The rock star and provocateur is imperturbably articulate and droll in this entertaining documentary made of archive footage and interview clips
This excellent documentary doesn’t spell it out, but Frank Zappa was actually Frank Zappa’s real name (unlike, say, Ziggy Stardust) and everything about him was authentic, presented to the public on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. If anyone deserves an approving sobriquet with the “American” prefix – American Original, American Genius, American Rebel – it was Zappa, the rock’n’roll musician, freak-provocateur and contemporary composer and orchestral arranger influenced by Anton Webern, Edgard Varèse and Igor Stravinsky. This film allows him to speak “in his own words”, which means clips from his imperturbably droll, articulate performances in TV interviews over the years during which he morphed from sensually hirsute rock god to bearded patriarch, without selling out or putting on weight.
In a perfect world, “Zappa in his own words...
This excellent documentary doesn’t spell it out, but Frank Zappa was actually Frank Zappa’s real name (unlike, say, Ziggy Stardust) and everything about him was authentic, presented to the public on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. If anyone deserves an approving sobriquet with the “American” prefix – American Original, American Genius, American Rebel – it was Zappa, the rock’n’roll musician, freak-provocateur and contemporary composer and orchestral arranger influenced by Anton Webern, Edgard Varèse and Igor Stravinsky. This film allows him to speak “in his own words”, which means clips from his imperturbably droll, articulate performances in TV interviews over the years during which he morphed from sensually hirsute rock god to bearded patriarch, without selling out or putting on weight.
In a perfect world, “Zappa in his own words...
- 11/21/2016
- by Peter Bradshaw at the International Documentary film festival Amsterdam
- The Guardian - Film News
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