In Contention

Tag: The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town

  • ‘The Promise’ reveals art in the trenches

    After sitting there, waiting patiently on my DVR for the past month, I finally got around to “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” last night. The film, which tells the in-studio story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s follow-up to the gargantuan success of “Born to Run,” debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and bowed on HBO last month.

    It’s difficult to separate yourself from something that is tailor made for your sensibilities. I’m a massive Springsteen fan. My earliest memory has something to do with “Born in the USA” and playing in the backyard of my babysitter’s house in rural North Carolina sometime in 1984. I came around to really appreciating his work in high school and I’ve seen him live six times in the last decade (three times in NC, twice in LA and once in London). Suffice it to say, I was bound to be interested in this film.

    (more…)

  • 11/1 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: ‘Four Lions’ on tour, Thompson remembers ‘Back to the Future,’ The Boss talks ‘The Promise’

    • Devin Faraci goes on the road with Chris Morris and his film, “Four Lions.” [Badass Digest]

    • Brian Truitt talks “Back to the Future” with Lea Thompson, 25 years later.  I always forget it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.  (AWESOME.)  [USA Today]

    • Bruce Springsteen talks the making of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” at the London premiere of “The Promise.” [The Guardian]

    (more…)

  • TIFF: Invasion of The Boss

    How do you follow up a massively successful, iconic, generation-defining album like “Born to Run?”  How to even attempt to approach that level of stratospheric impact?  Well, Thom Zimny’s documentary “The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town” made its way to Toronto last night to help answer those questions, and I knew I could count on The Wrap’s Steve Pond to be there, front and center, with a hell of a breakdown of the event (which probably had the biggest draw of the fest), the screening and Springsteen’s onstage “Mavericks” discussion with Edward Norton.

    Most fascinating is the fact that the conversation (naturally) dealt with the impact of cinema on Springsteen’s work.  “Martin Scorsese once said that the artist’s job is to get the audience to care about your obsessions,” he said.  He called the small-town America of the 1960s and the rumbling underneath which Bob Dylan bubbled to the surface “Lynchian.”  He counted the “dark, bloody” pictures of the 1970s as an influence, as well as the work of John Ford, and he outright called his albums “cinematic,” which is difficult to argue against.

    (more…)