Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 3, 2018

If you were asked to list some seminal composers in a variety of genres from the 20th century, whom would you pick? Let’s start with classical music. For me, some names that spring instantly to mind are Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Bela Bartok, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. What about the rock and pop worlds? Well, certainly the iconic partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but also a number of other artist-writers including everyone from Chuck Berry to Brian Wilson to Bruce Springsteen to Laura Nyro. Jazz? Again, a number of artist-writers like Duke Ellington, Thelonius Monk and/or John Coltrane would probably make virtually any fan’s list. But one of the most fascinating and perhaps even imposing things about Frank Zappa’s legacy is that he could arguably be added to any of those genres and come out as one of the most distinctive and technically accomplished composers of his generation (Zappa's insouciance often reminds me of Charles Ives quite a bit of the time, albeit in a decidedly different musical "language"). As I mentioned in our Roxy: The Movie Blu-ray review, considering the fact that I spent much of my childhood and adolescence in the "white bread" environs of Salt Lake City where artists like the Osmond Brothers tended to hold sway, I kind of oddly grew up in the shadow of Zappa’s music since I attended the same high school as Zappa alums the Fowler Brothers (a few years after they did), and I’m a graduate of the University of Utah, where the Fowlers’ father was the (former) Dean of the Music Department. As I also discussed in my Roxy review (complete with a link for the visually inclined), my college Jazz Theory professor turned me on to Zappa’s (written) orchestral scores, finely notated pieces of music whose very calligraphic aspects indicated (to me, anyway) that Zappa was an indisuptable master of music in every sense of the word. This really sweet and actually ultimately quite emotional documentary is a rather beautiful homage to Zappa, couched in a trip he took to Italy, his ancestral homeland, but really in a way more about the legacy he’s left behind for his wonderful wife Gail and their frequently amazing children (only Moon Unit, Dweezil and Diva are featured in the documentary).

Summer ‘82: When Zappa Came to Sicily has a certain “meta” element that I’m not sure is absolutely necessary, one that involves the documentary’s director, Salvo Cuccia, who as a youth attempted to get to a somewhat notorious concert Zappa gave in Palermo. Cuccia frames the story initially as a coming together of his family history with that of the Zappas, but it’s not all that relevant to the story at hand, especially since almost immediately Cuccia hands the reins over (so to speak) to longtime Zappa friend Massimo Bassoli, who had a long history with Zappa in both the United States and Italy (during the very tour that included the Palermo date).

One way or the other, Summer ‘82: When Zappa Came to Sicily tends to pingpong (at times a little incoherently) between reminiscences of the 1982 tour and especially the chaotic Palermo performance, and a contemporary and quite touching visit by the Zappas to the tiny village where Frank’s grandfather picked up his family and emigrated to the United States a century or so ago. It’s actually the contemporary footage that is the most moving, with Gail Zappa and kids Dweezil and Moon offering some really sweet memories.

The “Palermo incident” is a bit more haphazardly covered, and in fact I’m still not sure exactly what happened. It seems that Italy was in the throes of some major Mafia wars, and there was also a good deal of unrest generally, and when the audience became a bit unruly, local police forces responded with teargas. It obviously isn’t quite at “Altamont” levels (so to speak), but the footage captured that evening documents a general feeling of unease by Frank and the other musicians, and once the teargas wafts up to the stage, things get even more discombobulated.

Summer ‘82: When Zappa Came to Sicily includes a brief sequence where the Zappas (as in Gail, Dweezil, Moon and Diva, along with assorted others) meet some of the Zappas who stayed behind in Italy (or in fact may have returned after a brief stint in the United States, if I understood some of the comments), but the really emotional element of this charming piece is the naming of the street where the Zappa family lived after Frank. You can see tears welling up in Dweezil and Moon’s eyes especially, and for those of us who have loved Frank’s music since our younger years, a box of tissues might be recommended.

Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual and Abra & Cadabra with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (mostly) in 1.78:1 (a lot of the archival footage tends to hover closer to Academy Ratio). This is one of the more heterogeneous looking documentaries I've reviewed lately, and as such fans should probably set their expectation levels accordingly, especially for some of the archival material. It's not completely clear to me whether Cuccia is using actual footage from the 1982 tour all of the time, but some of the passing shots of seasides and towns are extremely ragged, to say the least. The weirdest thing, though, is that almost all of the Palermo footage was either shot with a fisheye lens or has been modified to appear so, perhaps to keep it from being bootlegged (you'll notice that all of the Zappa archival footage has a somewhat whimsical "bug" in the lower right corner which is a logo of Frank's iconic mustache). This fisheye situation obviously "warps" the image and depletes already questionable detail levels, to the point that a lot of this historic footage doesn't really show all that much. The especially weird thing about this is not all of the Palermo footage is in fact fisheyed (which leads me to believe it was tweaked for copyright purposes). All of that said, all of the contemporary footage looks sharp and well detailed, with a natural looking palette and no compression issues.

Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, there's precious little (extended) music in this piece, meaning that surround activity tends to be relegated to ambient environmental sounds when the Zappas are out and about exploring Sicily. A lot of the documentary is simply talking head material, and fidelity is fine throughout in these moments, though surround activity is virtually nil. The documentary kind of ping pongs back and forth between English and Italian, and there are forced English subtitles for the Italian language sequences.

Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Photo Gallery (1080i; 12:56)

Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fans of Frank Zappa will almost certainly be touched by Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily, even if filmmaker Salvio Cuccia never really connects his personal history to that of the Zappas all that effectively, or indeed even sufficiently explains what was behind the chaos at the Palermo concert. But the memories of the Zappa clan make this essential viewing for anyone who grew up listening to Zappa and/or the Mothers, or in fact came to Zappa's iconoclastic music later in their lives. Video has some truly odd issues, but otherwise for Zappa fans at least Summer '82: When Zappa Came to Sicily comes Recommended.