Each of the many documentaries Thom Zimny has made with Bruce Springsteen is about a moment in time, a turning point in the singer’s decades-long career. The first – and for my money, still the best – of them, 2005’s Wings for Wheels, was about the making of Springsteen’s 1975 breakthrough album Born to Run and the enormous pressure the then 26-year-old felt after being labelled “rock ’n’ roll’s future” by music critic Jon Landau, who subsequently became, and remains, his manager. The Promise (2010) focused on the making of Born to Run ’s follow-up, 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town, which was delayed by legal disputes that kept Springsteen out of the studio for two years.
At a time when artists usually released a new album every six months or so, he worried that audiences might have forgotten him after such a long time out of the spotlight. Springsteen on Broadway (2018) was a straightforward performance film, but still included a deeply personal aspect. Bruce Springsteen at the UK premiere of Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band (James Manning/PA) ‘The Boss’ talked between songs about, among other things, his troubled relationship with, and subsequent understanding of, his late father, a subject that had featured prominently in his autobiography two years before.
Letter to You (2020) was an ode to love, friendship and the fans, a celebration of The E Street Band, and also a wistful meditation on the passing of time and the loss o.
