Rethinking Bruce Springsteen’s Difficult Years

The history of rock ’n’ roll is filled with mythic narratives that aren’t as fixed as they might seem. The documentary “Get Back” revealed that the Beatles’ waning days were as joyful as they were contentious. A recent biography argued that Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, wasn’t the exploitative Svengali he’s often made out to be.

And a powerful new film, “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” makes the case that Bruce Springsteen — perhaps rock’s ultimate macho hero — was at his creative best as he struggled through a crippling depression when making his 1982 album, “Nebraska.”

It’s a twist, or at least a complication, to the familiar story of Springsteen as New Jersey’s anointed son, who rose without deflection to Bossdom and never looked back. Details of his emotional crisis surrounding “Nebraska” have trickled out over the years, and after Springsteen addressed it briefly in his 2016 memoir, “Born to Run,” the musician and writer Warren Zanes interviewed him to get a more thorough narrative. Zanes’s book “Deliver Me From Nowhere” became the basis of the new film’s screenplay.

Still, even for the dedicated Bruceologists who have kept up, it is striking to see a major motion picture depict mental health struggles as a central piece of the Springsteen story.

A quiet masterpiece

“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” which comes out Oct. 24, opens with a scene that is about as canonically Bruuuuce as can be. As played by Jeremy Allen White of “The Bear,” a bucket-sweating Springsteen hoarsely belts out “Born to Run” before an adoring arena crowd. Once the tour ends, though, his life is isolated. He searches for inspiration for his next album, fending off pressure from his record company to deliver the next radio hit.

In a typical music biopic, our hero would triumph by delivering a smash bigger than anyone could have imagined. Instead, Springsteen created “Nebraska,” a haunted, low-fi solo album, working with a rudimentary cassette recorder in a rented house in Colts Neck, N.J., just a quick zip in the Camaro Z28 from where he grew up.

The songs he recorded, like “Atlantic City,” “Johnny 99” and “Highway Patrolman,” were stories of desperate, despairing characters, animated by acoustic guitar, harmonica and Springsteen’s raw voice, which held traces of Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan. He had intended the songs as demos, to be fleshed out later with his full band. But the material was intensely personal; in the film, as Springsteen writes, we see him having flashbacks about his brooding, heavy-drinking father.

So Springsteen decided to release “Nebraska” exactly as he had captured it on his cassette, recording flaws and all. He left the album intentionally mysterious, refusing to promote it through any singles, tours or even interviews — a courageous but risky left turn by an artist who was then still on an upward trajectory in his career.

“‘Nebraska’ is the most punk thing Bruce ever did,” Scott Cooper, the film’s director and screenwriter, told me in a recent interview. “Not in sound, but in spirit.”

Generating buzz

From its earliest appearances in film festivals, “Deliver Me From Nowhere” has arrived preloaded with hype. Surely that has to do with its subject: Until now, Springsteen, 76, has never allowed his story to be dramatized in a feature film. Also fueling the buzz are strong performances by White and Jeremy Strong (“Succession”), who plays Jon Landau, Springsteen’s longtime manager.

But it also provides Hollywood with plenty of material to engage one of its great obsessions: wrestling with the art of filmmaking itself. Is “Deliver Me From Nowhere” a biopic or isn’t it? The studio behind the film, 20th Century Studios, which is part of the Walt Disney Company, has framed it as not fitting that format, because the film portrays a short episode within a life, rather than a cradle-to-stardom biography. That’s true. But it is also unmistakable as an exercise in the rock biopic subgenre, from its scenes of stirring performances to its closing title cards summarizing Springsteen’s later success.

These kinds of debates have a habit of elevating films come awards season.

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

• Israelis and Palestinians are waiting for the exchange of all the living hostages in Gaza for about 2,000 prisoners in Israel, which is expected to begin tomorrow morning. There is relief — and mourning.

• Thousands of Palestinians have started walking to northern Gaza to try to find out what happened to their loved ones and their homes. Their joy at the pause in fighting has been tempered by the destruction they face.

Tennessee Explosion

• Officials said that 16 people had been killed in the blast at an ammunition plant on Friday.

• The plant has long been an economic bedrock in a rural area. People know the jobs are risky, a former employee said: “You’re working with explosives every day, and any little thing can set it off.”

• “You can’t even fathom this at all,” Gary Moore, whose 37-year-old son was killed, said, adding, “Your children are supposed to bury you.”

Diane Keaton

• The vibrant, sometimes unconventional actress Diane Keaton died at 79. She won an Oscar for “Annie Hall” and shone in comedies like “The First Wives Club” and dramas like “The Godfather.”

• She wielded her style in her roles, building characters out of clothing. “Keaton’s, well, Keaton-ness was also one of her great skills,” Esther Zuckerman writes in an appraisal.

• See pictures of her life and stream her great performances.

Other Big Stories

• At least nine people have been killed in shootings across Mississippi since Friday.

• Iran is trying to become a destination for affordable gender transition operations. Its doctors have decades of experience because the government has long forced transgender Iranians to undergo the surgeries.

• The trade war between the United States and China has kicked back into high gear: Trump said he would impose 100 percent tariffs next month; China accused the U.S. of double standards.

THE SUNDAY DEBATE

Does Trump deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for the Gaza cease-fire deal?

Yes. Trump’s involvement got Israel and Hamas to enter the first stage of a cease-fire and made the world safer. “If Trump’s accomplishments with foreign policy in 2025 alone have not surpassed those of these recipients, they are at least on par with them,” Nicole Russell writes in USA Today.

No. Trump’s violent orders elsewhere and his effort to bully his way into the prize are enough to disqualify him. “The Nobel Peace laureate is decided by five otherwise-ordinary Norwegian citizens, and Trump has reportedly already tried to strong-arm Norway’s finance minister to put pressure on them,” Jonah Blank writes for The Indian Express.

Golf: Tiger Woods, 49, had another back operation. He has not played competitively since March.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

“Heart the Lover,” by Lily King: Once again, King — author of best sellers like “Writers & Lovers” and “Euphoria” — proves herself the master of relationships with long shadows. In this unassuming yet profound novel, she traces the sunbeams (and the darkness) cast by a trio of friendships that begin in college and stretch into middle age. At the center of the story is Jordan, who befriends two guys in her 17th-century literature class and falls in love with one of them and then, later, with the other. The romance is fun, sexy and will-they-or-won’t-they, but the real appeal of this story named for a card game is the way King keeps reshuffling the deck and inviting us to take a long, hard look at the face on top. (Read our review.)

More on Books

• Laszlo Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian novelist, won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Find out more about him here.

• In “Paper Girl,” Beth Macy revisits her hometown in Ohio, documenting its descent into poverty and acrimony. Read our review here.

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE