Connect with Deadline online!
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.youtube.com/Deadline
https://www.facebook.com/deadline/
https://twitter.com/DEADLINE
https://www.instagram.com/deadline/
https://www.youtube.com/Deadline
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00I'm Matt Carey, documentary editor at Deadline.com.
00:03On Deadline Contenders, Doc Unscripted, and Variety, we have for you now a truly outstanding documentary from Disney+.
00:11It is Road Diary, Bruce Springsteen, and the E Street Band, directed by Tom Zimney.
00:17And Tom joins us now. Thanks for being with us.
00:21Great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
00:23So, Tom, your film embeds with Springsteen and the E Street Band as they prepared and went out on their most recent tour,
00:31and they hadn't been on the road for a long time since before the pandemic.
00:35So, before we get into some questions, let's take a look at a clip from the film.
00:39And this is where Bruce and members of the band talk about their approach to this tour,
00:44which, of course, was going to include music from their latest studio album, Letter to You.
00:50You can't understand your song's possibilities or the stakes that it can play for until you count it off in front of your audience.
01:01Now, of course, our songs from Letter to You, they were untested.
01:05I know one thing. They were essential to the story I wanted to tell this time around.
01:11He came in with this unbelievable song list, which I don't think we changed it from the first moment he came in.
01:17What did we just do? Surrender? Goat? Prove it? Left it?
01:24He just had it exactly right, right from the very beginning.
01:28All right. We'll start with that.
01:30It started to emerge that this is all sort of connected.
01:35It's not just 20 or 30 songs thrown together. It's a building thing.
01:39And it's just gotten more defined, more refined, more direct.
01:44And I think mention has been made of his experience on Broadway.
01:48Come down and copy. Set list right here.
01:51Where you play essentially the same thing every night.
01:54I think that informed what he wanted to do this time.
01:58These songs are interlocked by a certain defiance and a certain urgency.
02:04There are four songs from the Letter to You album that provide a certain continuity.
02:18And those songs have occupied the same space in the set list at every show.
02:24They all are connected to feeling the pressure of time and approaching death.
02:39The subtext is about living your life right now.
02:54In my letter to you, I took all my fears and doubts.
03:03In my letter to you, all the hard things I found out.
03:10In my letter to you, all that I found true.
03:17In my letter to you, all the hard things I found out.
03:34Wow, that is awesome.
03:37So, Tom, you've collaborated with Bruce Springsteen for at least 20 years or so now on 14 different projects.
03:44What made this one different from your point of view?
03:49What was unique about this project, and so was 25 in June.
03:53It's unbelievable.
03:55So grateful.
03:57What made this one unique, Road Diary, was that I was coming into the process very, very early.
04:03The very beginning of these rehearsals.
04:06And it gave me this opportunity to tell a story that was different.
04:09Which was not only with sit-down interviews, but verite footage.
04:14Things unfolding.
04:15Being a fly on the wall.
04:16That documentary sense of watching the band come together.
04:20Bruce find this set.
04:22And then, the bigger part, travel with them on the road.
04:26And show that full arc.
04:29But it's, I think also what was unique is I was able to explore his fan base and the connection that the fans have with the music.
04:39That, I really hadn't touched on that as a subject with a lot of the films.
04:44And explore the East Street history.
04:47That's the other thing.
04:47It's just really the early days of East Street.
04:51So, all those pieces made this one really unique.
04:53And it's a lot of history at this point.
04:57I mean, it's amazing how far back it goes.
05:01Where did the inspiration come to explore it as kind of a Road Diary?
05:06Really very personal and intimate in Bruce Springsteen's words.
05:10Well, the big part of the structure of making this film in the edit room, a big part came together.
05:19And I was working on the verite sequences.
05:22I was working on the musical sequences.
05:24And I would send those sections to Bruce.
05:27And he was writing me these voiceover sections after seeing a bit of the assemblies.
05:34And to me, that's where the idea of the diary came through, which was, there's many voices in this film.
05:41There's the band sitting down, the band that's been with him for 50 years.
05:45There's the band that's just getting together for the first time and playing with the core East Street members.
05:51And then there's the voices of the fans.
05:53And then there's the conversation with Bruce that's in his writing, the voiceover.
05:59So the idea of the diary really came from how he was collaborating with me and sending me these voiceovers.
06:09There's so many revelations, I think, in your film about the artistry that's involved in a tour, at least as approached by Bruce Springsteen and the East Street Band.
06:21I mean, who knows that?
06:22There are not too many bands that he can even imagine trying to reach that level.
06:25But one of them is that the set list, it's not a pick some titles out of a hat, but, you know, quite the opposite, that it's a narrative.
06:37And really, Bruce is very, very focused on building a story arc through the set list.
06:42I saw from day one of the rehearsals and filming the rehearsals that he was really placing songs back to back and together that were evoking a strong feeling.
06:55Like a song from 1975 and one of his recent songs from the album of Letter to You.
07:01When you place them and play them back to back, a whole new meaning happens with the song you're familiar with and the new song.
07:09What I saw unfolding, and also I have to say, John Landau in his interview helped me put that into words in the film, which is the storyteller who's piecing together new material to take the audience on an emotional ride.
07:27A very spiritual ride, because the themes from the writing on this last record, Letter to You, dealt with mortality, dealt with an examination of being in the moment.
07:40And the live show represented that in song.
07:43So my job was to kind of distill and unpack the rehearsals as more than just getting together to create a rock show.
07:51But another example of Bruce, the storyteller.
07:55You mentioned John Landau, of course, is now Springsteen's manager and has been involved in one way or another with Springsteen for a very, very long time, going back to his days as a rock critic.
08:07Another revelation, I think, for me in the film is that, and Bruce alludes to that in the clip that we heard, is that a live show, a live concert for him and the band is really a collaboration with the audience.
08:24It's not, hey, you folks out there, I'm not really focused on you.
08:29I'm just playing.
08:30And if you get something out of it, great.
08:31No, they're creating an organic experience together.
08:35There is a conversation that's going on, and Bruce has described that in my other films.
08:41And I saw with this tour, after the shutdown of everything and no live music, I saw the element of this being a cathartic gathering, where I saw audience members really engage and have this emotional response to the new music and also songs that they have loved for so long.
09:03And also Bruce's talking in between songs had a theme that reflected that examination, again, of your time and the importance of being aware of time passing and an expression of love for lost ones.
09:21So, as a filmmaker, I wanted to capture this audience, and I spent a lot of time in the pit, waiting and shooting in slow-mo for those facial expressions that convey that sort of emotional transition.
09:38I might be on someone for five minutes, and they're just enjoying the concert, but in that one moment, you see this connection.
09:47It's a very abstract thing to talk about, but it's something I chased in the film.
09:52And I really tried to distill the film down to these emotional expressions.
09:58The eyes of the audience members were driving the narrative in many ways, but also reflecting a lot of the themes and lyrics that Bruce shared.
10:07Now, you mentioned, and John Landau mentioned in the clip, this sort of sense of loss that inevitably, I think, with a band is going to come into play if they've been around for as long as the E Street Band has.
10:20And no greater loss and no greater loss than Clarence Clemens, the saxophonist, and Clarence's nephew is now in the band.
10:29But we do have that sense of a reckoning of sorts that Bruce Springsteen is trying to work through with aging and, as John says, mortality.
10:39So those are pretty big themes to approach and still make a show that is transcendent and exciting.
10:49Well, when I spent time with the band, I discussed those themes head on of time passing, of missing certain band members, and also how sonically and nightly they are represented and their presence is cherished.
11:05With Clarence, I had the opportunity to get to know him a little bit and Danny, too.
11:10So I went back into the vault and literally brought back old interview clips that hadn't been shown before of time I've spent with them.
11:19So I wanted their voices, their gestures, their smiles to be in the film.
11:24And then I dug deep into the vault to find clips of the guys in the 70s, in the early days, traveling with the band.
11:32So they became more than just one distilled moment of memory.
11:37They are part of the diary.
11:39They are part of the journey.
11:40And that was really important to me, to give an E Street history, but also to honor these two choirs.
11:48And I think the show that Bruce created reflected that loss and love of both Danny and Clarence.
11:56And also George Thies, who he wrote a lot of the material about with the Letter to You album.
12:02So it all kind of fit the theme of Letter to You.
12:06And for me, making these films, I'm chasing a lot of the themes and paying close attention to what Bruce is sharing in the moment, in small gestures, whether it be rehearsal or talking to John Landau.
12:20But also the bigger gestures of what songs he's playing and why.
12:25And in a weird way, being around him is the script that's unfolding.
12:30So you just have to pay attention.
12:32There's a story there.
12:35Stevie Van Zandt describes Springsteen as an introvert, which I found very interesting and may seem somewhat paradoxical.
12:44Because as Stevie also says, Bruce is the world's greatest living entertainer.
12:50And it's not only his opinion.
12:52The New York Times and its Critics' Pick review of your film also called Springsteen the greatest living entertainer.
12:59But you might not think that an introvert could summon that.
13:03And yet Springsteen somehow does.
13:06So I've seen all the sides.
13:08And the amazing thing for me is when it is show day and he gets out of the van, it's somebody I don't recognize the same way.
13:17That his determination and focus walking up to the center of the mic and then the van coming around is amazing.
13:25There's a transformation that happens in the course of that night.
13:29And at the same time, there's elements of the work focus that are carried into the making of the films.
13:38So I see all the sides.
13:40And I think Stevie explains it best, which is that he is the greatest showman and artist that way.
13:49And there's a level of comfort that he has in front of these crowds that's just astounding.
13:56And I think Road Diary caught it, where he's literally getting the crowd to be quiet for a second and the band to stop.
14:04So it's just complete silence.
14:06That's the master showman and that's master control of an audience and an environment.
14:11I marvel at him being able to read an audience and know instinctually what he needs to do to take it to the next level.
14:23I filmed that and tried to really include a lot of that in Road Diary, those standout moments in the show.
14:31Oh, it's really a film for anyone who's interested in artists and what they do and, you know, how many are at that level or not many.
14:45It's a very, very small group.
14:47And the music, you can revel in the music, of course, but there's so many insights that it brings about what it means to be an artist at the age that Springsteen is in his mid-70s.
15:00The film is Road Diary, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band from Disney+.
15:06It's streaming on Disney+, and Hulu.
15:08We've been joined by the director, Tom Zimney.
15:11Thank you so much for being with us.