Dream of Life
Steven Sebring met Patti Smith on a photo shoot, and ended up spending eleven years filming her. But don’t expect a concise, linear documentary. Like its subject, the style of the film is slightly anarchic and artistically scattered. If the film were about anyone else, it might be irritating. But somehow, here, it works.
Patti Smith is best known by most people, for her seventies rendition of the Bruce Springsteen song (which she partially re-wrote), called “Because The Night”. Intoned in her customary raw and passionate fashion, it catapulted her into the charts all around the world. In reality, she had been artistically active for several years, in the fields not only of music, but art and poetry.
Even if you’re not a fan of Smith’s “type” of music (she is known as the godmother of punk, but hers is more of an American rocker version), she has lead an undeniably interesting life. Her punk association is rather at odds with her apparent hippy leanings. But then again, this is all quite consistent with the many paradoxes in her life.
While she espouses the virtue of always moving forward with one’s life, she is, in some respects, trapped in the past. She visits grave sites of favourite poets (among them Rimbaud and Blake), and loved ones who departed this world prematurely (such as her brother Todd, and husband, Fred).
Even technologically, she seems somewhat trapped. She uses a large old Polaroid camera to snap mementos of scenes and curios around her: at one point, we see her photographing her favourite childhood dress.
On stage, she’s a dark and powerful revolutionary, frothing at the mouth and occasionally spitting as she spews vituperative rants and punches the air with her fists. But offstage, there are occasions where she is almost demure. Indeed, there is something about her appearance that is grandmotherly and girlish at the same time.
Earlier photographs hint at a sexuality long gone; Smith, once a lanky shaggy-haired androgyn, whose boyish allure was captured famously in a photo in which she sports khol-rimmed eyes, and a chemise whose strap has slunk off her shoulder, is looking far more masculine in her advanced years. Even a reviewer of her concert noted that she was wearing the same type of suit and white shirt she wore in her youth. Watching the film, I was convinced that her “look” was yet another example of her being trapped in time, but it’s worth watching the extras, in particular, a piece called “My Uniform” for Smith’s explanation about the way she dresses, even if it’s not entirely convincing.
Chance had a lot to do with the path Smith took in life. A factory girl turned Beat poster girl, she met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe whilst working in a bookstore, befriended him, and then became acquainted with a veritable who’s who of New York’s creative set back in the sixties, such as William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. She remained friends with Mapplethorpe until his death. It was he who photographed among other things, the cover of her debut album: Horses. Ginsberg suggested that she return to the stage after the death of her brother, Todd.
Smith’s poetry and art have been heavily influenced by nineteenth century poets she discovered as an adult, the beat poets she befriended and contemporary artists she admired, such as Jackson Pollock.
Given the number of deaths in her younger years, one can forgive Smith for leaning towards the past, even if she doesn’t realise it herself. And her obvious love and affection for her children Jackson and Jessie, and appreciation of simplicity and beauty, make her more endearing.
Interestingly, the main aim of Sebring’s film, was to inspire people to be more mindful of the world around them, and to be “ ... motivated to feed one’s mind with books, music, culture, art, history”.