The Man: Post Mothers Breakup

Other than music Zappa had always had a deep passion for writing and making movies and his third attempt at a full-length feature was the 1971 release of 200 Motels. Shot in England, it featured the London Philharmonic, The Who drummer, Keith Moon, as a nun and Ringo Starr as Zappa (the irony of which must have greatly amused Zappa. His '68 album We're Only in it for the Money was devoted to mocking The Beatles and trying to show the world that Zappa thought they were overrated and only in it for the money.

Zappa’s goal with this film was to portray the life of a band on the road and to make it as realistic as possible he asked most of the characters to play themselves and, rather than learning lines, to improvise scenarios which had actually occurred in the past. As always, control-freak Frank tried to take over as much of the directing and editing as possible and this caused many feuds with director Tony Palmer, who was just as hardheaded. The final result has audiences puzzled to this day as the scenes do not always flow and integrate as smoothly as perhaps they did in Zappa’s mind.

On a personal note, around 1971 Zappa became extremely close to a minor, Nigey Lennon, who later went on to write a candid novel entitled ‘Being Frank.’ A minor at the time, Zappa first took her home when she was 16 and then took her on tour at 17, Zappa risked incarceration for Nigey. Thinking back to how paranoid Zappa had become of going back to jail after his ten-day stint following the bust in Studio Z, this is extremely bizarre. However, it may be explained by the fact that, according to Nigey, sex was only slightly less important to him than music: “It permeated everything he did on an unconscious level.” [Miles p.218]