It's all about the music
Patti Smith in full flight
"My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, to give them my energy and accept theirs".
So says poet, activist and rock goddess Patti Smith in Steven Sebring's Patti Smith: Dream of Life.
Sebring's film is not so much a music documentary but a mesmerising exploration into Smith's iconography (though when Smith thinks of a 'rock icon' she thinks of Mount Rushmore). It took Sebring eleven years to piece together the film, which seems only fitting when you consider Smith's extensive personal history - her friendships with Beat writers William Burroughs and Allan Ginsberg, her close relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and her status as the 'godmother of punk'. But in the end, it's Smith's integrity and modesty throughout that makes her a truly fascinating subject.
Dream of Life screens as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival which also features the Australian premiere of The Rape of the Sabine Women, Eve Sussman's re-interpretation of the classic Roman myth. Stunning cinematography combines with Jonathan Bepler's original score (in the place of dialogue) to create an intoxicating mix of image and sound. The New York Times called it "extravagantly beautiful", a description that could also be applied to our special presentation of F.W. Murnau's Faust, featured in First Look and co-presented with MIAF.
Screenings of the German expressionist masterpiece will be accompanied by a live musical score composed and performed by Phillip Johnston that includes lyrical elements - a first for a silent film score - written by Australian playwright Hilary Bell. As Johnston himself says, his score is indeed "a bridge across time". The same could also be said of the work of Sebring and Sussman.
For full screening details click here
Published Thursday, 9 October 2008
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