Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

In 1981, Bruce Springsteen (played by Jeremy Allen White) was beyond famous. By this point, he’d had more hits playing on the radio than you could count. This level of fame, this level of musical legend, doesn’t seem to interest Springsteen, though, because that’s not what he’s about. It’s about the music. It’s about the artistry. It’s about the act of creation and being true to that creative impulse, honoring it in its truest form. And so, we open to the story of how his album Nebraska came to be, known today as a landmark for home recording and self-expression, but at the time was viewed with confusion by the studio suits who wanted more hits from the man known affectionately as "The Boss." They wanted those sure-fire singles to blast throughout the airwaves. The bottom line is, they wanted more money. The art of musical creation is great, sure, as long as it’s in line with what he’s done before, and what his fans were clamoring for.

We shift back and forth between timelines: There’s the modern-day setting, the early 1980s, as Springsteen comes to the process that birthed his album Nebraska. We also see his uneasy childhood that shaped the man he became, and how those painful memories flowed into the lyrical prose of those individual songs. The childhood memories are shot in a stark black-and-white, as he navigates the minefield of having an abusive and unpredictable alcoholic father, and tries to protect his mother from the man’s fury. His adulthood is a reflection of those memories, and he sees them in a new light. His father, older now, is not the scary giant he seemed to be then; he’s a broken man with a history of mental illness. Springsteen cares for him in a time of crisis, and even comes to understand that he was the way he was because he desperately needed medical intervention and medication. But it doesn’t make those memories hurt any less.

Nebraska was recorded at home, with the intention of getting his thoughts onto tape, so that he could, then, take those thoughts and have a professional recording in a studio session polish the songs into a high gloss. But, in recording those songs, he realizes he prefers the rough edges of the home recordings. They’re truer what he heard in his mind as he wrote down the lyrics, inspired by watching the film Badlands, and his own childhood, in a combination of thoughts, feelings and emotions he couldn’t begin to describe even if he tried. That’s what the music is for, and he wants it to speak for itself, much to the chagrin of the folks in charge of distribution at the studio, who consider something like this to be a huge gamble. But, as we all know, through the power of historical hindsight, the album became a huge hit, even without much promotion, a landmark for home-recording in general.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, based on the book Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes, tackles an interesting subject—the formation of a seminal, unorthodox album from an artist who deviated from their norm—but remains very surface-level in how it portrays the struggles of Bruce Springsteen. When the film is at its most interesting, it shows the artistic process. Springsteen will try, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, to capture complex, convoluted, and painful thoughts on paper and then on a musical recording. The artistic process is bizarre and varies from person to person, and to see the process in action is captivating. The movie fires on all cylinders when it’s capturing these moments. When the film is at its least interesting, it’s following a checklist of storytelling beats. Every external issue you can imagine plaguing Springsteen, he gets. Studio suits bickering in offices about this and that. Romantic trouble. And a moment of emotional exhaustion that is so overwrought and unearned, it feels like it was placed in, at random, because a formula demanded its need as a load-bearing sequence of growth.

Jeremy Allen White manages to have a few effective moments in his performance—one, in particular, where he gets to break from the formulaic problems facing him at this time in his life. He’s facing exhaustion and depression, having been put through the wringer over the past many weeks, months, and years, leading up to now. A mental health professional asks him if he can explain what’s going on, and he responds by attempting to, stalling, and then weeps. It’s a real moment, where someone allows themselves to be vulnerable. It’s these vulnerable moments, along with the creation of music, where the movie is at its best.

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere was born to run… on 4K UHD Blu-ray! It arrives in a two-disc release, containing the film in both 4K and 1080p on a second Blu-ray disc, which also houses the special features. Both discs are housed in a standard case, along with a slipcover, both featuring the same cover artwork.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere was shot digitally by cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, utilizing the Arri Alexa 35 camera. For this release, it is presented in 2160p resolution, graded in Dolby Vision HDR. Split into two unique looks, we have the modern-day trials and tribulations of the Boss, which leans heavily into its early 80s aesthetic, with a color palette rife with red, browns, and seafoam greens. We also have a series of flashbacks, told in black and white, stripped of color. Both sequences are sharp, with deep contrast and velvety, deep blacks. The HDR grading allows for subtle color variance on the skin tones of its subjects, and certain sequences, like one in an office against an open window, allow for a great range of bright and color levels. As the camera cuts back and forth between angles, we can really see the brightness of the sun light up the screen, while closer to the hallway, that corridor is cloaked in shadows.

Although Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere doesn’t have one of the more aggressive Dolby Atmos mixes I can think of, it is masterful how it's utilized across the soundstage, from front to top to rear. This is going to be a pretty front-heavy presentation. This being a talky film, most of the soundscape is going to be dialogue, solidly on that center channel. Music unfolds on the front-end, too, but echoes through the height and rear channels, like an echo in an auditorium. Meanwhile, atmospheric effects, like chirping birds, the whoosh of a busy street, or the chatter of a crowded restaurant, envelop the listener, as though we’re a participant in the story, with pinpoint precision on realizing the 3D space of those effects.

The second Blu-ray disc contains all the features to be found for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, a fairly robust making-of, split into four “Acts”. The featurettes detail the process of adapting the screenplay from an existing book, the performance of White as Springsteen and how they brought the period piece to life through set design.

• Act 1: From Book to Screen (HD 9:06)
• Act 2: Beyond the Music (HD 6:07)
• Act 3: Becoming Bruce Springsteen (HD 9:37)
• Act 4: Deep Authenticity (HD 9:38)

Do you live for musical biopics? Do you love those familiar beats of the formula, and you can’t get enough of them? Do you love Bruce Springsteen? Do you own every one of his albums, some in multiple formats, from vinyl to tape to CD to digital? Then you’ll probably love Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. It’s a well-told movie that sometimes lacks genuine enthusiasm for its subject and his creative struggles. It is, however, well-made, with terrific performances from its cast, great A/V stats, and some decent extras. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere is Recommended for most folks, but especially for diehard Springsteen fans.