200 Motels

Frank Zappa - 200 Motels Cd1
Enviado por piezo

I told you I had a great post in the making, didn't I? As you can see above, now's your chance to watch the long and still unavailable on DVD rock musical/comedy/farce/ avant garde /whateveryouwannacallit/extravaganza/one man show 200 Motels by the one and only Frank Zappa.

Ringo STARR's as Zappa himself and I have to say the resemblances are uncanny. But first things first. 200 Motels was one of many projects Zappa was able to pull out of his seemingly never-ending bag of tricks (to call him a workaholic is a bit of an understatement). It has the distinction of being the first feature length film to ever be shot on video and later transfered to 35 mm. But before I get all tangled up in the movie's production history (itself a whole movie unto itself and the subject of a documentary that I'll be posting later on), here's what the ever helpful Wikipedia has to say about it:

The $600,000 film budget resulted in a seven-day shoot and 11 days of editing. Its low production values and frenetic schedule contributed to the insanity which the movie attempted to evoke. Although the movie's main theme is "life on the road" for a touring rock musician in the late Twentieth Century, Zappa's movie makes broader comments about the surreal state of the political and cultural life of America and the world during that time. Its references include Mephisto, Kafka, Kubrick's 2001, work re-education/concentration camps and an animated sequence featured as part of a video/musical collage. These broader, symbolic culture references coexist with specific characters and places: i.e. "Lonesome Cowboy Burt," a non-union roofer who savagely beats up hippies and leftists, and two groupies, Lucy Offerall and Janet Neville.

The film's creative talents include the Mothers of Invention and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the actor Theodore Bikel and rock-stars Ringo Starr as Larry the Dwarf and The Who's drummer, Keith Moon as a nun in drag.

The plot is both nebulous and nonexistent as a narrative or as a series of vignettes and production numbers. According to Zappa, only a third of his script was filmed. The director, several actors and a band member quit mid-production. These events accounted for several radical, last-minute changes.

As you can see, it's the kind of movie that could only have been done in the 70's. Can you really imagine contemporary big studio execs turning to Zappa after he's explained to them what the movie's all about and asking him: "can we do action figures out of you" or "can we mass produce the Zappa mask Ringo is wearing to Toys 'R' Us stores all over the world"? Hmm, think not.

The film's out there though, for everyone to see and enjoy and I really hope the Zappa Family Estate gets its act together and let somebody release the damn thing on any home video format, preferably before the DVD format is dead... Yes, you heard it right, they're the ones behing all this delay... Oh, well, maybe 2009 will see it finally happen! Here's to it and while I'm at it, have a GREAT 2009! See you all then!