Patti Smith as Renaissance woman in intimate film

[Cainebj <Cainebj>]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080209/film_nm/berlin_pattismith_dc_1;_ylt=Al_eWuNEIbWm4wxiG2xAEVYE1vAI

BERLIN (Reuters) - Patti Smith hates labels, but if you had to choose  
a phrase to describe the U.S. singer, poet, political activist and  
painter, it might be Renaissance woman.

An intimate documentary about her life and work made over 12 years  
shows the 61-year-old veer from reflective commentator who ruminates  
on politics, family and death, to intense performer who sheds tears  
and spits with rage on stage.

Made by Steven Sebring, the mostly black-and-white "Patti Smith: Dream  
of Life" gets unusually close to its subject. Experimental camerawork  
and editing makes for a fittingly unconventional portrait of one of  
the pioneers of punk music.

"It's not a rock'n'roll film, it's not a concert film, it's a  
humanistic film," Smith told reporters on Saturday after the movie was  
screened at theBerlin Film Festival.

Sebring, who became a close friend of Smith's over the long filming  
period, said recording her became "like a drug." He amassed so much  
footage that editing took over a year.

"It was a hard film to tame," he said.

Smith was asked whether she liked being labeled as a punk rocker by  
the media.

"I have, since my first record, said right on the record that I was  
beyond labels, beyond gender, independent, and I don't like to be  
called any label.

"Every time you see a journalist that calls me a punk rocker, it's  
because they don't have the imagination or the professional  
intelligence or the curiosity or see the full breadth of what I've  
done."

DEATH LOOMS LARGE

Sebring captures a touching visit to her parents, concert footage old  
and new, Smith at protest rallies and on trips to Japan andJerusalem,  
backstage preparations, reflections alone in her chaotic apartment and  
visits to friends' graves.

Death looms throughout the one hour, 50-minute film, but with little  
trace of morbidity. At one point Smith pours the ashes of a friend  
into her palm and at another speaks movingly about her brother and how  
his death affected her.

"I regularly visit graves," Smith told reporters. "Tomorrow, I'm going  
to visit Bertolt Brecht's grave. I like going to visit people's graves  
-- I find it comforting. I know so many people who are gone, I like  
the proximity of something of them there."

Smith was born in Chicago in 1946 and in the late 60s moved to New  
York where she frequented fashionable nightclubs and befriended  
musicians and photographers.

She sang in a band and enjoyed a cult following that was reinforced by  
her first album "Horses," released in 1975, which subsequently  
inspired many big names in rock.

"Patti Smith: Dream of Life," named after the 1988 album "Dream of  
Life," joins Smith in the late 1990s as she prepares to return to the  
stage to tour with idol Bob Dylan after 16 years out of the limelight.

Early reviews of the film have been glowing.

"She's writing for young poets who years from now may be inspired by  
this beautiful record of her life's work," wrote the Hollywood Reporter.

(Editing by Matthew Jones)