of the influence of the writer Flannery O’Connor on the Boss

The biopic with Jeremy Allen White also tells of Bruce Springsteen’s deep admiration for Flannery O’Connor.

N‘Any Bruce Springsteen fan will be able to easily list some of the many musical influences that irrigate the discography of their idol, from Elvis Presley to Roy Orbinson, from the great folk pioneers Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger to their heir Bob Dylan. Without forgetting Hank Williams, whose song A Mansion on the Hill (1948) directly inspired the New Jersey rocker his sublime Mansion on the Hill (1982). Or even Little Richard, a sequence of Springsteen : Deliver me from nowherea very good biopic in theaters currently, shows the Boss, in the guise of Jeremy Allen White, reprising the great classic Lucille on the stage of an Asbury Park club that he frequented a lot in his early days.

More surprised will undoubtedly be fans of American literature who will discover on screen the deep admiration devoted by Sprinsteen to Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), a writer from the South of the United States whose life was as short as her writings were striking. Which notably exercised a considerable influence on the songwriting du Boss at the time when, alone at home in a state that he would later describe as depressive, he was composing the melodies and lyrics for his sixth opus Nebraska. An album in the bookish sense of the term, a story in itself, populated by characters in crisis of faith and breaking their ban, murderers, poor wretches, sons in search of a father to whom the author herself could have brought to life. It’s at the genesis of this acoustic and narrative masterpiece that is attached to the beautiful film by Scott Cooper, which makes several references to the woman of letters and her pen.

On a coffee table among other objects, the filmmaker’s camera first passes fleetingly on a copy of the Complete works of the one who remained for a long time in Faulkner’s shadow. Before returning to it more explicitly towards the end of the film, when Jon Landau, the musician’s manager, quotes a passage from Wisdom in the blood (1952), son premier roman. “The place you came from no longer exists, the place you thought you would go to one day never existed, and the place you are is only worth anything if you can leave. Where is the place where you can stop? Nowhere.”

Fans of the singer know it, those of Flannery O’Connor perhaps not: Bruce Springsteen’s very first album (1975), like his Memoirs (Albin Michel, 2016), are entitled Born to run — literally: “born to escape”. Springsteen : Deliver me from nowhere in fact paints the portrait of a man who takes a tangent so as not to sink. There is no doubt that he would have made a fabulous character for Flannery O’Connor.