8: Thorsten Schutte

Thorsten Schutte, director of Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words, joins V. Vale and Marian Wallace in the RE/Search office.

Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words directed by Thorsten Schutte (2016)
Review by Marian Wallace

There is never a dull moment watching Frank Zappa, from age approximately 14 to just before his all-too-early death at 52.

“Eat That Question” shows that Frank Zappa was not only a self-taught musical prodigy—while also fun, topical, and “real”—but he was a straight and obsessive genius with Integrity. It is a wonderful thing to see him interact with the senate hearings committee on censorship (which was spearheaded by Tipper Gore) inviting the straight-laced, woman-senator-questioner (forgot her name) to “come by the house” if she wanted to see what kinds of toys his children played with. Besides her being foiled by Zappa’s unorthodox answers and trying in vain to remain “in character” as the “pro-censorship” hearings unfolded, she was obviously charmed by Zappa, and stated that she “might just do that” [i.e., go check out his children’s toys].

Early in the film, Zappa explains to one interviewer, in a non-hyperbolic way, why he is against the status-quo music business. It is then illustrated by many and miscellanous Zappa footage/interviews/performances how: over the years he goes on to make his own success, remaining true to his vision. Later he needs to explain to an interviewer that he just wanted to spend some of the money he had earned, to hire a British orchestra and a California conductor to actually play some of the music he had written in notation over the years, but had never heard. He did not do this expecting to make money, but rather to spend money. Although he would make the results available to purchase in case anyone wanted it.

This is a fantastic collection of Zappa interviews and performances from over the years: tapings from USA and all over Europe, painstakingly collected by Schutte in his travels to various TV stations world-wide. The earliest appearance was a teenaged Zappa on the Steve Allen Show, orchestrating a noise piece utilizing the Steve Allen Show Band, electronic-taped random input, and Frank and Steve playing bicycle wheels. (The band was directed to play whatever and whenever they wanted, but to avoid actual musical tones.)

This is a MUST SEE for all music fans; anti-censorship believers; jazz, rock, free-form & noise musicians; and anyone who wants to spend an enjoyable and enlightening 90 minutes being totally entertained. It had the full support of the whole Zappa clan, who are lovingly and colorfully mentioned but do not appear in the film.—by M. Wallace