Patti Smith: A Dream of Life

La Rochelle has already gifted me with a handful of new obsessions: running, the sea, trying to make pastries without copious amounts of dairy. Another came last night in the form of "A Dream of Life," a documentary about the obsession-worthy Patti Smith, screened by La Rochelle's upcoming Escales Documentaires.

The film, released by Stephen Sebring in 2008 after over ten years of footage, begins with a flickering montage, dark and transitory. Knowing little about Smith besides her music, this made me expect the typical rock star storyline, one of dangerous beauty, idealized abuse and loss. As the film moves to a shot of Smith in a corner of her apartment, displaying tiny icons of her life, the subtle eeriness continues, but Smith's smile deeply impacts my first impression of her. In this corner, which Sebring often returns to, the loving intimacy of the film becomes clear.

Beginning with Smith as a gray older woman, the debris of her life sitting around her in the room, her cat sunning on a window sill, the film identifies itself with wisdom and personal philosophy over Smith's punk rock youth. Smith's rough voice runs behind Sebring's footage, presenting a guiding philosophy early on: "Life is an adventure of our own design intersected by fate and a series of lucky and unlucky accidents." This aged woman, with hair like scattered straw, contrasts with the singsong girl in earlier footage of concerts and life at the Chelsea Hotel where she ran among the beats. However, her joie de vivre seems only to grow with her age. She wears a black cloak and often looks like a thinning man, but she glows.

My favorite scene follows Smith to her family's New Jersey home. She walks out to the backyard with her father and the dog and the film slows as they discuss which trees her father planted, which her brother planted. In the house she holds her mother's hand and they talk about how their ears have been blown out by their daughter's music and about the time she played a private show for them because her father had to get home before the concert. Before leaving Smith eats a hamburger alone at the table, and as they drive off the parents stand at the gate waving.

These scenes demonstrate Smith's comfort with and understanding about the spaces around her.  At one point in the film, Smith talks of life and death and concedes that she is comfortable remembering the past and looking towards the future, "As I tramp about in my mortal shoes." The cinematography effectively imitates this comfort. The film puts greater weight in Smith's personality and creative mind than her musical career, though it does include many powerful scenes on stage. "A Dream of Life," isn't only about Patti Smith, but collaborates with her to share a rather graceful view of the world.

For those reading in La Rochelle, my first experience with the documentary festival was so positive, I want to go to many other films next week. For others, Smith also recently published an award-winning book Just Kids, which I now must read. Her words are really something--I'd suggest you do the same.