Freeing myself from nothingness: Bruce Springsteen's remedy
In 1982, Bruce Springsteen recorded an album on a four-track recorder in the bedroom of a house he had rented in Colts Neck, New Jersey. He needed to retreat and connect with the silence after a tour that seemed to have exhausted him. That home experiment ended up becoming the album NebraskaIt was a stark and melancholic expression of his state of mind, as if he wanted to strip the music down to its fragile emotional skeleton. It's almost a prayer. Forty years later, director Scott Cooper has turned the story of this creative process into a film. Springsteen: deliver me from nowhere, based on the book by Warren Zanes.
The film avoids the approach of a biopic Classic. In fact, it's shocking how the members of the E Street Band are relegated to a sporadic role as extras who don't even meet the sonic expectations that Springsteen demands. The film doesn't seek to summarize the life of a rock star for the enjoyment of his fans. It approaches Springsteen from his vulnerability, shattering the image the industry built around this tough, indomitable Boss on stage. More than telling us about a singer's path to fame, it speaks of a process of transformation and self-discovery in which traumatic childhood memories, the difficulties of managing the present, and the inability to imagine a future where the pressure of success seems to drag him down even further are all intertwined. The film's opening sequence transports us to the frightened and anxious child who locked himself in his room to try to block out his father's shouts. And then, suddenly, we connect with a vigorous and intense performance by Bruce on stage. Without using words, the director wants to explain the origin of all that superlative energy that characterizes Springsteen. The stage as a space of redemption, of liberation. The songs as a channel to expiate the most intimate pain and transform it into a shared message that gives meaning to everything.
Deliver me from nowhere It can be understood as a film about mental health, but above all, it's an ode to friendship, to those friends who never let you down. And it takes place in a context where stereotypes of masculinity discouraged talking little (or not at all) about emotions. The relationship between John Landau, the manager, and Bruce Springsteen is what evokes the most tenderness in the film. Actor Jeremy Allen White perfectly embodies this Bruce who, beyond the songs, is unable to express everything he feels in conversation. Jeremy Strong magnificently portrays this friend who can understand him by reading between the lines, without invading his space. There is a profound respect, a willingness to listen to the other beyond words.
In no way is it a story of overcoming adversity. The protagonist doesn't overcome anything. Rather, he goes through a depressive process, finding along the way the support and the tools, everything that, as the title suggests, can free him from that emptiness, from a nothingness that swallows him whole. The film seems like another remedy on that life journey. A space to rediscover the child, the fears, and the space occupied by absences, to better explain oneself, not to others, but to oneself.
