“In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”
This line is attributed to Andy Warhol, who may not have actually said it, but it’s such a Warholian statement that he may as well have. If that curious gent were alive today, he might say: “In the future, everyone will star in their very own biopic.”
The lives of the famous (or infamous) have long been Hollywood fodder. In the 1930s, Paul Muni played such real-life figures as Louis Pasteur, Emil Zola, and Benito Juarez for Warner Brothers. The 1940s saw a string of films about Tin Pan Alley’s songwriting stars: Rodgers and Hart, Kalmar and Ruby, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin. In the years that followed, vaudevillian Eddie Cantor, boxing legends Rocky Marciano, Jake La Motta, and Muhammed Ali, and musicians Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Tina Turner, Ray Charles, James Brown, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan have all served as subjects for cinematic rags-to-riches sagas. And that’s only a drop in the biopic bucket.
I’m skeptical about biopics. At their worst, they twist the facts and exploit our goodwill for their subjects. They place an undue burden on the actors playing historical global sensations. Who’s a better Bob Dylan than…Bob Dylan? I don’t need an imitation, skillful as Timeee C. may be, because Bob is essentially inimitable.
More to my taste is a film like Sidney Lumet’s Daniel (1983), based on E. L. Doctorow’s novel based on the lives of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were charged with sharing secret atomic bomb info with the Soviet Union and were executed in 1953, The film captures the leftist political fervor of the 1930s and the reactionary turning-of-the-tide in the post-World War II world, and evokes the Rosenbergs’ political and emotional milieux by placing us there.
The biopic isn’t going away, however. Next up on the dance care? Bruce Springsteen.
My skepticism soared when I first heard about the film. After watching the trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, it soared into the red. I fear the worst: warmed-over Freud (Bruce’s conflicts with his father), the struggle to fight corporate demands and be true to his own musical soul (Bruce’s desire to make the lo-fi, downbeat Nebraska album), and the power of friendship, man (Bruce’s relationship with the E Street Band), and the glory of Rock and Roll (see above: Bruce’s relationship with the E Street Band). All those elements are certainly present in Bruce’s life and career, but if they’re handled in the perfunctory manner the trailer seems to indicate, the end result will only deliver us into tedium.
I don’t want to fall into the trap of pre-judging a film based on 2:37 minutes of a coming attraction. The folks who made Deliver Me From Nowhere have strong résumés. Director, co-writer and co-producer Scott Cooper, Jeremy Allan White (who’s playing Bruce), and Jeremy Strong (who’s playing Jon Landau, erstwhile rock critic and Bruce’s manager) have distinguished themselves in the past. Warren Zane, author of the book the film is based on, and people from Springsteen’s camp have had a say in things.
So who knows?
It might provide us with insight into the Boss and his phenomenal life’s work. Springsteen is truly an inspirational figure, someone who’s worked like a demon to transcend the damage and deprivation of his New Jersey youth and spent decades reassuring us “that it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.” Like Sir Paul McCartney, he’s remained amazingly human and modest despite his gargantuan fame. The bond he’s forged with audiences over the years is a unique and passionate one. If Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere honors that bond and shows us, to any degree, how it came to be, then the film may be worth watching.
Otherwise it’s just Madame Tussaud’s with guitars.
Something that’s only Born to Run away from.
