I finally got a chance to read David Remnick’s revealing profile of Bruce Springsteen in the current issue of The New Yorker, and it revived a debate I’ve been having with myself for a long, long time: Could Hollywood do justice to a Springsteen biopic?
Full disclosure: I am a massive fan. My musical tastes are quite broad, but Springsteen has anchored the soundtrack of my life since high school. Forced to choose a favorite album, Darkness on the Edge of Town would be my probable pick. And the only concert tour I missed since The River was the one mounted in conjunction with The Seeger Sessions.
I became convinced that Springsteen’s life should be a movie way back in 1980, just a few weeks before The River was released. I had yet to see Bruce live when I bought a ticket to in early September to see a concert documentary that had just been released called No Nukes because I’d read that he was in it.
Springsteen doesn’t show up until well into the film — which was directed by Danny Goldberg, the music impresario who would become Nirvana and Sonic Youth’s manager — but I won’t soon forget that within seconds of his appearance on camera, I was rubbing away gooseflesh. Part of my reaction clearly had to do with my fan worship and with the fact that I was sitting virtually alone in the King’s Court theater in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, PA watching my rock hero on a gigantic screen.
But, watching a clip of the performance, which I’ve posted below, those chills still come back. With his hair combed back into a rockabilly pompadour, Springsteen is part Elvis, part James Dean. His performance is charged with dramatic tension. When you first…
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