Zap­pa

To the Amer­i­can main­stream, Frank Zap­pa will always be an artis­tic anom­aly. He was rest­less­ly cre­ative – in the stu­dio and out­side it – and his work remains dis­tinc­tive because of the var­ied and com­plex sounds he cre­at­ed. His voice, musi­cal per­sona and polit­i­cal beliefs have nev­er been so care­ful­ly con­sid­ered as in Alex Winter’s pro­file of the rock legend.

Although he’s not quite up to the task of mak­ing the doc­u­men­tary in a style that’s auda­cious or as abra­sive as Zap­pa was, Win­ter leaves no stone unturned, bring­ing us from Zappa’s days as a greet­ing card artist to the final moments of his clas­si­cal com­po­si­tions. Win­ter allows fam­i­ly mem­bers, col­lab­o­ra­tors and for­mer band­mates (of which there were quite a few) to be forth­com­ing about what it was like to live and work with some­one as exhaust­ing as Zap­pa. Ex-wife Gail speaks of hav­ing to deal with her husband’s infi­deli­ties on tour, while Frank also con­fessed to hav­ing ​‘the clap’.

Zap­pa demand­ed per­fec­tion from the carousel of band­mates he enlist­ed across the 57 albums he made dur­ing his life­time. He always wrote the music and lyrics, and his fierce cre­ative con­trol saw him under­mine any­one who want­ed to con­tribute. Man­i­fest­ing his desire to retain absolute cre­ative free­dom, Zap­pa broke away from Warn­er Broth­ers to cre­ate his own label, Bizarre Records. Yet to Zap­pa, mon­ey was sim­ply a tool and a resource. He wasn’t inter­est­ed in prof­it – lat­er in his life he used the earn­ings from his biggest hit, ​‘Val­ley Girl’, to pay the Lon­don Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra to per­form music he com­posed, admit­ting he didn’t care if any­one heard it.

Zappa’s affir­ma­tions of artis­tic free­dom extend­ed beyond the realm of his musi­cal con­tri­bu­tions, even shift­ing into the polit­i­cal are­na. He was at the fore­front of defend­ing musi­cians’ rights to free­dom of expres­sion, and cam­paigned against gov­ern­ment cen­sor­ship in the 1980s. Zap­pa used what­ev­er cul­tur­al cache he had at the time to turn the Rea­gan era on its head, invad­ing the liv­ing rooms of sub­ur­ban Amer­i­cans and espous­ing his views in a cool rage. Win­ter does a great job of flesh­ing out this side of Zap­pa, espe­cial­ly for those who may be turned off by his music.

Zap­pa even­tu­al­ly became a sym­bol of free­dom – so much so that when for­mer Czecho­slo­va­kia broke from Sovi­et con­trol dur­ing the Vel­vet Rev­o­lu­tion, they invit­ed Zap­pa to be their cul­tur­al ambas­sador and to play a live show. The film opens and clos­es with a brief excerpt from this con­cert, under­lin­ing just what Zappa’s artistry and voice meant to so many people.