Last year, in trying to get a bit too far inside Bob Dylan's head, Todd Haynes' I'm Not There wound up over-intellectualizing the fun right out of the man, the whole exercise devolving into method-acting gimmickry (look, there are seven of him!). Filmmaker-photographer Steven Sebring, who's spent the last 10 years obsessing over Patti Smith in order to make his new documentary about the rock-and-roll queen bee, on the other hand, wisely lets his subject speak for herself. The result, Patti Smith: Dream of Life, is more or less a series of clunky music videos pulling together swatches of Smith's rich memory. But if it feels as though it's missing any kind of real structure, it's only because the film strives to be wholly faithful to Smith's vision. It's an austere approach, and her legions of devoted fans will eat it up.

The film opens with a blurry shot of running horses (a reference to her debut album) and Smith dishing hard-knuckled wisdom in spoken-word poetry. It's an indelible image for anyone even remotely familiar with the woman long considered the godmother of punk rock. Sebring's camera revisits emptied-out places from her past—Chicago, Coney Island, her parents' home—and intercuts them with engaging concert footage. The weight of history and personal connections is important to Smith's work, and the personal moments peppered throughout bring her sometimes unwieldy anthems down to earth. What's most impressive is how coolly she deals with life and death, remembering a late brother like a giddy crush and running her fingers through pieces of her good friend Robert Mapplethorpe's remains, describing them as "little bits of shell."

Later parts of Dream of Life focus on Smith's passionate Iraq War protestations, but this too feels like one of the artist's many struggles with time. Unlike of-the-moment activists (ahem, hey, will.i.am!), Smith doesn't simply endorse change—as when audaciously reading aloud passages from the Declaration of Independence on stage to incite a modern revolution. She seems to understand how the cumulative acts of generations affect our current situation.

But don't feel like it's all serious. There's still plenty for the rambunctious fan looking for lesser-known nuggets about the rowdy years. Hell, a scene featuring Smith and Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea trading their most disgusting pissing yarns is alone worth the price of admission on that front.