Oh, Pretty Boy, Can’t You Show Me Nothing But Surrender?

Horses, horses, horses, horses

Comin in in all directions

White shining silver studs with their nose in flames,

He saw horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses…

So opens Steven Sebring’s (above left) new film, Patti Smith: Dream of Life––or at least the photographic equivalent of the well-known Smith verse does. The first shot poetically depicts­ a slow-galloping pack of horses against a red background. Enter Smith’s narrating voice and a series of even more elegant images.

Patti Smith: Dream of Life endeavors to be true to its subject matter. It is a reflection of the artist and her art, reaped from the very root of her ideas. Accordingly, the film bends common conceptions of narrative and genre. It is neither a concert documentary, nor a biography of Smith’s life. It does not dwell on Smith’s music or poetry, nor does it expound upon the historical or social context of her art. No, Sebring’s film is a rhythmic meditation on an artist, an act of observance and detached reverence. By employing such a grand visual collage, Sebring reveals that his love for Smith is quite a brainiac-amour. But no more.

Steven Sebring met Patti Smith in 1995, when Spin magazine hired Sebring to do a photo-shoot with Smith. Smith agreed based on the recommendation of Sebring by Michael Stipe. Something magical must have happened on that shoot: for the next 12 years Sebring followed Smith all over the globe, immersing himself in her home life, her stage persona, her personal adventures, her entire world…

In an interview with Filmmaker magazine, Sebring describes a relationship that, to some, may resemble stalking: “I would usually meet her on tour. Like when she went to Japan, I said, ‘I’m going to go to Japan,’ and she wouldn’t believe me. And then I’d show up and she’d be like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ That’s the way it was. At her mother and father’s house in Jersey, it was like ‘I’m gonna go to my Mom and Dad’s house — do you wanna come?’ I said, ‘Yeah, of course!’ So it was like that kind of thing throughout the years.”

But this is obviously the most natural way to film a Smith biography. I mean, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to follow Patti Smith around? Going to each and every concert, visiting the graves of Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake, hanging out with her both at home and backstage, not to mention chilling with her parents in the house Smith grew up in… Yes, you can accurately state that Sebring is one lucky bastard. If I had a job like that, I think I’d just continue following her around for as long as possible, never actually making the film, but pretending to by carrying around a video camera at all times.

However, Sebring’s reverence­––obsession, if you prefer­––presents an alternative implication. One scene, in which Sebring follows Smith to the grave of Arthur Rimbaud, casts this relationship under a fresh light.

The camera shows Smith wandering around Rimbaud’s gravesite, focusing on the way she absorbs his spirit from the natural setting. Next Smith stomps around a wooded area where he once stomped, and sits in a urinal he used more than a hundred years ago. Patti Smith never had the chance to meet her hero, so she settles on the sensation she garners from his gravesite. Recognizing these poetic and musical influences is essential to understanding her art. Smith’s music and lyrics are inextricably linked to dead poets and rockers: to Gregory Corso, to William Burroughs, to Jim Morrison, to Jimi Hendrix. Their spirits enable her to create a beauty all her own.

Steven Sebring grasps this phenomenon and imitates the process; but the key difference is that his muse is still alive and in front of his camera at all times. Sebring travels to be around the spirit of his muse while she travels to be around the spirit of hers. Again: the only natural way to make a Patti Smith film is to be around her at all times, soaking in her energy and watching her soak in energy from her own sources. These are the transferences that guide this film and give it life.

Patti Smith: Dream of Life is the product of an intricate relationship. By persisting in close proximity to Smith’s creative energy for twelve years––by watching and observing and learning from his muse––Sebring was able to make his own, very remarkable, work of art. Go Sebring, go and do the watusi, oh do the watusi.
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View the Patti Smith: Dream of Life trailer.

Visit Patti Smith on MySpace.

*above photo from HERE; front thumb from HERE