Frank Zappa – 200 Motels (1971)

Frank Zappa – 200 Motels: Directed by Tony Palmer, Frank Zappa. With Mark Volman, Howard Kaylan, Ian Underwood, Aynsley Dunbar. The great Frank Zappa’s outrageous psychedelic precursor to today’s music videos features “The Mothers of Invention” wreaking havoc in a typical American town. Ringo Starr narrates.

“I watch this remarkable visual document every 5 or 6 months to remind me of the visionary powers of this great composer and musician. Frank Zappa attempts to weld together several totally different worlds of artistic behaviour. Thereu0026#39;s the nice, successful middle of the road stuff, personalized by Starr and Moon. The traditional Classic music is shown and half-ridiculed. The almost always invisible groupie scene plays itu0026#39;s part (no actresses here, only the real girls)like it did as a short lived musical group the GTOu0026#39;s (the true meaning is lost; some say Girls together only or outrageously) Frank even took one of the groupies ( Miss Lucy ?) into his home to play nanny to his children. Last, but not at all least, are the Mothers. I omit the of invention part as this was the idea of the record company to soften the blow to the female part of Americau0026#39;s silent majority. It was the beginning of the Flo and Eddie period, which Frank sometimes explained on stage as the result of a famous DJ saying that he could make the Mothers as big as the Turtles. Well, Frank used to say: If you wanna be as big as the Turtles, have a few Turtles in your band. The movies shows in a half hidden and symbolic way the craziness of the world, the moral dilemmau0026#39;s and the influence of religion on the psychological development of mankind. This is the first big step into Zappau0026#39;s conceptual continuity idea, which sadly ended with his death. The movie is a monument to his genius.”