Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You’ on Apple TV+, a Documentary Capturing the Boss in a Contemplative Mood

New on Apple TV+ is Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, a feature-length documentary companion to the singer-songwriter’s new album. The Boss is 71 now, and writing about mortality, the past and fronting one of rock’s most enduring collectives, the E Street Band, so it makes sense that the film is shot in crisp-contrast black-and-white and features less shameless promotion and more intimacy than your typical promotional pieces. Springsteenies will devour it whole, no doubt.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S LETTER TO YOU: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: For Bruuuuuuce, songwriting has been a “consistent impulse” reflecting a “need to communicate” with youuuuuuuu. He expresses these sentiments in a voiceover drenched in gravelly poignancy as we see images of the countryside — battered barns, winding roads, sprawling plains — covered with fresh snow. Inside a studio, Bruce sits assembled in the studio with the E Street Band, which, after working together for decades, he now compares to a fine-tuned racing engine. Even non-fans know a few of them — guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt, guitarist Nils Lofgren, drummer Max Weinberg, singer Patti Scialfa (who’s also Springsteen’s wife).

It’s Nov., 2019, and they’re tracking songs for Letter to You, Springsteen’s 20th album and first proper record with the E Streeters since 2012. This is the type of situation where one might say a band is “banging things out,” but the way this doc shows it, each member of the E Street Band is so exquisitely in tune with each other, the songs just flow. Van Zandt even jokes how they’re working on the “Beatles schedule,” and not spending more than three hours on a song — an extraordinarily brisk clip. Band members take notes as Springsteen shares basic song structures with them, and they kick in suggestions for the arrangements.

We get performances of a healthy portion of the album’s dozen songs, interspersed with intros and commentary by Springsteen on his lyrical themes. The death of one of his former bandmates from his first band, the Castiles, has him focused on writing songs that reflect upon mortality, on his life playing rock ‘n’ roll, “Last Man Standing” expressing the former and “House of a Thousand Guitars,” the latter. These aren’t songs glorifying rock, but ruminations of an aging man — “The Power of Prayer” is about “Three minutes on a 45 rpm record,” he says. “Life in 180 seconds or less. If you get it right, it has the power of prayer.”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The lack of pretension here brings to mind solid recent rock docs Foo Fighters: Back and Forth and Tom Petty bio Runnin’ Down a Dream.

Performance Worth Watching: If the band really is working out the songs even halfway on-the-fly — the album, vocals and all, was recorded live — then whoever’s on camera is absolutely worth watching in that moment. Coursing beneath the performances is the sense that the band members’ musical knowledge of each other is indelible and intrinsic.

Memorable Dialogue: Springsteen: “Where do we go when we die? Maybe we go nowhere. Maybe we go everywhere.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Letters to You is an intimate, tightly focused documentary capturing an artist at a point in time — in Springsteen’s case, a particularly meditative point in time. Snippets of old, faded footage mingle nicely with the new b/w photography, and the tone is lightly somber, never oppressively weighty, never too jokey. There are many moments of Bruce and co. hugging and clinking shotglasses at the end of a session, but notably, nobody pounds the shot. There’s lots of sipping. That’s the state of the E Street Band in late 2019, in a nutshell — a little bit of party, a whole lot of contemplation about death.

The film isn’t necessarily about the process of recording or shaping songs, although if it was, it might be more compelling to casual watchers. The bits we do get — and the chance to be very close to band members as they make the work look effortless — will be treasured by people who dress up like the cover of Born in the U.S.A. for Halloween. It feels a little too controlled to be candid; a little too written to be raw. It’s a polished product that accomplishes its simple goal of being an artsy mood piece that enhances one’s appreciation of an album.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Objectively, Letters to You is a strong documentary — thoughtful in tone and composition, nicely photographed, thematically focused. But it’s ultimately for fans who’ve been following Bruuuuuce for a decade or three, and can most appreciate the contrast between the songwriter he was and the older, wiser one he is now.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Bruce Springsteen's Letter to You on Apple TV+