Spoiler alert! We’re discussing plot details from the new biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.” Beware if you haven’t seen it yet.
ASBURY PARK, N.J. − You’ve never seen this side of Bruce Springsteen before.
In the new biopic “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” (in theaters Oct. 24), writer and director Scott Cooper explores an especially fraught period for the rollicking, raspy-voiced rocker (played by Jeremy Allen White). The film charts Springsteen’s creative big swing with his 1982 album “Nebraska,” which helped the singer work through family trauma and mental health issues as he became disillusioned with fame.
Music journalist Warren Zanes dove into the brooding album at length in his 2023 book “Deliver Me From Nowhere,” although Springsteen also shared personal stories with Cooper that helped inform the movie.
We break down what’s fact and what’s fiction in the Oscar hopeful:
The movie features multiple black-and-white flashbacks to Springsteen’s childhood, when his volatile father, Douglas (Stephen Graham), was physically violent with his mother, Adele (Gaby Hoffmann). In one frightening scene, Springsteen steps in and hits his dad with a baseball bat in an effort to protect his mom.
“His mother felt somewhat helpless in this situation,” Cooper says. “Bruce said, ‘I just had to pick up the bat and I swung as hard as I could. I had no idea what the result was going to be – I thought it was going to be a beating.’ ” But his dad wasn’t mad that he hit him: “I think his father had a bit of begrudging respect for him at that moment.”
Is that emotional scene where Springsteen sits on his father’s lap inspired by a true stor
begrudging respect for him at that moment.”
Is that emotional scene where Springsteen sits on his father’s lap inspired by a true story
At the end of the movie, Springsteen reconnects with his now-apologetic father backstage at a concert. His dad asks him to sit on his lap, and the two men tearfully make amends.
“It really happened just like that,” Cooper says. Springsteen’s father was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and growing up, “he was very cold and dispassionate to Bruce because he was suffering. Bruce was always yearning for that connection.”
But one night after a show, “his father says, ‘Come here. I want you to sit on my lap.’ Bruce says, ‘Dad, I’ve just finished playing, I’m soaking wet and I’m 32 years old.’ ” Despite his reluctance, Springsteen did take a seat on his dad’s knee, which was a “a bit awkward” yet “touching. That’s one of the most tender scenes I’ve ever shot.”
Back home in Asbury Park, Springsteen falls for a superfan named Faye (Odessa Young), who is a young mother and diner waitress. Faye is both highly supportive yet frustrated by the distant Springsteen, who showers her with love before disappearing into his music. The fictional character is a composite of women that he dated at the time.
“Bruce said to me, ‘Look, the truth about yourself isn’t pretty,’ ” Cooper recalls. “ ‘Because I couldn’t connect with myself, I had a very difficult time connecting with a partner. Just as I was falling in love with someone, inexplicably I would stop.’ In today’s parlance, it’s ghosting.”
Although things didn’t work out with those early girlfriends, Cooper adds, they “allowed Bruce to grow and face the things that he wasn’t dealing with to be able to have such a remarkable and loving relationship with his wife, Patti Scialfa.”
In real life, did Springsteen try to crash his car?
During one depressive episode, Springsteen somberly speeds down the road in his Camaro before violently hitting the brake. The shocking scene is inspired by a real incident.
“That was an extreme low point for Bruce,” Cooper says. “You see a couple of times in the film that Bruce is experiencing suicidal ideation, and that was one of them. You’re driving down a country road, going 110 miles an hour, and at any moment, you can turn the car into a tree or whatever it was that Bruce was thinking.”
But ultimately, “he said, ‘I just couldn’t do it,’ and he stepped on the brake,” Cooper adds. “He was staring into the abyss. Bruce had come to the edge that particular night and thank God he didn’t do it.”
Was Jon Landau the one who told Springsteen to go to therapy?
Despite channeling his demons into “Nebraska,” Springsteen was still feeling desolate and alone. Toward the end of the film, a concerned Landau tells him over the phone that he needs to go to therapy.
“That was another moment when Bruce was experiencing suicidal ideation,” Cooper says. After releasing the album, “Bruce decides to move to Los Angeles. But when he arrives, he finds himself in another cold home: no warmth, no connection, no partner. He was at another low and he calls Jon the first night he arrives.”
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