4 stars out of 5
You know I really want to see a movie if it’s $7 Tuesday but instead of going to a Bow Tie theater I go to AMC where I don’t even have a rewards card and drop $21-and-change for the Dolby Atmos with the reclining seats.
I dig the Boss.
If you do as well, and have a chance to see Western Stars on the big screen, go do it soon. This will be fine to watch on your big TV at home, but there was something extra special about watching in the cinema with some fellow Bruce fans around. You’re basically being invited to a private concert in the hayloft of Bruce’s barn in Colts Neck, New Jersey. It’s done up as a club, with a small bar off to the side, and warm lighting. There are other friends and family invited but co-directors Springsteen and his very sympathetic collaborator Thom Zimny wisely don’t focus much on the crowd. He came for you, you, Bruce came for you. Will you heed his urgency?
The setlist is the recent Springsteen album Western Stars. As he mentions in the bonus footage at the end, Bruce was temporarily a little bored with writing rock and roll songs, so he tried on a different style: western-tinged singer/songwriter material in the vein of Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell. There aren’t too many songwriters who could switch genres so successfully, especially quite deep in a career. But Springsteen has been fascinated with the West since his early records, and has certainly done folkier tunes in the past. The result here, to my ears, is his most consistently strong album since Magic from 2007.
In the barn he’s gathered a band of old friends and new players, plus a prominent 30-piece orchestra. Yet it remains a very homey feel. I fought the urge to clap at the end of each song, and the assembled cineplex audience did applaud at the end of the film. We Jerseyans are cute like that.
In a bit of a throwback to his old concerts (and to his Broadway show), Bruce introduces each song with a little story or the motivation for writing it. But instead of speaking to the barn crowd, Zimny takes Bruce out to the actual West for these interstitial segments. There’s plenty of gorgeous footage: horses and plains, wide open skies, wide open roads.
The 70-year-old Springsteen has a lot of hard-won wisdom to share, and a ready willingness to admit his failings. The overarching theme here is a fairly basic concept, but I don’t recall ever hearing it so plainly stated: As humans we have an ingrained desire to vanish, explore, to be alone, to express our independence. We’re born to run. But we also have a lust for togetherness, love, family, community. Responsibility. The young person may be more driven by that mad quest for freedom and the self, while the older among us focus more on the home and the needs of others. But these twin impulses are always there, fighting against each other. These songs and this film capture that idea beautifully.
Jack Silbert, curator