Deliver Me From Nowhere” was sabotaged by the Celebrity/Media Complex.

I sat in an otherwise empty theater in Virginia Monday night to watch the dramatic film, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. And even as I watched The Bear star Jeremy Allen White work heroically to try embodying a depressed Bruce Springsteen flailing to cope with a meteoric fame he knew was coming, I mostly saw an ambitious film sabotaged by connection to its subject and hamstrung by reaction to other movies about rock stars.

But I also saw a film that, through its omissions, says a lot about the Celebrity/Media complex we’re now living in. And it’s a take complicated by my own experiences covering The Boss when I was a music critic at his hometown paper, The Asbury Park Press.

So I want to take a little space on Substack to talk about music, media, journalism and Springsteen history. Here we go…

First, the spoiler alert: Though the film centers on Springsteen’s creation of the stark 1982 acoustic album Nebraska — just before he would release the album which cemented his superstar status, Born in the USA, in 1984 – Deliver Me From Nowhere is really about his early struggles with depression.

While we see him huddled with guitars and a four-track tape recorder at a rental home in Colts Neck, NJ, hiding from the world after his album The River blew up on rock radio, we only hear snippets of the haunting songs he created there. The film spends more time on Springsteen’s inability to recreate his bedroom recordings in a big studio than any one song from a record that is literally the focus of the entire narrative.

Instead, we get a lot of flashbacks to his childhood, with his dad played by the most excellent English actor Stephen Graham, showing how influence from a father with undiagnosed mental issues may have led his rock star son to fall into a similar abyss amid the pressure of following up The River.

I can understand why filmmakers went this route. It focuses storytelling on a time when The Boss was mostly isolated, struggling to figure out life on his own. So they didn’t need to find great actors who could hold a scene with White and also pretend to be Springsteen’s legendary bandmates with their own outsize personalities, like future Sopranos co-star “Miami” Steve Van Zandt and the late, lamented Big Man on saxophone, Clarence Clemons.

This focus also avoids the typical pattern of most films on big name musicians who are still superstars – rise from obscurity, big fame, big challenge, ultimate triumph. But, it also neatly avoids what most people know and love Springsteen for – his energetic, charismatic leadership of the E Street Band – and sidesteps what I think is a much more interesting period in his life.

The moment when he briefly disbanded the E Streeters to make two records and tour on his own as a solo artist.

I might be a bit biased about this part of his story, because that’s essentially when I got closest to Springsteen myself, accepting a job as pop music critic for the Asbury Park Press in 1993. I had listened to the albums Human Touch and Lucky Town and seen Springsteen’s tour in Pittsburgh with his new band– featuring Zach Alford on drums and a former classmate from Indiana University, Crystal Taliefero on percussion, sax, keyboards, vocals and just about everything else (she’s super talented, now playing with Billy Joel).

It was interesting to watch how the music scene in Asbury Park, the heart of Bruceworld, handled seeing their favorite son go off with a bunch of other musicians to make music in the mid 1990s. Springsteen had slowed down a regular habit of going to area clubs and sitting in with their bands after having a few drinks – following his divorce from actress Julianne Phillips in 1989 – and it seemed some of his former backup musicians were having a tough time defining themselves outside of The Boss’ orbit.

Drummer Max Weinberg had gone to law school and started a record label; I met and profiled him when he became bandleader for Late Night with Conan O’Brien on NBC. Keyboardist Danny Federici sold off many of his possessions in ana auction I covered during my two years in New Jersey; he died in 2008 after a long struggle with melanoma.

I wrote a little bit about that time for the Tampa Bay Times here:

“During my time in New Jersey, I saw the distorting power of celebrity up close; how Springsteen could make a bar owner’s month simply by stepping inside to have a drink. Or how even celebrities who work hard to stay down to earth can be subtly affected by a level of success which ensures they are almost always regarded as the funniest, smartest, coolest guys in the room.

In world like that, you need guys around you who remember when you were scuffling to pay the rent from gigs at the Stone Pony. You need back up from the days before presidents quoted your lyrics and young actresses became world famous sitcom stars after appearing in your videos.”

This, to me, was one of the most dramatic periods in Springsteen’s life. His marriage to Phillips had ended, amid rumors he was already seeing the woman who is his wife now, Patti Scialfa (Springsteen wrote about this in his memoir). His decision to work with other musicians had seemingly unmoored his longtime backing players – guys who he had known for many years and had supported him until he became a superstar – both professionally and economically.

Fans don’t often understand that, even in organizations which look like a band, the person who sings and writes the songs has the most power. And in a situation like Springsteen’s setup, where he is the star but his backing band is constant and has its own identity, things are even more complicated. He insulated himself by working with folks who have known him for many years, but he is also responsible for their livelihoods, their professional success — even how much they get to see their families, depending on how often he chooses to tour.

Deciding to at least pause the E Street Band must have been a momentous choice for Springsteen, given the personal and financial impact it would have for his friends. So why isn’t Deliver Me From Nowhere about that?

(CLARIFICATION: Yes, I know this film is based on a book of the same name about the making of Nebraska. But I’m mostly asking why a big budget, scripted film about Springsteen isn’t about a different period in his life.)

I had a similar reaction watching HBO’s excellent documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes. There was a time, during the late 80s and early 90s, when Joel eased out several members of his backing band who had been with him for a long time. The HBO program glosses over that period, detailing instead Joel’s conflicts with drummer Liberty DeVitto, who lasted the longest from his original band and didn’t stop working with the Piano Man until much later in 2006.

As good as HBO’s program was, it was very careful about situations where Joel could wind up looking like an asshole – particularly in ousting bandmembers who helped build his superstar fame. Small wonder, since Joel participated in extensive interviews and loads of people close to him spoke for the docuseries, including ex-wives and grown children. And I felt a similar reticence about tarnishing Springsteen’s image in watching Deliver Me From Nowhere.

It’s one thing to show an artist struggling with depression who rebounds by writing a critically acclaimed record like Nebraska and key songs for his Platinum-selling hit album, Born in the U.S.A. It’s another thing to show an artist making a creative decision that hurts longtime friends and collaborators in a way which might seem insensitive or selfish – even if the band eventually reunites and sticks together for decades more.

The current film has gotten Springsteen‘s blessing, with his appearance at premiere events and extensive consultations with White as he was in production. So it makes sense that filmmakers would want to produce something The Boss would love, which mostly burnishes his reputation as a driven artist and doesn’t ask many tough questions about the cost that might eventually come for those who have helped him succeed until then.

I think this is a dynamic which ruins a lot of great documentaries and scripted films about big stars, and it’s a particular sign of our times. Filmmakers want access and for the artist to bring their fans to these projects, so there is lots of incentive to soften tough questions or gloss over moments which disrupt the narrative, serving the Celebrity/Media Complex.

(Grushecky, The Boss and Miami Steve jamming in a New Jersey club. If you could look to the very far left of this photo offstage, you would see me, standing right behind Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, who were trying to get Springsteen to write a song for their film ‘Dead Man Walking.’ Which he eventually did.)

After two years in New Jersey, I finally got a chance to interview Springsteen twice, when he produced a record with Pittsburgh rocker Joe Grushecky (I got access because I knew several guys in Grushecky’s backing band). The two played a few shows together, including an appearance where Van Zandt and Weinberg also sat in, drawing 20,000 people to a seaside club with a capacity of about 2,000.

These were quick interviews – one was for 15 minutes at the legendary Stone Pony after a rehearsal and the other was for an even shorter time in the bathroom of the dressing room at the seaside club. And Springsteen wanted to keep the focus on Grushecky. So I didn’t have much time to ask him about the drama behind stepping away from the E Street Band, which he would reconvene a few years later.

But I always felt a look at that time, and the pressures felt by a principled guy who seemed to value loyalty but also had a strong creative drive, would make an amazing movie.

Maybe someday, someone will find a way to get THAT story in theaters.