SPRINGSTEEN FILM, EDGE,
‘‘Blinded’ ’ director hooks up wiith Spriingsteen for auto bi io graph ii cal lt al le
The most prominent credit in Friday’s “Blinded by the Light” reads, “Inspired by the words and music of Bruce Springsteen.” Gurinder Chadha, a writer-director whose biggest hit remains the now classic “Bend It Like Beckham,” knows this is one movie that never would have been if the Boss hadn’t “practically given” the rights to 19 Springsteen songs for this autobiographical tale.
“Basically, what happened is,” Chadha, 59, began, “Sarfraz Manzoor and I have been friends for a long time because we’ve been Bruce Springsteen fans. We thought we were the only Asians in Britain who loved Bruce.”
Manzoor’s memoir told of growing up in 1980s Britain as a
British-Pakistani Muslim teen taunted by racist thugs and how listening to “Born in the USA” Springsteen changed his life, helped him become a writer.
“I knew how to make his memoir into a great movie,” Chadha, born in Kenya, raised in England, said. “But we could do nothing without Bruce Springsteen.”
It wasn’t until the Boss attended a London movie premiere that “Blinded by the Light” took flight.
“Sarfraz was with me on the red carpet where he stood out as a Pakistani with an Afro — there are not many like that in Bruce culture.”
Manzoor is such a fierce Springsteen fan he’s traveled to see him live many, many times and gotten to slightly know the singer.
“On the carpet Bruce saw Sarfraz and said, ‘Man, I’ve read your book! It’s really beautiful’ — and Sarfraz started vibrating and I just realized, ‘THIS is it! I need to pitch my movie RIGHT NOW.’
“That’s what I did! I said, ‘Pardon me Bruce, we want to make a movie of the book. We can’t do it without your help. Will you support us?’ People were pushing him on and he said, ‘Sounds good. Talk to Jon’ — meaning Jon Landau, his best bud and business partner. And ‘Blinded’ was born.”
Chadha’s movies often revolve around Indian women’s lives in England. “Beecham House,” her new PBS series due early next year, is about India before British rule.
But “Bend It Like Beckham,” her 2002 hit that launched Keira Knightley and is about teenage girls overcoming great odds to play soccer, continues to inspire fans.
“I still get stopped everywhere and people still want to take photographs with me because of it.
“It’s the only film that’s ever been made,” she added with justifiable pride, “that has had a worldwide release in every single country of the world — including North Korea.”