Bruce Springsteen’s THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWNOctober 08, 2010
HBO
On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF “DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN”.
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I’ve always enjoyed Bruce Springsteen’s music ever since I heard “Greetings From Asbury Park” as a kid. But I must confess I am not a devotee. I remember seeing him back in the eighties in Detroit at the Pontiac Silverdome and thinking he talked too much, same thing years later at the Meadowlands.
However, watching the new documentary THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF “DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” helped me appreciate and understand Springsteen as a complete artist. I’m sure loyal fans and Bruce junkies will know a lot of the subplots offered up about his life and career. Like the lawsuit with his manager Mike Appel, his legendary desire for staying true to his vision and his loyalty to the music, his friends and his family.
Those details make for enjoyable viewing, but aren’t far from anything “Behind The Music” has done on a hundred other rock stars. What makes THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF “DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” a must-see film is its intimacy, its pacing and the obvious care filmmaker Thom Zimny took in crafting this work.
Zimny had complete access and the cooperation of all the players; Bruce, the E Street Band, longtime manager/producer Jon Landau, even Mike Appel. This wonderful collaboration with Springsteen opens the door to amazing never before seen footage shot over the two years of rehearsals and recording sessions that became “Darkness On The Edge Of Town.”
The album was a turning point in Springsteen’s career, a musical coming of age. The music was less commercial, at times sparse and unpolished. He was writing about adult themes -- loneliness, despair, compromise.
This makes THE PROMISE very much a coming of age movie told in the first person. Sitting at the piano with guitar in hand, Springsteen recollects the narrative in an honest, appealing, even disarming manner. At sixty-one he’s able to look back at a pivotal time that changed his life and his music.
The film never gets sentimental or stale. Thom Zimny keeps things moving between present-day and rare archival footage. We see the E Street Band during the recording of over fifty tunes for “Darkness On The Edge Of Town”, which ultimately used only ten. The scenes of Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt at the piano as young men are amazing. Bruce rifling through a thick binder filled with hundreds of different takes on songs, singing and then casting them aside.
Springsteen took his time recording “Darkness On The Edge Of Town.” In making the film Zimny takes his lead from Springsteen’s patience. The movie never rushes between yesterday and today, the archival clips are purposeful, never random and always long enough before we are brought back to the present.
THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF “DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” is full of music but it never feels like a music video or rockumentary. It is a moving portrait of a man who stayed true to his beliefs even when there was a much easier path.
- John Werner
John Werner is a screenwriter who has written several action flicks for SY FY Channel. He also directs, produces and edits documentaries and TV specials.
THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF “DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN” is Available Today via HBO On Demand
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