Baby Snakes (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title Baby snakes
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1979
length 166 minutes
Rod
Director Frank Zappa
script Frank Zappa
production Frank Zappa,
Bennett Glotzer
music Frank Zappa
camera Robert Leacock
cut Klaus Hundsbichler ,
Frank Zappa
occupation

Baby Snakes is a concert film with material from Frank Zappa's Halloween concert at New York City's Palladium Theater, backstage Alber land the crew and stop-motion - clay animation by Bruce Bickford from the year 1977th

content

Baby Snakes shows live recordings of the Halloween concert from 1977, partly rearranged improvisationally , as well as rehearsals for upcoming concerts, interspersed with backstage scenes by gadgets and musicians and animation scenes created for this film. Between the titles, Zappa philosophizes about song texts or involves the audience in the avant-garde performance .

Zappa himself about the film: “ Without deviation, progress is not possible. Normal People should see Baby Snakes so they can find out what they've been missing. "

marketing

Originally there were problems finding a distributor for the film. Frank Zappa tried unsuccessfully to interest United Artists , who had also released his film 200 Motels . Other studios followed the example of UA. They feared that Zappa's cinematic style had lost its appeal by the late 1970s. European distributors persuaded Zappa to shorten the film to 90 minutes. Still no rental could be found. Even after Bruce Bickford's sequences won an award at a French animation film festival, the situation did not change.

Finally, Zappa distributed the film through its production company, Intercontinental Absurdities. The film ran for 24 hours at the Victoria Theater in New York City.

In its original version, the film was sold directly on VHS via mail order until the mid-1990s. The 90-minute version was also distributed, but only briefly. After the VHS versions were sold out, the film was released on DVD by Eagle Vision United States in 2003.

The soundtrack for the film was released in 1983 under the title Baby Snakes .

DVD tracks

DVD Baby Snakes , Eagle Version 2003
  2. Baby snakes
  3. Curse Of The Knick-Knack People
  4. The Poodle Lecture
  5. City Of Tiny Lites
  6. Flakes
  7. Pound (For A Brown) - solos
  8. I have been in you
  9. Managua / Police Car / Drum Solo
  10. Disco boy
  11. X-Scape
  12. King Kong
  13. Roy's Halloween Gas Mask
  14. Bobby Brown Goes Down
  2. I'm so cute
  3. Titties & Beer
  4. Audience Participation
  5. Black Page # 2
  6. Jones Crusher
  7. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes
  8. Punky's Whips
  9. Dinah-Moe Humm
  10. Camarillo Brillo
  11. Muffin Man
  12. San Ber'dino
  13. Black Napkins

reception

While Frank Zappa locates his film in the usual way, opinions differ in the criticism, depending on whether they belong to the “zappaphile” or “zappaphobic” camp.

'Baby Snakes' is a movie about people who do stuff that is NOT NORMAL.'

"'Baby Snakes' is a movie about people who do stuff that is NOT NORMAL."

- Frank Zappa : film subtitles

“'Baby Snakes' is a convincing illustration of the dictates of Zappa's 'Conceptual Continuity', as if there were 'social commentary, audience participation, eclectic orchestration and spontaneous theatrics'. In this case, the socially critical comments hit Zappa's label Warner Music in a very unfriendly way. The 'audience' takes part in this by holding up 'fuck warner' signs, the audience can also sing along, dance along and, if it's female, kiss Zappa. "

- Joachim Gauger : laut.de

"'Baby Snakes' is a misshapen, inexcusably long concert film by, about and with Frank Zappa, whose special mixture of avant-garde arrogance and boastful glee doesn't do much to make time go by."

- Janet Maslin : New York Times

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Review at rollingstone.com
  2. ↑ a b Zappa Wiki Jawaka Soundtrack . Retrieved September 6, 2013
  3. ↑ FRANK ZAPPA - Classic Feature Film To Be Issued On DVD
  4. ↑ Zappa Wiki Jawaka VHS / DVD . Retrieved September 6, 2013
  5. ↑ DVD tracks Baby Snakes, Eagle Vision, 2003 ( Memento from November 29, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) on home-of-rock.de
  6. ↑ a b Joachim Gauger: Review: Frank Zappa - "Baby Snakes. Laut.de, January 26, 2004, accessed on September 6, 2013 .
  7. ↑ Janet Maslin: Baby Snakes (1979) Screen: For Zappaphiles: A One-Man Enterprise. New York Times, December 21, 1979, accessed September 6, 2013 .