by Dukasaur on Thu Sep 05, 2019 3:26 pm
On Tuesday we went to see Blinded By The Light, because I heard it was a Springsteen film, and I was a big Springsteen fan back in the day.
Turns out it's not what I was expecting. It is a Springsteen movie after a fashion, but it's not about Springsteen. It's about Jared Khan, a working class British kid from a little industrial town, who becomes a Bruce superfan (as of now, he has gone to see him 1500 times -- Deadheads have nothing on this kid!) and adopts Springsteen lyrics as his own personal anthem. Springsteen appears in the movie only twice -- once in a televised interview and once in the closing credits -- but as noted it's not about him. Springsteen's lyrics -- which for 46 years have been inspiring kids in working class shitholes that there is light at the end of the tunnel and you can break free -- are writ large all over the place. They're in the soundtrack, they're in the dialogue (both in obvious and not-so-obvious quotes) and they're splashed on walls. It's not a great movie, but it's a good movie. If you're a Springsteen fan it's worth seeing for sure. Even if you're not, I think you can get value from this movie.
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire