Proto-punk singer and poet Patti Smith has been lionized for so long that the legend has eclipsed her work. The documentary “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” which screens Thursday through Saturday nights at Webster University, restores the vital presence of the once-reclusive singer by replicating the ethos of her work. Rather than a straightforward biography, it’s an artful collage, largely in the black-and-white style of her late friend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.

Smith, who worked closely with director Steven Sebring, narrates an intro about her South Jersey childhood and Greenwich Village awakening (when she was given a vintage guitar by playwright Sam Shepard). Still, there’s much that we don’t learn, particularly about her marriage to the late guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, with whom she had two children. But in the course of the film, which took eleven years to complete, we watch the boy and girl grow up, freeing Smith to return to the stage after a 16-year absence. Her shamanic performance opening for kindred spirit Bob Dylan makes us wish she’d recorded more, but this movie is the next best thing.

Below is the trailer: