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Benjamin Smoke, Directed by Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen C-Hundred Film Corporation and Cowboy Booking International, July 21, 2000 (US) Written By: Jem Cohen and Peter Sillen Starring: Benjamin (Robert Dickerson), Tim Campion, Brian Halloran, Coleman Lewis, Bill Taft, Deacon Lunchbox, and Patti Smith I saw a ghost. I was sitting in the old Fine Arts Theater on Michigan Avenue and I saw a ghost. As frail and beautiful as a butterfly. Light shined through his translucent body, reflecting off bones. His name was Benjamin. I might never have heard of the band Smoke or their lead singer Benjamin (also known by his drag name, Opal, as well as his birth name, Robert Dickerson) had I not stumbled upon the documentary Benjamin Smoke at an indie film festival in Chicago. The music of the south proceeded to creep into my body like smoke rising up from ashes. It was the music of a smoldering wasteland. Its roots were tangled far beneath tombs. It was as natural and pure as the soil from which it was born. When I got home from the movie, I couldn’t search the Web fast enough to find a place to order both Smoke studio albums (Heaven on a Popsicle Stick and Another Reason to Fast) as well as Opal Foxx Quartet’s The Love That Won’t Shut Up. Benjamin Smoke is something you will not soon forget. What is captured on film and through the recordings of Smoke and Opal Foxx Quartet is nothing short of miraculous. Quite simply, it is proof that spirits certainly do exist. Benjamin Smoke is the visible snapshot of a spirit laughing in the face of the brutal, agonizing pain of a disintegrating body. With one foot in the grave, Benjamin shines on in the glow of eternal life, refusing to be pitied, refusing to slow down, and certainly refusing to go quietly. He lived hard, he’d die harder. He sang until there was absolutely no breath left inside him. |
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