The movie Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowehere is not the typical rockstar biopic. It does not follow Springsteen’s most popular hits such as “Born in the U.S.A.” or “Born to Run.” Instead, it focuses on the time in Springsteen’s life when he had just come off a world tour for his album, The River, and was in a depressive state.
The part of a rockstar’s life that is broadcast and seen the most is the good parts. The red carpets, the world tours, and the albums on the top 100 charts. But the part of a rockstar that does not get covered or seen often is the imperfect part, the part that is backstage. However, this movie highlights Springsteen’s imperfect moments, as well as the times when he is depressed and sad.
Springsteen had a bad relationship with his dad for the majority of his life, and the movie highlights this a lot, and as the driving force behind Springsteen’s depression. Put in black and white, flashback scenes of Springsteen’s dad showcasing aggression and alcoholism are revealed in his childhood home in New Jersey.
In the movie, Bruce Springsteen, played by actor Jeremy Allen White, uses his depressive state to write songs. Not hit songs, but songs for himself, recorded in his bedroom with his harmonica and guitar. These songs were eventually placed on an album titled “Nebraska,” and the movie highlights how this album was inspired by the themes of isolation and even crime.
“Nebraska is a very gritty and real album, and it’s not like mainstream popular songs like Dancing in the Dark or Born to Run, but we wrote Nebraska when he was super depressed and he was really struggling, and he later admitted that he had undiagnosed depression,” said Bruce Springsteen super-fan Kent Mitchell. “His father suffered from depression, and that was a big part of why he wrote a lot of the songs in Nebraska.”
Additionally, the movie also illustrated how this album was inspired by the true crime of the Charles Starkweather murders, showing White as Springsteen watching films about Starkweather. Along with the themes of isolation and true crime behind the album Nebraska, flashback scenes and depression portrayed by White showcase how this album was connected to Springsteen’s complex and sometimes dark relationship with his father.
The album Nebraska was recorded in a bedroom, with zero press or tour, and reached the top 10, with millions of copies sold around the world. In the movie, despite people fearing Springsteen’s raw and real emotions seen in this album, Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau honored his requests to keep the album as it was recorded in the bedroom to keep the rawness and originality of it. Overall, this movie was not the typical biopic, but it was good and important to highlight. It stressed how some artists, like Springsteen, value the emotional part of the songs they write, and not just the hits.
