NEW YORK: Though Bruce Springsteen’s songs are a vibrant part of the contemporary American songbook, he regularly uses his ly­rics to express his deep misgivings about the proverbial “American dream.”

With “Western Stars,” a full-length feature film that marks the Boss’s directorial debut, New Jersey’s favorite son is once again looking at a question he’s grappled with for decades: the struggle between transient freedom and communal life.