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A dream of life - documentary of Patti Smith
by Steven Sebring

I walked out of the cinema in wonder. Patti Smith is an incredibly evolved human being. James Wolcott in the New Yorker described her as a phenomenal anomaly. She is at once candid and iconic all in the same frame!!!

The documentary (filmed mostly in black and white: certainly seems to be making a come back) has picked up on Patti Smiths later tours and becomes an incredible tribute to her earthiness, her day to day-ness, her strength in not being afraid to appear ordinary, and her extraordinary ability to slide into the psyche of her passion: music/word making.

A dream of life - the title taken from a biography of Lorca, the gay Spanish poet who was executed at the start of the Spanish Civil War and who was romantically involved with Dali - becomes a tribute to Lorca and indeed the power of the written word: also of Blake and Rimbaud, undoubted icons in her scheme of things. She is so embracing, so much everything, that one feels truly blessed at the mere existence of this enlightened woman. Along with Dylan's possibly best album released in 1976 '"Desire", I was the proud owner of her most famous 1975 album '"Horses'".

Robert Mapplethorp took the cover photo which created a breakthrough from what had until then been considered the stereotype for girl singers. Camille Paglia was to claim two decades later that this image ranks in art history among half-dozen supreme images of modern woman since the French Revolution. Surely the cover of Laurie Anderson's '"Big Science" would rank in there somewhere. But Paglia had hoped that this androgynous rebeller (Smith) would begin the transformation of the female rock star. Sadly it didn't, and apart from Laurie Anderson (who in my opinion continued this tradition and possibly even eclipsed Patti) no other female pop star springs to mind. Of course there was Cher, Blondie and Madonna - but these divas followed the movie-star-vamp-dominatrix mode: not quite in this androgynous class.

In this documentary, Patti takes us on a nostalgic visit to her parents, her early involvement with Ginsberg, the gay photographer Mapplethorp, the creative ferment of the 70s. One gets a very real sense of the free spirited inspiration that swirled and inspired the passion that Patti Smith responded to and fed, so ardently. On a visit to her family home her father came across as quite enlightened: bright and embracing of his daughter's rebellious achievements!

What I found exciting about the film was to be found more in the subtext....the events...and the way in which Smith could, with the mere inflection of her voice, create poetic intensity in an instant and soar to incredible heights. The power of her consciousness infuses her political tirades in a way that we have never really seen since the 70s and one wonders how come she has never become (as yet) more actively involved in politics. (But thankfully not so - America and politics!)

In 2003, Patti Smith was the recipient of the Torino Poetry Award, as well as the Premio Tenco Award in Italy and in 1975 was awarded the Academie Charles Cros, Grand Pris du Disque Award in France for the recording of "Horses".

On June 10, 2005, Smith was awarded by the Minister of Culture for the French Republic, the grade of "Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres", the highest grade awarded to an artist.

In the past few years, Patti Smith has had the privilege to visit and participate in events at several literary foundations, including Hermann Hesse Museum in Montagnola, Virginia Woolf's Monks House in East Sussex England, and the Casa-Museo Frederico Garcia Lorca in Granada Spain.