Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen’s latest project is a cinematic exploration and adaptation of his recent album Western Stars. We caught up with him at the Toronto Film Festival.

The Boss’s latest project is a cinematic exploration and adaptation of his latest album Western Stars. We caught up with him at the Toronto Film Festival.

What is there left for The Boss to do? He’s made albums (obviously), he’s been the architect of some of the finest rock’n’roll shows we’ve ever witnessed, he’s written his autobiography, he’s even done an extended stint on Broadway… But now he has something else to add to the CV – Bruce Springsteen, film director.

Springsteen, and his longtime collaborator Thom Zimny have worked on a cinematic film version of the former’s latest album, Western Stars. The companion piece is a chance to see Springsteen perform the entire album, backed up by his band and a full orchestra, under the cathedral ceiling of his historic nearly 100-year-old barn, complete with introductions, interludes and home movies.

When you approached the new album, Western Stars, what were you looking for? What were you trying to do with it? BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Really, it was just a collection of new songs that I had that pieced together in a certain way and that had an ambience to them that evoked the western part of the country. So that was a certain style of songwriting that was probably sort of [like] Southern California in the late seventies. I was interested in writing in that vein.

And then there’s an emotional arc that you’re trying to communicate. That’s what the picture really brings out, much more than the record even did. So thanks to Thom and his crew, when we added the spoken pieces in between the music, that really traced the emotional arc of the album, the arc that I wanted the album and the film to have.

Thom, you’ve collaborated with Bruce for many years on different films. Can you tell us about when Bruce approached you about this film, and how that conversation went? THOM ZIMNY: It was very different right from the very beginning. We went into the space that we were thinking about filming, which was a stage environment. And then we ended up in the barn.

How did you work with the musicians? They’re not your regular E Street Band. And with the orchestra, they are musicians who are likely used to following a conductor. BS: There was a conductor there. He sneaks in every once and a while, and you can see him. Basically, there is a music director, which I’ve never used, and he put together the entire band and rehearsed the entire album. So the first time that I walked into a studio with him, just to rehearse, they knew everything better than I did. We spent a night rehearsing. We rehearsed a day in the barn. It was a very different type of experience for me – that someone put together the entire orchestra, and I could just come in, and have all my arrangements.

The cameras seem to be everywhere. TZ: One thing I noticed right away was that Bruce was still leading the band. It was a different feeling than the E Street Band. I tried to capture that energy in the space. We talked a lot about cameras, and also the beauty of that wide angle. I remember very clearly watching Bruce connect with the players that way, and wanting to make sure that at every angle, I could get a moment and capture it.

BS: If you listen to the record, it’s its own experience. But making the film, it allowed me to tell a story that I hadn’t directly told before. You know, it’s hinted at over the years, and in a lot of my work, if you’ve read the book I wrote, or saw some of the play. But it was a story I haven’t exactly told before, in a way that I’ve never told it. There were some accidents to it. But the filming just deepens the emotional content of that music in a way that I hope will provide some entertainment and inspiration and insight to my fans.

There’s the album songs, but there’s also a lot of new music in between. Can you tell us about writing the other music for this movie? BS: Orchestrating the visual pieces in between songs was a lot of fun. You always have pieces of melodies and different things that you don’t know exactly what to do with, and songs that always hint at a certain ambience… You can pull a melody out of a particular piece that you’re working on.

“Making the film allowed me to tell a story that I hadn’t directly told before.”

Bruce Springsteen

What about filming the bits that happen between the songs? Where did that take place? How did you do that? TZ: The sections between the songs were out in the Joshua Tree desert area. There was a period where we were sketching just with voiceover. I was around a lot of those instrumental pieces that Bruce was building. I could hear it in another room. So we gathered up a lot of ideas and stumbled into the desert

BS: The first thing they say about this type of film is that there are two sides to the American character: there’s this isolated side, and then there’s this part that aspires to community. Most of us have a hard time putting those two things together in our own lives, you know?

So when you get to the end of the film, those are my honeymoon tapes [laughs]. We honeymooned in Yosemite, in that little log cabin, Patti and I. She was a couple of months pregnant with our second child, and we just drove up there. The only thing she said was: “I’m pregnant. Don’t take me anywhere where it’s hot.”

Yosemite was seventy, but getting there across the Californian desert was a hundred degrees. So I didn’t earn many points. But it’s footage from our honeymoon, which we just happened to find. Thom had found it. It kind of completes that story. I started a long way from there. So the film is about making that journey to making your peace with having a life, and actually allowing yourself to have a life; having a life, and being able to enjoy that life along with all the pain and the happiness that it brings.

New Jersey obviously looms large as the central location in your work, but the second location would be the West and that open road and California. What does California and that western expanse mean to you? BS: I grew up in the fifties. We all grew up on westerns. So that has a lot to do with it. And then the south-west was always just interesting to me, just because of its size, and the way it played on my own psychology. And then I lived in California for almost ten years, and I enjoyed it very much, and I just wanted to include it in my work.

I always figured, you know, I was out of New Jersey, but I wanted my work to encompass the entire country, and all of its settings. So very early on, on Darkness [On The Edge Of Town, 1978 album], there’s songs set in Utah and different places. That was always a big part of America for me. So it was nice getting to do this, and to make it out there, and to actually film in that part of the country. Thom did such a great job, and Joe, our cinematographer.

You and Thom have collaborated on films before, but this is the first full-length one where you’ve taken a co-director credit. BS: Tom did all the work behind the camera, and conceived it with me. I think my direction was just the general direction the film was going to go. The pieces that are in between the songs, and getting that going, it was just a real collaboration between the two of us. It was a lot of fun to do. It was a one-off, but it was really joyful.

The inclusion of Glen Campbell’s Rhinestone Cowboy feels like such a perfect way to end this film. How did you arrive at putting that song in? BS: Otherwise, the record ends on this very contemplative piece. So I said: “Well, for the picture, it might be fun to have something where the music is drawn from that genre.” And Glenn Campbell was actually a huge influence, and Jimmy Webb, and that type of Southern Californian pop. I said: “That would just be a fun song to throw in at the end.” It just ends it in a nice way. That’s all. There wasn’t a whole lot to it.

Western Stars – Songs From The Film featuring the live performances captured in Western Stars is released on October 25 via Columbia Records.