Patti Smith Teams with John Logan to Adapt Her Memoir Just Kids
The ‘Godmother of Punk’, Patti Smith has teamed up with Oscar-winning John Logan to adapt her bestselling memoir Just Kids that won the National Book Award for nonfiction in 2010.
Just Kids captures the mood of the moment when Patti Smith and controversial photographer Robert Mapplethorpe were young, perfectly hippie and completely unknown, to the point in which a pair of tourists spied them in Washington Square Park and argued over whether or not they were worth a snapshot. The woman thought they have an artistic look. The man disagreed, saying frivolously, ‘They’re just kids.’
Intense emotions involved, romantic relationship, which was chaotic as the pair struggled with poverty, and Mapplethorpe with his own sexuality, Smith preserves this way:
We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until, exhausted, we fell into bed.
John Logan has worked on movie scripts such as Gladiator, The Aviator, Sweeney Todd, and Rango, and most recently won a Tony award for his play Red that depicts the brilliant and passionate painter Mark Rothko. Furthermore, he has the Ralph Fiennes-helmed Coriolanus and Martin Scorsese-helmed Hugo coming this autumn.
Smith co-wrote and performed the play Cowboy Mouth with playwright Sam Shepard, back in 1971. She was the subject of a 2008 documentary film, Patti Smith: Dream of Life. Smith is currently working on a crime novel set in London.
Smith and Logan are writing the script without any deal in place.
For a taste of what’s to come in Smith’s book, watch her read an excerpt and perform her 1978 hit ‘Because the Night’ below:
Patti Smith reading from ‘Just Kids’, performing ‘Because The Night’
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