An unhappy chapter of the Seattle music scene is passionately recounted in “The Gits,” a tribute to a short-lived band. This documentary organizes the band’s story as a saga of music and crime.
The central fact of the Gits’ existence was the horrific rape and murder of lead singer Mia Zapata while she was walking home one night in July 1993. An inspiration to others in the vivid Seattle music scene, Zapata was killed just as the Gits were on the verge of vaulting into prominence.
“The Gits” is a long-term project by director Kerri O’Kane, who spent years collecting footage and interviews, only to have the project suddenly changed by a breakthrough in the murder investigation.
Nicely paced so that the murder doesn’t overwhelm the whole story of the Gits, the film takes us back to the formation of the band at Antioch College in Ohio in 1986. The four members stayed together through the years: guitarist Andy Kessler (aka Joe Spleen), bassist Matt Dresdner, and drummer Steve Moriarty played with Zapata.
They originally dubbed themselves The Sniveling Little Rat Faced Gits, from a line in a Monty Python sketch, but quickly shortened the handle. On another point of nomenclature, it might surprise some to learn that “Mia Zapata” was not a stage name; the Zapata family (represented in the film by Mia’s father and brother) supposedly shares some ancestry with Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata.
The band moved to Seattle in 1989, before the scene had erupted into international recognition, and set up shop in a rental home called the Rathouse. This place became a hangout and rehearsal spot for friends and musicians.
There is enough performance footage of the Gits (including songs culled from the documentary “Hype!”) to get a good feel for their music. And Zapata’s low, commanding voice was a truly startling instrument.
Zapata herself, though she is talked about throughout the film, remains strangely hidden. There’s a kind of veil over her more personal information, as though the film wanted to keep the focus on knowing her through her art. That’s fine, although it means no light is shed on the mysterious sources of her sometimes dark lyrics.
The astonishing resolution of the murder case, which came about 10 years after the crime (and only because of DNA testing), gives the movie a sense of closure. But the outrage is there too, well expressed by two members of the female band Seven Year Bitch, who were instrumental in setting up a non-profit organization, Home Alive, which teaches self-defense to women.
That’s a lot to cover in 81 minutes, but “The Gits” makes it all fit. This movie’s sadness is well justified and eloquently spoken.
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