Patti Smith Hits the Big Screen in Untraditional Rock Doc: Exclusive Clips

From 1996 to 2007, photographer Steven Sebring periodically filmed Patti Smith as she traveled the globe playing concerts, visiting the graves of poets and hanging out with friends like Bob Dylan and Michael Stipe. The end result is Patti Smith: Dream of Life, a film that opens on August 6th in New York and in other cities soon after. With no interviews, little narration and a non-chronological story line, the atmospheric film is not a traditional rock documentary. "Filming over so many years was great because the scenes are like they came out of her memory," says Sebring. "It's like her Alice in Wonderland."

(Click above to watch exclusive clips from the film, including Smith prepping for a show with Bob Dylan and performance footage, and keep reading to check out the trailer).

Sebring first met Smith when he went to shoot her for Spin magazine in 1995, shortly after her husband Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5 died. "We immediately had a connection," he says. "She's this cute, low key, attractive girl offstage. When I saw her onstage at Irving Plaza she was a completely different woman, spitting and spewing out poetry. I was like, 'Holy shit.' I was looking for an outlet to film somebody. I convinced her to let me start filming her. Years and years of just showing up. Once there was the trust factor, she started to invite me to show up and film her."

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Song Stories

“Tonight's the Night”

The Shirelles | 1960

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."

More Song Stories entries »

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