Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words (2016)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on August 9, 2016 @ tonymacklin.net.

Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words is a documentary worthy of attention. Directed by German Thorsten Schutte, it's a telling, positive glimpse into the spirit and nature of a creative iconoclast. Schutte uses footage from television performances - highlighted by an appearance on The Steve Allen Show in 1963 in which young Zappa played a bicycle with a violin bow.

There are several television interviews, foreign upheavals, concerts with Mothers of Invention, and even some footage from the 1985 Senate committee hearings in which Zappa battled Tipper Gore and her cause of putting warning labels on music.

Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words is a tribute to creativity - some feckless, some fecund. There are shots of a shirtless Zappa scribbling down notes. It's a riff on the creative process.

There are no interviews with others about Zappa. It's all his words. With his mop of black, curly hair, his bushy eyebrows, prominent nose, mustachioed, with Zappa Beard, and clear eyes, he speaks articulately. He is not only frank in name.

Zappa declares, "Dirty words don't exist. This is a fantasy that is manufactured by religious fanatics and government organizations." Ignorance is one of his main targets. "There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe."

Although sardonic and witty, he is not easily labeled. He tells, "I have a wife and four kids, mortgage - the works." And he rebuffs much of the contemporary culture around him. "I've never taken any acid."

Zappa died of prostate cancer in 1993 at age 52. One wonders what he would do in 2016 where everything is spun. But one knows he would fight for creativity. That may be his greatest legacy.

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