DVDs AND MOVIES

Zappa's interest in filmmaking dates from the early sixties. The demonstration of a film was part of the Mount St. Mary concert from 1963 and next he started working on a science fiction movie called "Captain Beefheart versus the Grunt People", that never was realised. The films - scripts, concert footage and more - that got completed are:

- Timothy Carey: The World's Greatest Sinner, 1962 (soundtrack by FZ). Zappa admired Carey's movies and contacted him by simply walking into a set he was working on. Carey told Zappa he needed music for a low budget movie he was doing. Since Zappa was prepared to do it for free, a deal was made. It included orchestral works with the Pamona Symphony Orchestra and some rock band music. The title track got released as a single in 1963. The movie is available on videotape (see also the Movie scores section). As soon as it comes out on DVD, I'll do something with it in this site.

- Don Cerveris: Run Home Slow, 1965 (soundtrack by FZ). A low budget cowboy movie, starring Mercedes McCambridge. Of this soundtrack various sections have been released on CD. The quality of the tapes, recorded in 1963, is fine. See the Movie scores and Orchestral favorites sections for examples.

- Burnt Weeny Sandwich, 1969. A short documentary about the 1968 Berlin concert of the Mothers, that ended with a riot. There was police present backstage in advance and during the concert some rebellious students started shouting "revolution". Zappa responded with "no, evolution" and when things were getting uptight, the Mothers were forced to withdraw themselves. The footage was shown to L.A. students in a college hall, with Zappa present for a debate. Parts are incorporated in the later Uncle Meat movie.

- 200 Motels, 1971. In 1970 MGM was prepared to offer Zappa a limited budget for making his own movie. It was shot in London in five days at the beginning of 1971. The music includes an almost absurd variety of chamber music, orchestral pieces and rock band songs. The conditions are often described as chaotic and the meaning of the film as inunderstandable, but that depends on how you look at it. It was Zappa's dream to realise this overall piece of art and he was going to finish it one way or the other. Not even half of the script got filmed and the bass player walked out just before the shooting, but Zappa kept his head cool and focused on what could be completed on the spot. The result is an entertaining movie made up of episodes about a group on tour.

- Baby Snakes, 1979. This is Zappa's second film to reach the cinemas. It's build around the Palladium concerts he gave in New York in 1977 with additional clay animations by Bruce Bickford, cartoons, interviews, repetitions and back stage stuff. It lasts almost three hours, including the most of one concert. The movie was completed in 1978 along with the preparations for the upcoming Sheik Yerbouti album. It got reserved reviews at first, I guess because the critics were in many cases unfamiliar with Zappa's music. Then three hours is asking too much. As a concert movie for people who enjoy Zappa's music, it's excellent.

- The Dub Room Special, 1984. A video compilation, made up of two TV specials and once more clay animations by Bruce Bickford. The first TV special dates from 1974. The other is the concert MTV broadcasted in 1981 as "You are what you is", featuring Zappa dressed in a purple overall during his New York Halloween concerts. It has some additional interview material about the making of the video itself. The bonusses on DVD include a Valley girl documentary and a Dancing fool clip.

- Does Humor Belong In Music?, 1986. A straightforward concert video of the 1984 concert Zappa gave at The Pier in New York. Regarding the program it overlaps with the CD of the same title and YCDTOSA, but these are the specific executions of the songs at this concert. Spread out over this video, the mentioned CDs and Guitar, some 4 hours of the 1984 concert program are available, quite a lot. The video includes two short interview sections, one about Zappa's permanent diet of coffee and cigarettes, the other about what is required to become a Republican.

- Video From Hell, 1987. In this year Zappa set up his company Honker Home Videos in order to finish off footage that he had in his vault, but that never had reached the cinemas. Video From Hell is a compilation of the previous and upcoming material, as well as episodes of its own.

- Uncle Meat, 1987. The idea for this movie originated from filming the Albert Hall concert of 1968, featuring members from the BBC Symphony Orchestra. It included a little plot about the band splitting into educated score reading musicians and normal rock and roll players. The script for the second part of the movie was to be played by the Mothers and their associates, but Zappa was unable to raise enough funds to complete the movie. The last version of the script was about a monster called Uncle Meat (Don Preston) and a girl, who gets horny be being rubbed in with meat. It shows Zappa's permanent interest in bizarre forms of sex, also present in Joe's Garage and Thing-Fish. He could finish the movie as a video in the eighties with some complementary recent material.

- The True Story Of 200 Motels, 1987. During the five days that were available for shooting 200 Motels cameras were running all the time. Eventually Zappa edited two hours for the movie. The costs had passed a bit above budget, so in order to save some money all the remaining film tape got reused. Nevertheless Zappa was able to compile this documentary about the making of 200 Motels by making use of footage from before and after the actual shooting of 200 Motels. It includes performances by the 1971 and 1973 band.

- The Amazing Mr. Bickford, 1987. This one is all about the work by Bruce Bickford as it was included before in Baby Snakes and The Dub Room Special. It is accompanied by Zappa's modern music with the L.S.O. and the Ensemble Modern.

- ZFT: Roxy And Elsewhere trailers, 2005-2007. The Roxy concerts of 1973 got filmed by three cameras, but eventually nothing was done with the material in its aftermath. Later on Zappa included a few parts from it is his eighties videos. The ZFT released a trailer in 2005 on the Baby Snakes DVD release. In 2006-2007 two pieces were shown during the Zappa plays Zappa concerts, featuring Montana and Dupree's paradise, with Bruce Fowler decomposing his trombone. You can download them at www.zappa.com. Montana just has appeared on the next DVD below.

- ZFT: Overnite sensation/Apostrophe ('), 2007. Documentary DVD with Dweezil Zappa behind the mix panel presenting these two good selling albums from the seventies. It features many interviews with the persons involved in making these albums and includes two unreleased live performances. The first is Montana from Roxy, 1973. The second is I'm the slime, taken from the bands appearance at the Saturday Night TV show, 1976. Dweezil lets us hear some of the individual tracks that the songs are made up of.
Ruth Underwood shows her copy of the score of "Rollo interior", the instrumental section of "Father O'Blivion" and demonstrates Zappa's use of 2-chords (9th chords in this study). The opening of "The idiot bastard son" she plays, can be found in the Songbook, page 103.

- The torture never stops, 2008. This DVD is a more complete form of the 1981 Halloween MTV concert with 27 tracks (including the bonus). It was a collaboration between the then just started MTV channel and Zappa. Since the broadcasting of the show was authorized, you can sort of say that a DVD edition of it also can be seen as an original Zappa release. A third of it is also known via other sources (The dub room special, YCDTOSA and the As an am bootleg). Both the early and late show on Halloween got filmed. They had completely different setlists, so the filmed amount was still much bigger. Though it goes back 25 years in my memory, I recall a funny Egytian like dancing movement Zappa made during the concert as shown on Dutch TV. It didn't encounter it on the DVD and I think it stemmed from a Dancin' fool performance, though I'm not sure about that.
There are various more concerts and TV performances that got an authorized broadcasting, so possibly this is just the beginning. Copies circulate in the bootleg circuit and on Youtube.