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The film Dream of Life marks the full-length feature directorial debut for artist and photographer Steven Sebring. Born in South Dakota and raised in Arizona, he has established himself as a photographer known for a definitive style of merging raw realism with the fantasy of high fashion. He has worked for editorial magazines and shot campaigns for companies such as Ralph Lauren, Lanvin, Maybelline and Coach.

Dream is a portrait of the singer, artist and poet Patti Smith. She is known as the godmother of punk and her diverse career spans over three decades. Smith emerged in the 1970’s, galvanizing the music scene with her unique style of poetic rage, music, and trademark swagger. She narrates the film, which reveals a complicated and charismatic personality.

Sebring’s photographs have been included in the book Patti Smith Complete; Lyrics, Reflections and Notes for the Future and on her albums such as Gung Ho, Land, and the latest album 12 released in 2007. He continues his collaboration with Smith producing the art installation “Objects of Life.” He has also created the book, Patti Smith Dream of Life. The book chronicles the myriad of moments, musical transcripts, and unseen photographs of their unique relationship.

You had met Patti Smith through Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Can you explain what that first meeting was like fifteen years ago?

I went to Detroit. I didn’t know a lot about her and I was hired to photograph her for Spin. I had to learn quickly so I just looked through some Mapplethorpe photographs and stuff like that and I began to remember her. So I went out to Detroit and knocked on the door and met her. I was shocked because she was so angelic and sweet. I spent the whole day with her drinking coffee and I remember her having to remind me that I needed to take some pictures. I was lucky to get a couple rolls of film and that was all I needed.

You have said that you prefer not knowing too much about the person you’re photographing. Why do you like going into the shoots with a clean slate?

Well sometimes, some of the people I photograph, you know so much about them because they have been in every movie in the world and they are so big. You can’t be removed from everybody. But I do like not knowing too much about people. For me, it’s a nice thing because you approach that person incredibly open and you are not judging them. Going into it like that is a great way to come up with your own idea for that person, which I love.

And I assume that helps you create a unique visual identity for the person you are shooting?

Yeah exactly. The one time that I was actually a little bit thrown, and I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, was photographing Neil Young. I was photographing him and we were outside in the woods near his ranch. I’ve seen so many pictures of Neil Young. It was the weirdest thing when I was looking through the camera and had him in my lens; I got a little bit freaked out because I was trying to not remember pictures that I have seen of him before. I was really trying to do my own thing but I froze. I literally froze. Then you start hearing his music in your mind. It got really, really strange. I actually told him a little bit about that because I didn’t want to do a picture that I’ve seen before. That’s my whole thing with people is how can you approach it differently? Can you imagine being photographed all the time – the same way, the same interpretation as everybody else? For me that’s so boring.

Was there a particular moment or experience that inspired you to pick up the camera and document Patti?

It was when she invited me to Irving Plaza. It was her first concert back in New York City after taking a long break to raise her children. She invited me to Irving Plaza and I had no idea what her performance would be like. That was early ‘96. It was so mind-boggling how she transforms on stage. It was hard to believe that this was the same girl I was talking to in Detroit. From there, it was pretty immediate that I laid the seed. I was experimenting, having fun with the medium and learning how to do film so it seemed like a natural progression. I said to her, “Has anybody ever filmed you before?” and she immediately laughed at me like a little kid. Then I just kept calling her and calling her and when she went to London to start her European tour she said, “Yeah, come.” That’s when I bought my ticket.

But you didn’t set out to make a feature film?

No I really never thought about it too much. I just kept documenting and filming her because I never felt I had enough personal footage to ever have it make sense. I was also busy shooting and making a living. There was this one time I was so into her I just would travel and hang out but I was neglecting my job and how I made money; I had to go back to that. But then interest began to build because people were reading about it and hearing what I had. Patti and I, one of our times having sushi, thought maybe we should really do something with it. She was turning 60 and it was kind of a nice chapter. I compiled all of it and was able to take a year off to edit. But what was really helpful was that I kept filming during my editing process; I would put her in the corner of her bedroom, sitting on her chair and that helped make all the other footage make sense. It was like the foundation of the film.

As I watched Dream of Life, I noticed you never referenced a time or location. Did you deliberately leave out certain details in order to form a non-linear quality?

I never thought of myself as being a historian or documentarian. I always thought of myself as an artist. I sort of built the film the way it felt like it wanted to be. As soon as I started to assemble the footage in a chronological order, it looked stupid. It looked like something else to me and I didn’t want it to be like that. I wasn’t setting out to do something in the norm and I know some people were expecting that. I know when people go to the movie theatre, when they see Dream of Life, they will be expecting one thing. Maybe a couple of people talking about her and stuff but I didn’t do that. As soon as I started trying to make a normal documentary, it just wanted to be more and more diverse. I did an original edit years ago, which helped a lot, so I could understand what was going on. I referred to that once and awhile.

It felt as if you made your own sub genre by fusing elements of a music documentary and art house film.
I was looking to do something new and inspiring. I don’t think there is only one way of doing these kinds of things. Also, one of the reasons why it wasn’t so chronological was because it was only Patti and I. Sometimes I didn’t have enough film to have something make sense; other times I didn’t even have the sound running. All these little things made it like a quilt, very organic. I was forced to be so creative because I didn’t have enough stuff. The whole film was from the hip and there were so many mistakes. At the end, when we were doing the publishing rights, I never thought about needing clearance for a book that I was filming or something that hung on the wall. I went into it like nothing mattered and just did it and at the end of it all, it sort of got more real. For example, I couldn’t afford the music that was on the radio that was in the room that Patti was singing to.

A lot of these omissions were due to legal hassles or logistical problems but it actually intensifies that dream-like feeling, which I find, make the film really great.

Thank you very much. For me, it was a study at the same time. The less stuff I had to work with the better I got and the more creative I got. I would love to approach another project the same way because I think that your film is better for it. You see films now with these huge budgets that it gets sort of mainstream at the end of the day. I think that having less is always more. I truly believe that.

What kind of influences did you bring to the movie as many of the shots came across as a fashion spread in motion?

A lot of my editorial work has drawn upon film as inspiration and the old school directors have always influenced me. I always wanted to make sure Patti was the most incredible. It was sort of like I was shooting fashion on Patti. I always made sure I had the right angle and how the light looked on her. That really helped me a lot when I was making the film because instead of shooting an editorial still, I’m taking a lot of stills at once and it keeps going twenty-four frames per second. I really got excited about that when I first started doing it. I thought it was really cool.

You mentioned trying to capture Patti at her most incredible and she herself has been quoted as saying she felt very relaxed around you and your camera because you respected her boundaries and never sought out to capture a “bad” moment. As the filming went on and the years passed, did you find that were was something specific you were capturing?

We had such a rapport that I never witnessed anything awful when I was filming her. Every time I filmed her, I felt it was like this incredible spiritual connection that we had. We’d go and visit the gravesite of William Blake or (Percy Bysshe) Shelley and there was always something so magical about it. Even to this day, when I put a camera on her, it is always magical. I know how to photograph her. When I see photographers photograph her now, they don’t get it. It’s the same thing when I was filming her all these years. . .there were times I was financially broke and I would still go and film her and think to myself that I wasn’t get anything new. But I was always shocked, magically shocked, that I would get something so gorgeous from her, something so new and she always blew my mind. I mean that for me was quite incredible.

I think that’s the mark of a true artist too.

Oh she’s a great artist. That’s why I did this broadcast with PBS and with POV because I don’t think this country realizes what a national treasure they have on their hands. She is a great artist; she’s a great poet; she’s a great performer and she’s a great humanitarian. That’s why I wanted to do this thing with Public Broadcasting because I knew that this movie would hit most people’s TV. Not a lot of people I realized, after doing interviews with people in Middle America, nobody had cable. And they only think of Patti Smith as this rebel, punk rock singer who did “Because The Night” and that’s it. They are always so shocked when they see the film because they had no idea. I wanted to make sure people saw everything that I knew about her. I didn’t want it to be too music driven.

A lot of the film’s more reflective moments feature Patti in her self-contained corner, recounting the stories behind some of her personal possessions. Is this where the idea for the “Objects of Life” installation came from?

I kept my movie camera in her bedroom for months and it was one of those things where when we had a moment, I would turn on the camera and she would talk about a couple things. I never knew what she was going to show me. I loved the stories and when I was looking at the dailies and looking at the stories, what was really cool about it was that I could just pick up the stuff and look at them closely. I called them artifacts. I’m looking at Robert’s (Mapplethorpe) urn or I’m looking at her childhood dress and seeing the stitches; I said to Patti I should photograph these things and document them. She thought that was amazing because I was doing what I normally do, taking pictures. But I always felt when I blew them up big that they had their own stories to tell. You wouldn’t even need to see the movie and you can look at her childhood dress on the wall and say, “Wow, look how cool it is.” What was really great about it was that you are seeing Patti in the movie talking about this dress and then you can go experience this dress in a gallery in a different way. I always thought that was really an interesting sensation. It was another sensation and that is why I did “Objects of Life.” It toured around the world and now it is finally in New York. The New York version at the Robert Miller Gallery is really what I wanted it to be.

I viewed the exhibit before watching the film and your photographs, perhaps due to their scale or style, are very haunting. Without knowing Patti’s history or background at that point, I thought your work and the subject matter stood on its own.
That’s what I wanted to achieve. What was really interesting is when people then see the movie or they’ve seen the movie and say, “Oh my God, there’s that that ray-gun from the war protest scene.” I find that to be an interesting thing. I always thought it stood alone. It inspired me to do more of that type of thing with other people and other artists. It seemed interesting to see these pieces in a different light. They are her personal possessions and you are witnessing it really crisp and clear.

Patti was quoted as saying “the film really says so much about Steven as a human being” but I am curious as to what you think the film says about her?

About how incredibly interesting and diverse and what a great artist she is. Some people say to me, “I’ve heard if you are not a Patti Smith fan that you are not going to understand this film” and I totally disagree with that. I was never a fan of hers but making this movie was my learning process. When I watch the movie, I see this really incredible, diverse woman who does all these different things. She’s incredibly spiritual and totally inspiring which made me a fan. That’s how I look at this film. If you keep an open heart when watching the film, you may end up wanting to research her a little bit more and know more about her poetry or maybe you’ll be inspired to look up Arthur Rimbaud or William Blake? It’s an insight to this woman and what inspires her but it inspires the viewer too.

And to go back to Patti’s quote, what do you think the film says about you both as an artist and a human being?

When I see it, it is truly from my heart. Visually, it’s very much me. It’s been a great journey and I feel it’s going to keep going. Patti and I are constantly thinking of different projects and working on different things. I always laugh at her when she says “It’s Steven’s movie” and I’m like, “Patti, it’s your movie too! You’re the star!” She’s very modest and I always told her “You know what Patti, after this movie comes out, I guarantee you will be in film.”

Are you working on another film?

I do have some film projects on the horizon. They are more fictional films though. During our big opening at the Robert Miller, Albert Maysles approached me and said he wanted to collaborate with me. Can you imagine me and Albert Maysles making a movie?

Maybe a Grey Gardens sequel starring Patti?

Wouldn’t that be funny?