The new Apple TV+ documentary depicts the recording of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's latest album, and finds The Boss examining life, music and mortality. Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa in "Bruce Springsteen's Letter to You," on Apple TV+. Throughout the film, this meditative quality, the fact that it's in quite stark black and white, adds a sense of melancholy and of encroaching mortality, which magnifies the same undercurrents in the album. Springsteen may not look it, and the album may contain much that is upbeat, but he's now 71 years old, and most of his bandmates are hovering around the same age too. There's a nod to two previous mainstays of the E Street Band, Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici, who are no longer with us, and it's done with a simplicity that is choking. There's also how Springsteen is conscious that he's the last man standing from his first band, The Castiles, which is reflected in both the documentary and on the album. That album and the filming for this documentary were completed prior to the coronavirus pandemic, and Springsteen has said that having this footage and the tracks for the album have kept him busy during the lockdown. He's also lamented in interviews that the band probably won't be able to tour again until 2022 at the earliest. So the Letter to You documentary is the last time you'll be able to see the E Street Band perform together for awhile. There's no indication in the film, though, that Bruce is anywhere close to slowing down, even as his career enters its sixth decade. Apple and music