Patti Smith Movies

This release from the Bridge School Concert series captures the 25th anniversary concert, featuring such landmark performances as "Girl from the North Country" by Bob Dylan, "Blue Ridge Mountains" by Fleet Foxes, "People Have the Power" by Patti Smith, "Heroes" by David Bowie, and more. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

One of cinema's greatest provocateurs, Jean-Luc Godard, presents another barbed but thoughtful meditation on culture, politics and cinema in this experimental drama. Shot using high-definition video equipment and a consumer-grade cell phone, with the crisp images of the former playing off the grain and distortion of the latter, Film Socialisme is divided into three segments. The first takes place on a luxury liner cruising the Mediterranean, as tourists from different lands attempt to communicate in their different languages. In the second, a French family calls a private tribunal, as the children challenge their parents on the issues of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity while the media watches from outside. And, finally, Godard and his crew visit six different places -- Barcelona, Egypt, Naples, Odessa, Palestine, and "Hellas" (the latter could be Greece or France) -- as he confronts issues of truth versus myth and where the global community is headed. While Film Socialisme features dialogue in a number of different languages, the English-language subtitles which appear in the film deliberately confuse matters by being made up of statements which bear no relation to what is being said onscreen, and usually have a provocative political undercurrent. Film Socialisme received its world premiere at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival; to the displeasure of some distributors, it was made available though Video on Demand the day after its debut screening. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Filmmaker Steven Sebring directs this documentary about legendary musician Patti Smith, surveying her life, her career, and the philosophical and spiritual themes that have remained so potent in her work. Following her through 11 years of work and touring, the film explores Smith's artistry in music, painting, and poetry, offering intimate insight into the musician's often conflicted creative style. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

To countless avant-garde novelists, filmmakers, and playwrights, publisher Barney Rosset -- proprietor of the legendary Grove Press -- qualifies as an undisputed hero. Via scores of in-court legal battles, Rosset fought aggressively and valiantly to defend the release of works as varied as William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch, Henry Miller's novel Tropic of Cancer, and Vilgot Sjöman's classic arthouse film I Am Curious (Yellow). As co-directed by Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor, the documentary Obscene builds a case not only for the idea that Rosset was utterly indispensable in the battle for freedom of speech that descended on America in the late '60s and early '70s, but that he deserves hearty praise for championing works that pushed accepted moral standards into theretofore unacceptable territory. Via a combination of extensive archival footage and interviews, Obscene traces Rosset's professional and personal life, beginning with his early years at the Parker School and Swarthmore through his involvement in the armed forces and his presence in the Manhattan avant-garde with wife Joan Mitchell during the late '40s and early '50s. The film places heaviest emphasis on (and devotes most of its screen time to) Rosset's censorship battles for various works during the mid- to late '60s, before moving into an exploration of his troubled subsequent years that were marked by financial difficulty, violent attacks from disapproving groups, government surveillance, and a host of other complications. Interviewees include Rosset, Al Goldstein, John Waters, Gore Vidal, John Sayles, and Ray Manzarek. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Nouvelle Vague marks the beginning of a period in Jean-Luc Godard's career in which he made films that looked back on his previous work. In these retrospective films, Godard asked himself whether it is possible to continue as a film director under the conditions imposed by international commercial cinema. Appropriately enough, Nouvelle Vague concerns the return of a man (Roger Lennox / Richard Lennox, played by Alain Delon, superstar of 60s and 70s international cinema) who may or may not have returned from the dead. The film's narrative is extremely disjointed and might be better understood as an essay on the idea of returning. The theme of a return from the dead gives Godard the opportunity to come back to the religious imagery and theological considerations that interested him from 1983's Hail Mary. The film's dialogue is a patchwork of unattributed quotations from works of literature, philosophy, and economics, a technique that Godard adopted in most of his films after this one. Even if the film's "story" is not easy to understand, the beauty of its images and sounds, along with the sublime rhythms of the editing, may be enough to ravish some audiences. ~ Louis Schwartz, Rovi

This biographical documentary on author and eccentric William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), founder of the Beat Generation literary movement along with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, is roughly divided into two segments. The first part has some witty scenes as the camera follows the author around to his various early haunts in the U.S., London, and Morocco. His friends are interviewed, including an interesting segment with Allen Ginsberg. In the second half of the film Burroughs becomes more of an exhibitionist than a subject, suggesting that discretionary editing would have made a smaller but better final version. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi