Smith Doc is a “Dream” Come True for Palm

Icon is perhaps too small a word to encompass Patti Smith.
Considered the godmother of punk, her beat poet cum rock goddess persona is the
thing of legend. Given the subject, you can understand why photographer Steven
Sebring would spend 11 years following her as she toured the world; capturing
both the performer and the person in the raw — in her own words. The result?
The Sundance award winning documentary Patti Smith: Dream of Life which has
just been picked up by Palm Pictures for theatrical and home release.

An amalgamation of Smith’s works as a musician, painter, poet,
and photographer; the film is as much about her art as is it about her
ruminations on life and death. Narrated by Smith herself, she folds in her
poetry and lyrics along with performance in a delirious stream-of-conscious style
bracketed between the standard bio-doc fare. While far from a comprehensive
examination of the artist, there is much to be gleaned from a cursory look at
such a fascinating life. As critic Robert Koehler puts it, the film “distinctively treats the particulars of her early career in
only glancing references, none of them in chronological order, with Smith
sometimes seen obliquely.”

Dream of Life should hit theatres later this summer.