In another one of the unauthorized profiles of an artist, at least the makers of Bruce Springsteen: Videobiography got a few things right.  The main plus of this DVD is that it features real Springsteen music, rather than studio musicians attempting to sound like his music.  The other is that there are clips of actual interviews with Bruce Springsteen scattered throughout the hour-long production.  Springsteen wasn’t interviewed for this, but rather they have gathered together clips of interviews he’s done and framed them all here.

The rest of the production is typical of these production.  Bruce Springsteen: Videobiography covers him musically.  This doesn’t go much further than that and doesn’t really doesn't get into his history, such as how the band came together.  This is pretty much focused exclusively on the music and goes through his catalog chronologically.

Most of the hour is taken up by interviews and clips from old broadcasts.  People are interviewed who have worked with Springsteen, all the way back to the recording engineer whose first job in a studio was working on what became Springsteen's first album, Greetings from Asbury Park.

Other noted interviews are with authors such as Tony Fletcher, who has written a number of books about rock music including on Springsteen.  There are comments and reflections from small-time journalists who have covered him through the years.

The collection of clips is pretty admirable as it’s hard to comb through records and find some of this obscure material.  There are newscasts from NYC in 1978 where Springsteen is first being hailed as something great.  Live performances are woven in between the interviews and news clips.  I was delightfully surprised with some live material from a performance at Max's Kansas City (a club) in NYC in 1972 where he performs Growin' Up before it would be released in 1973 on Greetings From Asbury Park album.

There is a partial interview that was shown in the BBC in 1978 as well, and lots of British concert footage that might not have been seen before by his fans stateside.

All of this focuses on his music, and in a way that’s where Bruce Springsteen: Videobiography loses me, like many of these do in the end.  The problem is you have people interviewed who are rock critics or rock historians giving their opinion of the music.  When they are just giving the history and setting the context for what was happening when certain albums and songs were released, this works fairly well.  When they are giving their opinion of the value of Springsteen’s work, it falls flat.  I am of the belief that music is a personal thing and the best thing is for people to listen to the music themselves and come to their own conclusions.

For instance, when the commentators are talking about the way Born in the USA was co-opted by the right wing as a re-election theme for President Reagan, the production seems to work.  It’s putting the song and the album in the setting for the time period and showing how it played into what was happening at the time.  However, when the critics try to label Lucky Town and Human Touch his worst albums, I found myself bristling.  I‘ll be the first to agree they aren’t up to the same standards as some of his earlier work, but his “worst” (according to them) is still better than many other artists’ “best.”

For the most part, though, I found that Bruce Springsteen: Videobiography was not bad, and I'm not saying that just because of the subject matter.  Yes, I love Bruce Springsteen, but I would absolutely crucify any documentary that didn't do him justice or seemed to be trying to make a quick buck off of him.  I didn’t feel this was the case here.  There are parts that are lacking, and there’s the usual feeling of why do I care what these people think.  I don't think anyone but the biggest Springsteen fans will really be interested in what's here, but at least it's presented decently and there's stuff here I hadn't seen before.  Overall, though, this is a decent collection of footage and does contain real Springsteen music as well.  As far as these documentaries go, it’s better than most.



© 2009 Patti Aliventi

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