Popular music has produced an assortment of titled talents: The King (Elvis), the King of Pop (Michael Jackson), the Queen of Soul (Aretha Franklin), the Queen of Tejano music (Selena) and the First Lady of Song (Ella Fitzgerald), among others. But there’s only been one Boss.
That, of course, would be Bruce Springsteen. The New Jersey-born rock star is known not only for his songwriting but also his phenomenal concert performances across the decades with the E Street Band. The group’s latest tour forms the backbone of the Emmy-contending documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, streaming on Hulu. It’s directed by Thom Zimny, who has collaborated with Springsteen for almost a quarter-century now.
“It’s unbelievable. [I’m] so grateful,” Zimny said as he appeared at Deadline’s Contenders TV Documentary, Unscripted & Variety event. “What made this one unique, Road Diary, was that I was coming into the process very, very early, the very beginning of these rehearsals [for the tour], and it gave me this opportunity to tell a story that was different, which was not only with sit-down interviews, but verité footage, things unfolding, being a fly on the wall in that documentary sense of watching the band come together, Bruce find this set and then the bigger part, travel with them on the road and show that full arc.”
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The concept of framing the film as a road diary emerged organically, Zimny explained. “I was working on the musical sequences, and I would send those sections to Bruce, and he was writing me these voice-over sections after seeing a bit of the assemblies,” the filmmaker said. “That’s where the idea of the diary came through, which was there’s many voices in this show. There’s the band sitting down — the band that’s been with him for 50 years. There’s the band that’s just getting together for the first time and playing with the core E Street members, and then there’s the voices of the fans and there’s the conversation with Bruce that’s in his writing, the voice-over.”
Fans hadn’t been able to see Springsteen and the E Street Band perform for a while because of the pandemic.
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“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,” Zimny said. “And also, Bruce’s talking in between songs had a theme that reflected … the importance of being aware of time passing and an expression of love for lost ones.”
He added: “As a filmmaker, I wanted to capture this audience, and I spent a lot of time in the pit waiting and shooting in slo-mo for those facial expressions that convey that sort of emotional transition. I might be on someone for five minutes and they’re just enjoying the concert. But in that one moment, you see this connection.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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