Patti Smith - Dream Of Life

Wild horses couldn’t drag us away

“Life isn’t some vertical or horizontal line; you have your own internal world. It’s not neat.” So muses the scruffy shamaness of beat-punk in this fittingly odd, beautiful, impressionist immersion in her life. Eschewing straight biography or external narrators, it is nonetheless overwhelmingly intimate. Compiled over 11 years in which director Stephen Sebring trained his lens on Smith at tour and at home, the camera unobtrusively observes Smith’s parents, bandmates and children, is shown her treasured keepsakes (an old guitar, a childhood dress) and taken to her most private places (her husband’s grave). This peaceful stock-taking is interspersed with fiery, spit-flecked snatches of live performance that refute any ideas you maye have of elder-stateswoman contentment.

It’s all beautifully, artfully shot (and also won the Cinematography Award when premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival) full of visual tips of the hat to Smith’s longtime collaborator and friend Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith, too, is a surprisingly charming onscreen subject, not least when demonstrating her total hopelessness on guitar after all these years (You Are My Sunshine proves a little too much; “it’s a learning process” she drawls). A beautiful portrait of a wonderful artist.

5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars

Drakes Avenue Pictures | tbc

Reviewed by Isobel George
<< Back to Issue 356

Login Here

Free Newsletter


Subscribe to
our email newsletter by emailing:

anna.bowen@
metropolis.co.uk