| 200 Motels | |
|---|---|
 Promotional release poster | |
| Directed by | Frank Zappa Tony Palmer |
| Written by | Frank Zappa Tony Palmer |
| Produced by | Herb Cohen Jerry D. Good |
| Starring | The Mothers of Invention Theodore Bikel Ringo Starr Keith Moon |
| Music by | Frank Zappa |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
| Countries | United States United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $679,000[3] |
| Box office | Under $1 million[3] |
200 Motels is a 1971surrealistmusical film written and directed byFrank Zappa andTony Palmer, and featuring music by Zappa. An international co-production of United States and the United Kingdom, the film starsthe Mothers of Invention,Theodore Bikel,Keith Moon andRingo Starr.[4]
Asoundtrack album was released in the same year, with a slightly different selection of music.
The film attempts to portray the craziness of life on the road as a rock musician, and as such consists of a series of unconnected nonsense vignettes interspersed with concert footage of the Mothers of Invention.[5] Ostensibly, while on tourThe Mothers of Invention go crazy in the small fictional town of Centerville ("a real nice place to raise your kids up"), wander around, and get beaten up in "Redneck Eats", a cowboy bar. In ananimated interlude passed off as a "dental hygiene movie", bassist "Jeff", tired of playing what he refers to as "Zappa's comedy music", is persuaded by his bad conscience to quit the group, as did his real-life counterpartJeff Simmons. Simmons was replaced by Martin Lickert (who was Starr's chauffeur) for the film.[4] Almost every scene is drenched with video special effects (double and triple exposures,solarisation,false color, speed changes, etc.) which were innovative in 1971. The film has been dubbed a "surrealistic documentary".[6][7]
Principal scenes of200 Motels, including theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra, were filmed in a week atPinewood Studios outside London, and featured The Mothers of Invention, TheRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra,Ringo Starr,Theodore Bikel, andKeith Moon.[8] Tensions between Zappa and several cast and crew members arose before and during shooting.[8] However, director Tony Palmer (on his 2009 reissue of200 Motels) claims that all elements of the script derived from Zappa's trunk's worth of material were completed during production. It was the first feature film photographed onvideotape[9] and transferred to35 mm film, a process that allowed for novel visual effects.[10]
United Artists' press kit for the film stated "For the audience that already knows and appreciates THE MOTHERS, [it] will provide a logical extension of our concerts and recordings."[11] The film premiere was shown atDoheny Plaza Theater inHollywood, California to mixed reviews.[12]200 Motels currently holds a 57% rating onRotten Tomatoes based on seven reviews.[13]Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, saying that the film; "is a joyous, fanatic, slightly weird experiment in the uses of the color videotape process", and also stating; "It assaults the mind with everything on hand".[14]
The soundtrack to200 Motels was released byUnited Artists Records on October 4, 1971, and features a combination ofrock andjazz songs,orchestral music andcomedicspoken dialogue.[4] Therock andcomedy songs "Mystery Roach", "Lonesome Cowboy Burt", "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy", "What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning" and "Magic Fingers", and the finale "Strictly Genteel", which mixesorchestral and rock elements, were noted as highlights of the album by reviewerRichie Unterberger.[4]
The score relied extensively on orchestral music, and Zappa's dissatisfaction with the classical music world intensified when a concert, scheduled at theRoyal Albert Hall after filming, was canceled because a representative of the venue found some of the lyrics obscene. In 1975, he lost a lawsuit against the Royal Albert Hall for breach of contract.[15] When "Penis Dimension" was played to the judge, Mr Justice Mocatta, he responded "Have I got to listen to this?" The UK première was not until 29 October 2013, almost 20 years after Zappa's death.[16][17]
The album was not released oncompact disc until 1997, as a result of a licensing deal betweenRykodisc (at the time the licensee for all of Zappa's other albums from the Zappa Family Trust (ZFT), numbering over 60 titles) andMGM allowing them to re-release numerous rare movie-musical soundtracks on CD. With the addition of this title, Ryko was finally able to offer the complete catalog of official Zappa recordings, as numerous legal proceedings both during Zappa's lifetime and afterwards failed to cede ownership of the rights and tapes to ZFT. That 2-CD edition, now out of print, contained extensive liner notes and artwork as well as a small poster for the film, as well as bonus tracks consisting of radio promos for the film and the single edit of the song "Magic Fingers".[4]
Though many Zappa fans consider this album a key recording of the period, it was deemed by some music critics to be a peripheral album.[4]AllMusic's Richie Unterberger critiqued what he referred to as the "growing tendency to deploy the smutty, cheap humor that would soon dominate much of Zappa's work", but said that "Those who like his late-'60s/early-'70s work [...] will probably like this fine".[4]
After200 Motels, the band went on tour; the live albumJust Another Band From L.A. included the 20-minute track "Billy the Mountain", Zappa's satire onrock opera set inSouthern California. This track was representative of the band's theatrical performances in which songs were used to build up sketches based on200 Motels scenes as well as new situations often portraying the band members' sexual encounters on the road.[18]
A show was produced in 2018 in France (Festival Musica Strasbourg and Philharmonie de Paris), staged byAntoine Gindt and conducted by Léo Warynski. This production is revivaled in Opéra de Nice in December 2023.[19]
Zappa examined the relationship between rock and classical music in the "surrealist documentary"200 Motels
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