"ZAPPA"
Directed by Alex Winter
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
NOT RATED
It is amazing to think that if Frank Zappa had lived, he would be celebrating his 80th birthday.
To that end, it is unfathomable of how much more music he would have composed, should he had lived another 27 years, instead of passing away from prostate cancer in 1993 at the age of only 52. Even further, should he had lived, what would his reputation potentially had become? Would he have still remained upon the fringes of the fringes of the counter culture, forever appealing solely to his passionate fan base or might he have at long last achieved a greater sense of recognition and acclaim for being the iconoclastic artist and composer that he had always set out for himself to being? And even then, might he have ever attained a sense of satisfaction, or possibly even inner peace?
Certainly themes of personal satisfaction and inner peace feel to run at complete contrast to the uncompromising music, unrepentant legacy and defiantly mercurial persona of Frank Zappa, who I am sure would have openly scoffed at any such leanings. But, those themes indeed came to the forefront of my mind as I viewed Director Alex Winter's excellent, meticulously researched and executed documentary, simply entitled "Zappa," an experience that works equally well for the Zappa novice and longtime fan while giving us a greater insight into his musical universe while simultaneously preserving and enhancing the mystery of his inscrutable persona.
Alex Winter's "Zappa" takes a largely chronological path in detailing the life of the titular artist. While there is no narration, we are given this tour via a variety of interviews with the man himself plus past band members (including percussionist Ruth Underwood and guitarist Steve Vai), creative collaborators (including late claymation filmmaker Bruce Bickford, and Alice Cooper, whom Zappa signed to his record label) and most crucially, his widow and guardian of the Zappa Family Trust, Gail Zappa, who herself passed away in 2015 at the age of 70.
Winter, and therefore, we the audience, are also given access to a startling amount of previously unreleased visual and musical material from Zappa's private and voluminous archival vault, inside of which seemingly every single thought Zappa possessed has been collected and conserved.
What Winter presents through this material is not necessarily a portrait of Zappa as a guitar hero, rock music satirist, bad boy provocateur, political activist, social critic or even an album by album narrative chronology, although aspects of all of those areas and more are present. What we do have with "Zappa" is a compelling, often riveting and surprisingly emotional portrait of a staggeringly self taught, ferociously inventive, restlessly creative soul whose intense pursuit of perfection was his life's driving force, for better or for worse.
A man of contradictions, Frank Zappa's life was one that Ruth Underwood describes as "a polarity of passions." While at his Laurel Canyon compound with Gail and their four children, he wrote and recorded constantly, tirelessly and at times at the expense of being anything resembling a family man. In fact, Zappa's surprise hit song "Valley Girl," which featured the now iconic vocals by his daughter Moon Unit Zappa, came into being via a note Moon Unit slipped under the studio door with the words, "Remember me?" According to Underwood, while at home, Zappa itched to return to the road (which of course, included the rock star life and "occupational hazards of groupies) yet while on the road, he was anxious to return to the safety and sanctuary of home.
Although Zappa existed as a member of the counter culture, providing commentary both incredulous and intolerant of the mainstream culture, he also did not represent the counter culture stereotype to a large degree, most notably his personal rejection of the drug culture. While willing to appear upon television programs, including a 1978 stint on the counter culture turned juggernaut variety show "Saturday Night Live," his disdain for the medium in its entirety was more than apparent.
As an artist and bandleader, Zappa was a figure who attracted like minded artists and musicians yet his aloof nature and uncompromising demands alienated many. To that end, his single minded desire to hear the music that he heard in his head, which he composed by hand, be performed to absolute perfection found itself to the point where he eschewed working with the imperfections of human beings altogether. Seemingly computers and synthesizers were the only way to having his work realized with no mistakes plus always keeping up to speed with his relentless work ethic.
And then, there is the music itself and Zappa's unshakable reputation as a rock satirist and guitar playing behemoth who often submerged himself in all matters profane, vulgar, sophomoric and scatological. Winter shows that as Zappa clearly embraced that role, the film questions if that particular musical route was itself a means to an end as perhaps what Zappa really wished to achieve and build his reputation upon was to become a serious orchestral composer, but that genre of music just happens to not pay the bills. Winter ponders if Zappa maybe found himself famous for the wrong reasons and therefore, any sense of creative misanthropy was fueled by not ever being as appreciated as he may have wished.
Alex Winter's ability to take this mountain of the material that cultivated the life of Frank Zappa and distill it into these fascinating moments in which Zappa's eyes reveal more than he ever expressed openly are truly remarkable.
A section of the film set in the early 1970's after Zappa was attacked and thrown from the stage by a crazed fan, leaving him unable to walk and in a state of convalescence for a year was more than telling. We can see the frustration in his eyes when faced with his body forced into stasis when his mind was racing. We can see the anger and seething contempt in his face during a television interview at a point when Zappa was recording his work with the London Symphony Orchestra, a seemingly bizarre "stunt" for a rock star when the pursuit was undeniably genuine. And most definitely and poignantly, near the end of his life, during interviews and after a triumphant live performance with the Ensemble Modern featuring himself as conductor, with cancer rapidly doing its irreversible damage, just regard Zappa's eyes. They say everything and it is honestly moving to regard, especially from a figure who always felt to be so impenetrable and even unknowable.
In many ways, I think it would be nearly impossible for solely one film to fully encapsulate the vast reaches of Frank Zappa's life, just as the music he composed far outstretched any one genre. In fact, I would highly recommend that this film be viewed in combination with Director Thorsten Schutte's excellent documentary "Eat That Question: Frank Zappa In His Own Words" (2016) in order to paint a wider, more comprehensive picture of its subject.
In some ways, Winter is perhaps could have added more and is also perhaps a little too reverential. With regards to Zappa's actual music, I had wished that more of it was featured in full--a more "show don't tell" approach, so that viewers unfamiliar could really gather a sense of the sweep, dynamism, unpredictability and sheer innovation in Zappa's amalgamation of classical, doo wop, R&B, rock, jazz, funk, music concrete and whatever else appealed to his sonic display that allowed his music to defy categorization in everything other than his own name.
Additionally, there is the nature of his lyrical content, which often ranged from schoolboy locker room puerile to overt sexism and how they relate to satire as well as his fans and detractors, and to be fair Winter glosses over that aspect considerably--but also to be fair, that topic could exist as another full length documentary film as there is a tremendous amount to unpack. Extending even further from the concept of controversial material, I actually did not appreciate how Winter essentially made Frank Zappa a lone noble hero in the fight against censorship when related to his Congressional appearances decrying the movement of the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) as both Twisted Sister's Dee Snider, and of all people, the late John Denver spoke out against that organization and their efforts.
All of that being said, what Alex Winter has accomplished is remarkable, especially considering the sheer amount of material he had to work with from Zappa's personal vaults, a hideaway that I think that only Prince could rival. Speaking of Prince, Winter's film gave us a rarefied view into a certain type of artistic personality that is also of a rare quality. That ability to create and cultivate a vision inside of which one is able to essentially invent their own musical language and then to possess the uncanny ability to discover the very individuals who just may be able to help realize it. We have seen this quality in Prince as well as Miles Davis and the presence of Frank Zappa within this specific collective is essential, as his skills far extended from composing into the larger arenas of filmmaking, independent business and politics...and he was uncompromising in every conceivable aspect, to all benefits and detriments.
It feels so fitting that Frank Zappa spent his formative years being fascinated with editing and explosives, as he loved creating his own Super 8 films and editing family home movies as much as he enjoyed deriving violent chemical reactions.
Construction and Deconstruction, indeed.
For this was indeed the quality of his entire output, of which we are still exploring its contents. His ability to be inspired by Edgard Varese and Johnny "Guitar" Watson, and to merge these influences into something so combustible that he was deconstructing what we thought about music while he was simultaneously constructing a sound we had never heard before. Alex Winter's "Zappa" illustrates how this most idiosyncratic of artists was a slave to his muse and inner ear, composing and performing music for himself, making the presence of others people a double edged sword of necessity and nuisance, which so often seemed to bring about stages of malcontent and possibly even some inner suffering due to being faces with obstacles that were outside of his much desired sense of control.
Maybe that is why the film's final sections, during which his final live appearance received a 20 minute ovation, became as moving as they were for me, as well as surprising as he would allow them to be visually documented. To achieve and to fail. To reach that brass ring only to not have control over time and mortality itself despite his own desires.
Again, it was all in his eyes and Alex Winter's "Zappa" allows us to look into and through them captivatingly.
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