Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words -- Film Review
Eat That Question:
Frank Zappa in his Own Words
Directed
by Thorsten SchΓΌtte
This is Frank Zappa in his own words as he wanted to present
himself. It is a string of interviews, news
clips, and film segments spanning his career, but weighted toward his prime
years in his 30s and 40s. The film is
not chronologically or thematically organized.
It tends to wander all over the place.
Calling this a documentary is being charitable. Zappa himself occupies at least 90% of the
screen time. His is the only perspective
offered. The film presents very little
of his background or development. He
seems to have had no parents. He is an American,
but doesn't seem to come from anywhere.
He had a family, a long marriage, and four children, but we never see
them and they are barely mentioned. He
had an early marriage that ended in divorce that was also not mentioned. He seems to have had no friends or close
companions. He doesn't seem to have had
any education, although he was very smart and very well informed. There is very little about his long battle with
prostate cancer, except for a few guarded responses in his final interview.
This is not a presentation of Frank Zappa as a person, rather it is a presentation of
Frank Zappa as a personality, as the
public persona that he wished to project.
I don't think there was anything false about it. Frank Zappa was authentic, straightforward,
plain speaking, and very clear thinking.
He was attractive, both physically and personally. He had a good sense for business. He was highly intelligent, insightful, and
iconoclastic in his outlook. He was not
a drug user and did not allow drug use among his entourage. He was very even tempered. Very adept at answering questions about
himself and arguing his point of view. He
was a harsh critic of American culture, and his views I largely agree
with. He was not very popular in the
United States. He was much better known
and much better liked in Europe. In
fact, it was Europeans who made this film.
He used to say, "In America I am famous, but nobody knows what I
do." His music was not
popular. It was not played on the radio very
much. I knew him better for his
outspoken views on censorship and the public role he played in controversies
over rock and roll lyrics and the extent to which the government should play a
regulatory role in the arts. I,
personally, was not familiar with his music and after hearing a lot of it in
the film, I've decided that I don't care much for it. Zappa was interested in percussion, rhythm,
and novel sounds and sound combinations for their own sake. He liked to experiment with sound. His tastes encompassed the broadest possible
eclectic and pansonic expanse. I was
more interested in the piano and rock and roll.
He seems to have had a classical background and wrote a lot of music for
full orchestra. Weird stuff that seems
to have been influenced by John Cage -- a musical direction and an artistic
approach that I am not in sympathy with.
He spent a goodly chunk of his own money to enlist the London Symphony Orchestra
in a venture to record some of his own compositions for his own personal
satisfaction and enjoyment, lacking any commercial motivation or expectation.
I share a lot with Frank Zappa in terms of temperament,
outlook, values, and attitudes toward art, aesthetics, society, education, religion,
politics, sex, America, and the quality of life. The friend that I attended this film with
said to me afterward, "As I was watching this, I was thinking that the
person Frank Zappa most reminds me of is you." However, this film is a very incomplete
picture. Frank Zappa understood
performance and he understood public presentation. He also knew how to hide behind all of
that. He was very conscious of himself
as a public person, but he was also extremely protective of Frank Zappa as a
private individual. I think there was
another Frank Zappa behind this public facade of the rock star that the film
never touched. So while the film was
interesting and informative as far as it went, it fully cooperated with Frank
Zappa the performer, the role player, the salesman, and didn't really show us
much of Frank Zappa the man.