When writer-director Rebecca Miller was screening her latest film, She Came to Me, she felt it was missing a compelling song. The National’s singer and composer Bryce Dessner was sitting next to her when an idea occurred to him: Bruce Springsteen would be perfect.
Dessner was inspired by Marisa Tomei’s character Katrina, whom he describes as “a muse and this brave character. She’s a wonderful, amazing, powerful woman. She just felt like she could be a character from a Springsteen song,” he says.
Miller, who used Springsteen’s hit ‘Dancing in the Dark’ in his 2015 film Maggie’s Plan, loved the idea of Springsteen writing the end credits song. “It was a preposterous idea, but it just came to me,” Dessner tells Variety. “What would normally be insurmountable for most people isn’t the first thing that comes to Rebecca’s mind, but she said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.'”
“She Came to Me follows Steven, a New York opera composer played by Peter Dinklage. Steven is suffering from a serious case of writer’s block when his wife Patricia (Anne Hathaway) urges him to take a walk around the city to clear his head, hoping it will help. Instead, Steven meets Katrina (Tomei), a tugboat captain who lures him into bed and in turn becomes Steven’s muse.
After much back and forth, with many people trying to persuade Miller not to approach Springsteen, Dessner sensed that the musician would really like the film. “I’m sure he gets asked all the time, but he’s also an artist,” says Dessner. That intuition proved correct.
“Bruce loved the idea. He loved the film. There’s a line in the first opera and in the script: ‘I’m addicted to romance’, which is also a running line in the film, and he wrote the song ‘Addicted to Romance’ with his wife, Patti Scialfa,” Dessner explains.
The ballad is a duet with soft harmonies and understated pianos. “He was inspired and allowed me to produce the song, and we became texting buddies,” says Dessner. “It’s a good testament to life. Just ask. Why not try things instead of thinking they’re not going to happen?”
As well as producing with Springsteen, Dessner composed the music for the film and wrote the music for the two operas that are central to the narrative.
The film has an emotional quality with comedic beats, so Dessner chose a piano to drive his score. “The piano compositions are very fast and fast-paced,” he explains. “I wouldn’t call it ‘typical film music’ or even music that could be played by average pianists, you really needed a concert pianist to play it.
For that, he turned to French pianist Katia Labèque. “She brought a lot of humanity and emotion to the skeletal piano line,” he says. In contrast, Dessner describes the opera pieces as “very orchestral, colourful and full of sound”. The first weaves in and out of the film’s narrative. He wrote music that was big in every sense of the word, with full strings, brass, winds and percussion. As it plays out in the first act of the film, the opera eventually becomes the inspiration for Steven to unlock his creative process.
Says Dessner: “He writes this second opera, and it gives a window into the creative process, how you come up with an idea, how you see a character. The second opera, Dessner says, was “much more poetic and beautiful. There was a melodic feeling to it. It had to feel like the end of an opera and the film. He adds: “Which is then followed by Bruce’s song.
