This upclose account of the music and sensibility of Frank Zappa will hit you right int the revolutionary zone, exposing you to a side of his music which isn't as public.
Every once in a while, the world will cough up a musical genius who changes the way we listen to music and look at music as a whole mass of sound and politics. We’ll listen to their groovy music, remember them for a very long time and hold them to the status of legends. What many people fail to see is that their musical output alone cannot fully encapsulate who they are as a person. It sure is one massive island, but there are other parts of their lives perched on other islands around it.
Which is why documentaries about musicians and concert films really get me going because it’s an invitation to get to know the person behind the instruments. I was mindlessly scrolling down my Facebook feed, which I normally never do because social media is such a horrid carcinoma when it gets its hooks in you, and I came across a little trailer for a documentary about a particular music man whom I love. I’ve been in a continuous Frank Zappa mood over the past few days, with Joe’s Garage continuously spinning over and over again, so I decided to top it all off by watching ZAPPA (2020). This carefully crafted tribute of a documentary took me through Zappa’s personal life, the genesis of his musical talent, the many iterations of Mothers he put together, and the impetus that was behind the making of many of his well-known albums. What I did not know prior to watching this documentary is that he’s composed as much, if not more, eerie and atmospheric orchestral music, as he’s written rock music. Not only that, but the many political battles he took part it to do with freedom of speech and expression. Which makes sense, of course, because a lot of his music makes bold statements about an oppressive society where hammer comes down on people who act even slightly off the norm faster than they can take a step back, so obviously his political engagements won’t be limited to just his music.
Aurally this documentary matches the diversity of Zappa’s studio and live music, guiding us through some of the most pivotal moments of his musical career, constantly evading mainstream success and sticking to his own bubble of expression – and just off the soundtrack alone, this documentary is one head-bobbing glide. But how does it fare visually? Well, pretty good I’ll say. It doesn’t bore you with an endless barrage of talking heads and intermittent photos or interviews with the musician in question, like a lot of rockumentaries are guilty for, instead it spices this dynamic up by adding home movies, some Claymation that Zappa commissioned during his life, live performances of the many bands he’s played with and of course his many orchestras, into this age-old formula. Each visual reference is deliberate and seeks to add depth rather than mere accompaniment. The powers of documentary filmmaking are used to a wild and vast extent to investigate and explore the life of someone who matches the same description. And as you’d expect from the man himself, the tone of the film is very goofy and tongue in cheek, until the volta, so to speak, where the tidings of his cancer diagnosis is borne upon earnest and poignant wings. This is where the documentary feels like it takes itself more seriously, because now it has caught a person during that moment of their life where they must know come to grips with how they’ll spend their last few years on this planet. How does he spend it? Isn’t it obvious? He writes more music, performs one last orchestra to a giant crowd that lap that ultimate performance up with a tsunami of applause. It is the final and most atomic expression of his passion and that final C chord that finishes it off is a perfect C-ya later to the world.
I was very young when my foster parents introduced me to this whack-job of an awesome man. Having watched this film, my respect for man has grown, not just for the boundaries he pushed in his music, but what he stood for in a time where greed, repugnance and sand-bagging was the currency in the music industry. He was just a guy who was wealthy in riches that were worthless to mainstream, but priceless to the people who heard something genuine in his music.
Commentaires