Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Springsteen & I Blu-ray Movie Review

Tramps like they were born to run.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 29, 2013

Is there any other artist in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll who has inspired the kind of fan loyalty Bruce Springsteen has? Now, this isn’t merely an issue of ferocity, for surely there have been rabid fans for any number of huge music icons, whether it be Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or, indeed, any of the “superstar by lottery” winners of the increasingly silly television contests. There’s an actual difference in quality (as opposed to quantity, which of course The Boss also inspires) in fans’ love of Springsteen. As ardent as fans of, say, Elvis were (and of course still are), one would hardly ever expect to see them identify with their idol the way that many followers of Bruce do. No, for many, their music idols are just that—idols, faraway Gods and Goddesses who are to be worshipped, never actually touched. But Bruce has always had a visceral connection with his fans—he’s one of the guys, a working class hero who never let superstardom go to his head, who still seems approachable somehow and who may in fact inspire worship but who has a tendency to react to that worship with a kind of “aw, shucks” naturalness. That very earnestness seems to typify many, if not all, of the fans who submitted their self-recorded paeans to The Boss, out of which this fascinating if patently odd documentary is woven. Those who come to Springsteen & I expecting some kind of insight into The Boss’ history and working process will be sorely disappointed. This is much more a sociological document, one that is, in the words of the blurb on the back cover of this Blu-ray, “a film by the fans and for the fans”.

Rather incredibly (and perhaps not entirely by chance for this felicitously timed release), it was 38 years ago this week that Springsteen scored the then unheard of coup of being the cover figure on both Time and Newsweek the last week of October, 1975. One thing this Blu-ray release makes clear, is that there were already devoted fans before this incredible feat, but that event probably sparked a mass consciousness of Bruce that propelled him into the front rank of music star. At least one fan on this documentary recounts 1976 as being the year where she became hooked on Bruce’s music, and while she’s now obviously middle aged, she reflects on the long ago night when she first encountered Bruce in concert as if it had happened yesterday.

What's striking about the gamut of fans here is their huge disparity in ages. There are kids here that are being "schooled" in Bruce by their parents, and then there are those who are well into their AARP years. The devotion to Bruce is a shared element, whether it's a 10 year old who managed to get next to Bruce, shake his hand, and snap a picture, or what appears to be a sixty-something man tooling about in his car who breaks down in tears as he attempts to discuss what The Boss' music means to him. The documentary is frequently unexpectedly moving in moments like these, with a palpable urgency generated by the fans' deep emotional responses to Bruce's work.

While occasionally there’s a bit of “too much information syndrome” (one woman recounts losing her virginity to “Thunder Road”), over and over again there are charming reminiscences here, including things like a girl being her concert’s “Courteney Cox”, pulled up onstage to dance with The Boss during “Dancing in the Dark”, or, perhaps a bit further up the weird scale, an Elvis impersonator who was similarly invited onstage to share a performance of “All Shook Up” with Bruce. A couple of nice moments feature parents who are passing their love of Bruce on to their kids. Aside from the aforementioned 10 year old who trumped his Mom by getting to shake Bruce’s hand, there’s a really funny moment with another Mom who confesses to having held up a picture of Bruce above her then infant son’s head, repeating “Daddy” over and over to him. (Perhaps thankfully, the now grown kid is not shown, perhaps because he’s busy at his therapist appointment.)

The fan base displayed in Springsteen & I is not limited to the United States, and in fact there are some quite touching reminiscences by foreign born people, including an elderly lady who says how calming Bruce’s music has been during a roiled life, and a younger man who mentions having only been able to understand the chorus of “Born in the U.S.A.”, redacting that minimal knowledge to provide what he terms “the sound of freedom”. There is one kind of odd entry here, a guy who claims to be a big Springsteen fan, but who complains about having had The Boss' music "rammed down [his] throat 24/7", and how following Springsteen on tour around Europe spoiled his tours of various cities, since he had to take time out to go see the concerts. Rather interestingly, though this documentary (produced by Ridley Scott, believe it or not) was approved by The Boss’ camp, it really has less of a self-congratulatory air about it than, say, the marginally similar recent Rick Springfield doc, An Affair of the Heart. What comes through loud and clear here is the absolutely sincerity of these people, something that in its own way is an admirable reflection of that selfsame sincerity which is a hallmark of the man they all so admire.

Springsteen & I Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Springsteen & I is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision, an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in a variety of aspect ratios, as befits the source elements (the majority of the documentary tends to be in 1.78:1 and 1.33:1, though it is not limited solely to those two aspect ratios). There is a huge disparity in video quality here, but this should not be an unexpected phenomenon given the fact that people submitted their homages to Bruce on everything from what looks like actual HD video to low res cell phone video. Interspersed with these testimonials are snippets of Bruce in concert. Some look rather good, like quick bits from the 2012 Hard Rock Calling Concert (which also shows up as a supplement), but some of the archival material which dates back several decades, is noticeably more ragged, obviously sourced from old small millimeter formats or videotape, including some that has degraded pretty dramatically. With all of this taken into consideration, overall the video quality here is true to the source, which should be all that really matters. Some of the contemporary interview sequences (of fans—no interviews of Bruce or band members is included) looks really sharp and well defined. Some of the cell phone video is obviously relatively less well resolved. This therefore may not always offer state of the art "sharp" quality, but it's never less than watchable.

Springsteen & I Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While Springsteen & I offers both a 5.1 as well as 2.0 mix (both DTS-HD Master Audio), there's less of a difference between them than some might be hoping for. This is after all comprised largely of spoken "confessionals", and as such there simply isn't much surround activity there to exploit. The musical snippets open things up at least relatively speaking in the 5.1 mix, but the key word there is snippets—there are only a few seconds of music at a time, with only a couple of tunes getting more than a moment or two in the sun. All of that said, fidelity is excellent, even in the archival material where the attendant video quality is less than desirable.

Springsteen & I Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Hard Rock Calling 2012 (1080i; 35:03) includes:

  Thunder Road

  Because the Night

  Shackled and Drawn

  We Are Alive

  When I Saw Her Standing There

  Twist and Shout

• Fan Submissions (1080p; 28:14) are a handful of pretty cool little submissions fans all over the world made for inclusion in this documentary. Some of them feature amazingly high production values.


• Meet the Fans (1080p; 10:52) features more snippets featuring various fans.

Springsteen & I Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Springsteen & I is really an often unexpectedly moving documentary, one that ably depicts the love The Boss' worldwide horde of fans obviously feels for Bruce. While Bruce is the ostensible subject, he's largely in absentia here, showing up only in brief interstitials of concert footage. This is really all about the fans, and as such, anyone wanting a down and dirty documentary on Springsteen would be best advised to look elsewhere. But for what it is, Springsteen & I is remarkably effective. The closing montage of Bruce singing "Born to Run" over the course of some 40 years (give or take) is a thrilling exercise in nostalgia—and stamina. Highly recommended.