Benjamin Smoke (2000)

Synopsis: The melancholy and uplifting life story of Robert Dickerson AKA Benjamin Smoke is luminously filmed in this compelling documentary. Smoke, a haggard southern drag queen singer, with a punk... The melancholy and uplifting life story of Robert Dickerson AKA Benjamin Smoke is luminously filmed in this compelling documentary. Smoke, a haggard southern drag queen singer, with a punk appearance, the voice of Tom Waits and the spirit of a philosopher tells his life to the camera through off-hand comments, crackpot commentary and tale-telling. Smoke's ramblings on music, misbehavior, and growing up southern and gay in his hometown Atlanta suburb of Cabbagetown, are punctuated by breathtaking imagery of the southern locale. Director Jem Cohen, an experimental film pioneer who has worked with REM, Fugazi, and Peter Sillen, and who directed SPEED RACER, the story of another southern eccentric rocker, Vic Chestnut, brings a well-practiced richness to Smoke's story. Illustrating Smoke's local stardom, his struggles with homosexuality and drugs and his eventual contraction of AIDS, the film follows Smoke's abstract, dementia-tinged existence. As Smoke's AIDS gets worse, his music becomes more redemptive. The climax of the story comes when Smoke meets his lifelong inspiration and idol, Patti Smith, and performs the opening at one of her shows. The film begins with the text from a Patti Smith poem about Smoke, and ends with a solitary shot of her dramatically reading the poem: a good way to show the far-ranging affect of the small but extraordinary life of Benjamin Smoke. [More]

Director: Jem Cohen, Peter Sillen

Director: Jem Cohen, Peter Sillen