Rocker Patti Smith found a surprising amount of success last year with her book, Just Kids, which detailed her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe, who’s famed for his provacative homoerotic imagery, and who died from complications arising from AIDS in 1989. The book won the prestigious won the National Book Award for nonfiction, and now Variety reports that Smith is working on a film version.
In one of those cases where two people who went on to great success helped nuture each other’s creativity before either found fame, Smith and Mapplethorpe met in 1967 and lived together for five years as they both tried to get their career to take off. While they were no longer living in the same place when her seminal album Horses was released and he was courting controversy with his photography, they remained firm friends. It’s a great book, which is both very human and good at getting heyong the cliche of the struggling artist.
Smith is now teaming with John Logan (The Last Samurai, Tha Aviator, Rango) to create the screenplay for the Just Kids film. It seems it’s early day though, as there’s no news on who might direct or who could play Smith or Mapplethorpe. It could be a fascinating film though, so it should attract some great talent (and personally I reckon they should go nudge Gus Van Sant about helming).