I’ve gotten on the wrong side of Bruce Springsteen fans before and it’s not something I’d advise. They have listservs and they don’t care about copyright. They will send your email address around the world. They will demand that you account for any publicly shared feelings of ambivalence about the Boss. They can be smug and condescending, they can behave as though their fandom is somehow more morally appropriate than liking Aerosmith or Radiohead. They really believe there is something special about their connection to their favorite artist.
I know this because I am one.
It is probably too much to say Springsteen saved my life, but his music has been important to me for nearly 40 years. Though I have never met him, I care about him in ways that don’t really fit with my image of myself as a sophisticated adult who understands how pop music works and that when celebrities smile into cameras it’s more in self defense than contentment. I like his songs, I like the way he sings them and I like the organized noise going on behind his back. I like that he has never broken faith with his fans.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t made mistakes - there was the time he broke up the band and moved out to California. There are songs I don’t care to hear again, and except for “For You,” I think I’ve completely outgrown that word drunk and allusion- jammed first album (though I retain plenty of affection for it). Springsteen isn’t perfect, but his imperfections are the sort that confirm his humanity: He’s one of us, just more talented.
Springsteen & I is a film that probably won’t have much appeal for those who don’t share my enthusiasm for Springsteen’s work, which is probably why it’s being released in an unusual manner - it will be screened in select theaters in more than 49 countries around the world Monday and again July 30.
In Arkansas, it’s being shown at the Tinseltown in Benton, the Conway Cypress Point in Conway and the Malco in Fort Smith. For more information or to buy tickets, go to fathomevents.com/#!springsteen-and-i. There’s no doubt a DVD release with bonus footage is being planned for later this year and I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t turn up on one of the premium cable networks before too long.
What Springsteen & I is, is an ungrammatically titled love story about the artist and his fans. About his fans mostly, for they were the ones who provided most of the content. The producers of the film - who include Ridley Scott, who was previously involved in the similarly crowd-sourced documentary Life in a Day - solicited videos from Springsteen fans.Director Baillie Walsh edited these personal taped recollections, phone camera and archival footage (some of performances never before seen) into a briskly paced mosaic portrait of the artist as a man of the people. (Springsteen did cooperate with the production, allowing the production access to some professionally shot footage that augments the fan video.)
While the performance footage is inherently interesting, especially some grainy black and white clips of a scrawny, scruffy Springsteen performing solo at the beginning of his career, the heart of the movie is in the stories the fans tell. A British factory worker recounts how he “saved for years” so he and his wife could go to New York to see his idol from the nosebleed section of Madison Square Garden. But a mysterious benefactor exchanged his tickets for front-row center seats.
There’s a great story told by a young man who was dumped by his girlfriend on the eve of a Springsteen show.
And there’s the Philly Elvis, who was brought onstage by the Boss and took over the show for a few glorious minutes; the Scottish woman who got to re-create the Courteney Cox role in the Brian De Palma-directed “Dancin’ in the Dark” video.Amazingly (or maybe not so, given the culture of documentation that the Internet has wrought), most of the stories are supported by plenty of video evidence. So, we not only hear Copenhagen busker John Magnusson telling us about the time in 1988 when Springsteen joined him on the street for an impromptuconcert, we get to see it, playing out in juddering handheld verite.
I’m not sure there’s anything in Springsteen & I for the disbelievers, though we do get one nonfan asking the Boss to please consider the uninitiated loved ones of his fans, who are dragged along to his concerts by a partner. Three-and-a-half hours, he says, is entirely too long for a rock show.
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Springsteen & I 87
Cast: Documentary, with Bruce Springsteen and his fans
Director: Baillie Walsh
Rating: Not rated
Running time: 124 minutes
Style, Pages 47 on 07/21/2013