Patti Smith: Dream Of Life

Dream of Life, the Patti Smith documentary, debuted at Sundance to much fanfare and hype as a top-notch music doc; but it doesn't disseminate info to casual or novice Smith fans with the same effectiveness that say the Julien Temple doc on Joe Strummer did. It requires a patience that would more than likely be found in in die-hard Smith fans--which there is a whole legion--than in music fans who want to learn more about Patti Smith.

Smith, the poetess laureate of rock music, is a professed Bob Dylan fan, and there are many overlaps in their musings on life and their lyrical styles. In the film Smith retells a story about how she convinced Bob Dylan to tune her guitar without directly asking, and considering her enjoyment of the anecdote, it's easy to understand the impact Dylan had on Smith. The recent Dylan movie, "He's Not There" is a funny sort of bio-pic: it's more interested in expressing feeling than information. Same goes for "Dream of Life"; the style is gritty, hand-held graininess, but it's not rife with info.

The film's director, Steven Sebring contents himself on capturing Smith on stage, talking, walking, eating, and simply being. As mentioned earlier, mega-fans of Smith will rejoice while others may not understand why there's a doc devoted to Patti Smith at all. The film is well crafted, and decent anyway you slice it, but you're not going to walk away with crystal-clear knowledge about one of rock's more enigmatic poets.