Interview: Patti Smith Doesn't Want Her Own Biopic!
Thursday, November 20, 2014 at 4:15PM What becomes a legend most? Not the biopics we see each year at the movies, Patti Smith suggests to me. We were meeting to talk about her first Original Song for a film, "Mercy Is" from this spring's $100 million hit Noah when the conversation veered into her own status as a showbiz legend, the godmother of punk. She shudders when I wonder aloud if anyone will make ever make a movie of her best-selling memoir "Just Kids" which recounts her storied relationship with fellow artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Though she's undoubtedly been interviewed thousands of times by now in her forty years of stardom, and she questions (indirectly) the whole point of the star profile and the interviewing process -- 'if you really want to know me, it's all there in the work' -- she is a patient and warm interview. She instantly recalls the old massive paraphenalia that journalists used to bring into the room to record with when she sees my tiny electronic device and she's eager to talk Noah, a project she felt immediately taken with when Darren Aronofsky first told her about his plans for it at the Venice Film Festival years ago.
Patti Smith at a recent concert in Iceland
NATHANIEL: Movies aren’t something you've spent a lot of time with in your legendary career. Did you know Aronofsky’s work well before writing the song for Noah?
PATTI SMITH: Yes. I love the one with Rachel Weisz, The Fountain. And Pi. I saw Black Swan a couple of times and we talked about Black Swan as a metaphor for the artist process and things like that. But it was not so much Darren as the subject.
Nathaniel: But you’ve been asked about religion before in your career and you’ve called it ‘man-made dogma’ so why do a Biblical film?
PATTI SMITH: Well, I love the Bible. Just because I’ve extricated myself from religion doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the scriptures. I look at the Bible as itself. It’s a holy book, it has incredible literature in it and beautiful poetry - the Songs of Solomon and the Psalms. I studied the Bible seriously until I was young teenager. It was always part of our home education: talking about the Bible, arguing about the Bible, interpreting it. So I don’t connect prayer or scriptures with any particular religion so it’s not a contradiction in my life. [more...]
Smith with Aronofsky at a screening
NATHANIEL: So it held a natural appeal?
PATTI SMITH: Yes. I love Biblical films whether it’s, you know, Pasolini or the old Zanuck films. Darren is a serious environmentalist so he wanted to infuse those concerns in the movie, reflecting our time, the urgency of what man is doing to his planet. I thought that was really exciting. He casually mentioned he needed a pivotal lullaby for the movie. Impulsively, I asked him if I could write it. He could have told me he was working on any other film and I would have never asked him. I just don’t - that’s not my style. But I felt so immediately drawn.
I’ve never written an Original Song for a movie. I’ve always loved lullabies. He said yes.
NATHANIEL: For a lullaby, which should be soothing, the lyrics are quite funereal.
PATTI SMITH: Well he’s singing it to the little girl who he believes to be dying, whose father has just been murdered. [She] can interpret it as her own father but Noah is speaking of The Father. It’s supposed to be somewhat melancholy. It’s a song that Methusaleh sings to his son. And his son sings it to his son. It’s an oral tradition type of song, a song that had been handed down. I had to write it as a full song but with the knowledge that it would have to be the right words for Noah to sing to this girl.
Do you often do that in your songwriting — writing in a character voice?
No, not normally. I have. “Libby’s Song”. I read somewhere that when General Custer died, who I have no affection for, his wife Libby stayed a widow even though she was just a young girl. She tried to hold his name high for the next 50 years. Her devotion touched me. Every once in a while I shift guise. I shift genders like in "Gloria" But this was something different. It was not only singing in the mouth of a character but writing a song to be sung by someone else. That I don’t do.
I have to say it wasn’t easy. It had to have clarity and simplicity and fit seamlessly into Darren’s vision. There was a lot of responsibility with this tiny little song. I was just writing for Russell’s character. I knew that Russell would go through the song and choose his segment. I didn’t dictate anything to him.
You describe it as a song you weren’t going to sing but there’s your voice in the end credits.
I thought somebody else would be chosen to sing it. People have used my songs. Oliver Stone used "Rock N Roll Nigger". People have used "Pissin in the River" and “Because the Night” but I’ve never been chosen to write a song or sing a song in the credits.
So how do you feel about performing it then?
It’s a beautiful song - sorry to say because it’s my own song! I performed it in Iceland. Darren helped Björk with an environmental benefit. It’s a delicate little song but it also has its strength.
Since you also write books and do photography, would you say your artistic temperament is restless?
No, no. I think essentially I’m a writer. That’s what I’ve done most consistently.Through writing and poetry I became a performer. I never thought of being a performer, never thought of being a singer, never thought of being a photographer. It’s just the trajectory of my work. I go to the medium that serves the vision.
I’d be happy if I just had one discipline! I can’t say why I’m like that because actually it can be exhausting. After writing all day I go for a walk and see a piece of architecture i want to photograph and i have to take a picture and later a poem comes in my mind. Sometimes I just want to do nothing!
Congrats on that Booker Prize by the way for "Just Kids". People love that book. I’ve always thought that at some point someone is going to make a biopic of Robert Mapplethorpe or of you, or one about your relationship.
I hope it doesn’t happen in my lifetime. I don’t think people should do biopics of living people. I’m totally opposed to that. I’m living my life.
So you haven’t optioned the book then?
No. I worked very hard to make sure that Robert was handled in that book --every single word with extreme care. I wouldn’t hand it over lightly. I never look at biopics of living people or even recently departed. I like thinking of the people — if I want to see Jennifer Jones, I’ll watch her movies, you know?
I like reading 19th century biographies of Rimbaud or somebody that I could never meet but I still read them with caution. If you really want to get to know any artist, you just go to his work.
I love that. I was just curious because people like you who have been performing so long have a kind of mythology around them.
Believe me I’ve read many supposed accounts or interpretations of myself and “mythological” is the word.
[Laughs]
The true story is often more interesting than the fabricated one.
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith in their early days in Manhattan
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Reader Comments (9)
Brilliant, unexpected interview!
One little edit: It's General Custer ;-) not the tasty version you have in the article.
I think I'm more envious of you for the privilege of talking to Patti Smith than for any actor you've ever gotten to chat with. Great interview!
And everyone should pick up a copy of Just Kids. It has the answers to everything.
Great Interview. I need to get myself together and read that book.
Neither do I ! Hollywood would sugarcoat her life.
Oh please Academy nominate this song. I want Patti at the Oscars!
wait....somebody let russell crowe sing in another movie??
par - it's true. but it's quite brief!
Great questions. Patti must have felt relieved to find an interviewer who has so many interesting things to ask.
For some reason I've always admired Patti Smith as an icon without properly immersing myself in her work (aside from "Horses"). I'm ordering her book right away.
Great interview.