popular sampling device in the 1980s'.
As the narrative moves into the 21st Century, the grim diagnosis of prostate cancer becomes news. A T.V. interview shows Zappa bearing his illness with equanimity.
Schutte's film gives us a fairly comprehensive view of Zappa's career. One can always wish for more music but I think its well-represented and characterized. What makes Schutte's job easy is Zappa himself, who was always an intriguing interviewee. One can never anticipate what he'll say in any given moment but we know that behind his Mephistophelian brows was a mind burning white-hot.
The best music bio-docs I've seen the past few years have been films without talking heads and without a conventional beginning, middle and end. It is fascinating that an artist's whole career can almost be documented solely on film. Schutte's film has everything we need and much of what we want to know about one of rock's greatest composers, but more importantly; it leaves us wanting more.
No comments:
Post a Comment