‘Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You’ Review: The Boss Walks Familiar Ground in a Musical Duel with Mortality
IT’S THE THIRD INTROSPECTIVE FEATURE THAT BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THOM ZIMNY HAVE CREATED IN AS MANY YEARS, YET THEY LARGELY AVOID MONOTONY WITH THE LATEST ENTRY IN THEIR TRILOGY.
None of us are getting any younger. Time marches on, the landscapes of our lives will change, and loss is an unavoidable menace. Bruce Springsteen understands these realities, having spent nearly 50 years channeling it into his lyrics. Even his very first album, released when he was 23, contains a song called “Growin’ Up”. “Dancing in the Dark”, his biggest hit and a song he released at the age of 35, dedicates its entire bridge to the fact that we constantly age, and that life will not wait for us to take hold of it. Now, at the age of 71, Bruce seems to have only dug deeper into these ideas. The 2010s had thrust some deep personal losses upon him - most notably the death of his saxophonist, career-long friend Clarence Clemons - and these events were the impetus for his latest album, “Letter to You”.
When Bruce reunited with the E Street Band to record the album at the start of winter last year, he once again brought in Thom Zimny - who has directed most of his films since 2005 - to capture the making of the record. The resulting film, “Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You”, was released on Apple TV+ last week, simultaneously with the album. The film, rather than functioning as a separate companion piece to the album, works instead like a long-form music video of it: the finished cuts of 10 of the 12 songs on the album are played in full here, adding up to about half of the film’s 90-minute runtime. Now, “Letter to You” is a fantastic album, proving yet again that Bruce has remained surprisingly relevant, prolific, and endlessly capable of greatness despite 20 records and five decades… so there’s nothing wrong with hearing these songs again, but it may prove repetitive to anyone who put the album on a few times in preparation to watch the film.
Bruce dedicates the other half of the runtime to deep reflection about his life, the meaning behind the songs on the record, and what, in his eyes, defines being in the E Street Band. “It is both one of the most important things in your life,” he muses, “and of course, it’s only rock and roll.” One of the other major points that Bruce ruminates on is the passing of George Theiss, who was the only other surviving member of his very first band. This event is alluded to multiple times throughout the film, and the somber feeling that comes with loss goes on to permeate the picture, from its mellow black-and-white cinematography, to the many shots where Bruce is captured in a moment of weary disconnect, right through to the elegiac lyrics of the songs.
This is the third consecutive year where Bruce and Zimny have released a film containing musical performances interlinked with reflective musings. The two have, in a way, crafted a trilogy, a five-and-a-half hour epic of Bruce doing what Bruce does best: telling us a story about the life of the common man. The first of these three films, the Netflix special “Springsteen on Broadway”, captured an intimate performance of Bruce’s smash 2017-18 Broadway residency, featuring performances of some of his most personal songs, as well as loosely recited passages from his autobiography “Born to Run”. The sincere and off-the-cuff feeling of the Broadway show creates a revelatory experience. The following year, the duo reunited to try and recapture that magic, producing “Western Stars”, a concert film performance of the album of the same name. There are, preceding each song, monologues where Bruce dives into his thought process behind the songwriting, observations on the passage of time, and his melancholy for the past. If that sounds familiar at this point, it’s nearly by design. “Western Stars” is like a dry run, in colour, of “Letter to You”: both films are about the same length, feature a similar number of songs, contain drone footage of nearby scenery - desert vistas in the former, snow-covered forest trails in the latter - and separately-recorded narration from Bruce that often captivates, but can also feel somewhat stilted at times, as if he’s too closely reading from the script rather than conveying his thoughts in real time.
Although “Letter to You” suffers mildly from that last stumbling block, it doesn’t fall as far into the pit as its sister film. The increased personal stakes of what Bruce discusses, reflecting on losses specific to him - rather than general musings on life that could apply to any one of us - assist in making things feel a touch more natural. It’s also unavoidable to get caught up in the reunion of the E Street Band - sharing the smiles between Bruce and his bandmates, or feeling your heart warm at the palpable love between Bruce and his wife Patti Scialfa - and be taken along for the ride. “Letter to You” is a more emotional film than “Western Stars”, exemplified by a moment when Jon Landau bursts into tears as the band hears the album’s closing track, “I’ll See You In My Dreams”. The losses Bruce reflects on, after all, aren’t just his. When he sings, in all but name, about how much he misses Clarence - or departed organist Danny Federici - this is someone who was also a friend to every other person in the room for decades. The timing of this film’s release, combined with when it was shot, also takes a snapshot of a world we’ve been sorely missing, a world that existed pre-COVID-19, when we could get together at a remote cabin in the woods as friends and family, be with one another freely, and create art.
When all is said and done, “Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You” serves both as a eulogy for loss, and a celebration of life. It might feel a little too familiar at times, but it also features great songs, and complements two other great films. Even if it doesn’t prove quite as sensational as “Springsteen on Broadway”, or differentiate itself from “Western Stars” as much as some may wish it to, this film still has enough to offer to Bruce Springsteen fans, and maybe even to those who just want to sit down and watch an emotionally gripping, thoughtful making-of film.