Yes, the film is about his relation to the music of Bruce Springsteen, but, at its core, it’s about Manzoor’s father.
After the film, on stage, he gave a touching speech about his father, who also died suddenly from a heart attack.
(One nice thing about living in New York City is that the sight of a human being openly weeping on the street probably won’t crack the top ten strangest things a person might see on any given day.)Īfter the premiere of Gurinder Chadha’s Blinded by the Light – which received a rousing standing ovation here at the Sundance Film Festival – I stopped by the afterparty and immediately approached Sarfraz Manzoor, the journalist and writer the film is based on. I started weeping, right there on the street, in front of strangers passing by. As Bruce sings about his father letting young Bruce steer the family car through the streets of Freehold, New Jersey, I thought about my own father letting me do the same thing in Eldon, Missouri. On that day, I listened to “My Hometown,” which is far from my favorite Springsteen song, but on that day it was. But, if you do have it, you know that the lyrics of a Bruce Springsteen song can speak directly to you – either lifting you up or breaking you down, depending on whatever might be needed at that particular moment. I think there’s a Springsteen gene that a person either has or they don’t have. The only thing that felt right at all was listening to Bruce Springsteen.
I didn’t know where I was going, or doing, or what I was even supposed to do, really. The day after my father died a little over a year ago I walked around New York City, aimlessly.