Review: The Indian Runner

Trailer

Every new child born brings the message that God is not yet discouraged of man. ~Tagore

I'm not sure if I should be more baffled by missing this film from the standpoint of being a Bruce Springsteen fan or a fan of movies in general, but somehow, "The Indian Runner" -- which came out in 1991 -- completely escaped my radar until recently.

For one thing, it marks the directorial debut of Sean Penn, who also wrote the script, but perhaps more glaring, it is inspired by Springsteen's "Highway Patrolman," which is one of those tunes I can never skip in the iPod when it comes on.

One of the primary reasons I like Springsteen's music so much is because of the cinematic qualities that so many of them convey. And every time I listen to "Highway Patrolman," there are scenes so vivid I've actually thought that it would make a great movie someday.

And so it did ... or has! Like the song, "The Indian Runner" involves two brothers: Joe Roberts (David Morse), who is the deputy sheriff of a small town, and his brother Franky (Viggo Mortensen). The two are close, but have completely different personalities. Joe has the ability to enjoy the simple things in life: his wife, his child, his job, his garden. Franky has been a lost cause all his life, consistently in trouble with the law before fighting in Vietnam. Upon returning home he is still unable to shake his perplexing anger at the world that fuels his violent tendencies and troublesome nature.

The movie is identical to the song at the beginning and the end, but takes liberties with what the story may have been in the middle. For me, the plot isn't as important here as the characters, and this is what makes the movie work.

Morse and Mortensen are both excellent, inhabit their characters perfectly, and are -- very satisfyingly, I might add -- the epitome of the characters I picture when I hear the song. Surrounding them is their quietly suffering father, who is played to subtle perfection by Charles Bronson, and Franky's girlfriend Dorothy (Patrica Arquette), who is wide-eyed, innocent and possibly led astray by her own romantic perceptions while seeing something in Franky others do not. Joe's wife Maria (Valeria Golino) and a surprising, yet ultimately critical, cameo of sorts by Dennis Hopper also lend rich support to the story.

The movie bears similarities to two of my favorites. Like "The Deer Hunter," it is set in the gritty, blue collar, small town that only those who call it home can love, and it bears a strong resemblance to "A River Runs Through It," where the older brother, who appears to have his life together, battles his own insecurities while being forced to watch his younger brother destroy his life because he doesn't know how to help.

This is not a perfect movie, and is not quite up to par with these examples, primarily because of its pacing. At a run time of over two hours, it easily could have lost a half hour or so in the middle. It tends to meander a bit and, at points, uses a hammer to deliver its message instead of a nudge. And from a selfish standpoint, there is a line in the chorus of the song where the two brothers are out at a bar "taking turns dancing with Maria" that I really wish would have made it into the film!

But there are few perfect movies out there, and these are but a few minor issues I have with it. It's not an easy movie to watch -- it's bleak, it's sad, it's depressing, it's tragic -- but it perfectly captures the tone of this song that I like so much, sometimes with affecting poignancy, and that in itself makes it a worthy tribute and a commendable filmmaking effort.

Highway Patrolman
By Bruce Springsteen

My name is Joe Roberts I work for the state

I'm a sergeant out of Perrineville barracks number 8

I always done an honest job as honest as I could

I got a brother named Franky and Franky ain't no good

Now ever since we was young kids it's been the same come down

I get a call over the radio Franky's in trouble downtown

Well if it was any other man, I'd put him straight away

But when it's your brother sometimes you look the other way

Me and Franky laughin' and drinkin' nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would

Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good

Well Franky went in the army back in 1965 I got a farm deferment, settled down, took Maria for my wife

But them wheat prices kept on droppin' till it was like we were gettin' robbed

Franky came home in '68, and me, I took this job

Yea we're laughin' and drinkin' nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin', teach him how to walk that line

Man turns his back on his family he ain't no friend of mine

Well the night was like any other, I got a call 'bout quarter to nine

There was trouble in a roadhouse out on the Michigan line

There was a kid lyin' on the floor lookin' bad bleedin' hard from his head there was a girl cryin' at a table and it was Frank, they said

Well I went out and I jumped in my car and I hit the lights

Well I must of done one hundred and ten through Michigan county that night

It was out at the crossroads, down round Willow bank

Seen a Buick with Ohio plates behind the wheel was Frank

Well I chased him through them county roads till a sign said Canadian border five miles from here

I pulled over the side of the highway and watched his taillights disappear

Me and Franky laughin' and drinkin'

Nothin' feels better than blood on blood

Takin' turns dancin' with Maria as the band played "Night of the Johnstown Flood"

I catch him when he's strayin' like any brother would

Man turns his back on his family well he just ain't no good

Late October Drive

Ran a few errands today and afterward ended up on a meandering afternoon drive.

Somehow the iPod knew we were cruising the country roads of rural Ohio, which provided some nice fall scenery under a heavy gray sky, because this random grab-bag of tunes that happened to come up (and when you see the list, you'll understand what I mean by random!) really fit the bill. Here's a playlist, in the order of the shuffle:

You're a Wolf -- Sea Wolf

'74-'75 -- The Connells

503 -- Angels and Demons Soundtrack

Black Dirt -- Sea Wolf

21 Guns -- Green Day

The Weary Kind -- Ryan Bingham

Thank You, Lord -- Roy Buchanan

Mansion on the Hill -- Bruce Springsteen

End of the Road -- Eddie Vedder

Highway 20 Ride -- Zac Brown Band

The Kiss -- Last of the Mohicans Soundtrack

Run -- Snow Patrol

Consolation No. 3  -- Franz Liszt

Prologue -- Lady in the Water Soundtrack 

Poisoned Chalice -- Da Vinci Code Soundtrack

Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean -- Explosions in the Sky

Help Yourself -- Sad Brad Smith

Miss Sarajevo -- U2 and Luciano Pavarotti

The End -- Pearl Jam

Dangerous -- Joshua James 

My Father's House -- Bruce Springsteen

Geese -- Joshua James

Goin' Home -- Dan Auerbach

Leaves in the River -- Sea Wolf

Soul and the Sea -- Joshua James

The Funeral -- Band of Horses 

The photos are just a couple scene-setters from around Springfield, John Bryan State Park and Yellow Springs, taken with the Blackberry Torch, which I have to say did a decent job.

Review: The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'

I probably didn't need the opening notes of "The Promise" to let me know I'd like this documentary, but as it kicks off with the bare-bones chords of "The Promised Land" while a studio-fatigued Bruce Springsteen meticulously goes over each note, I undoubtedly knew I would.

This is an un-narrated documentary about the making of the album that followed up the smash hit "Born To Run," using both present and past interviews, studio footage and even some home movies thrown in. At its heart, it conveys the massive challenge it is to follow a hit album, along with Springsteen's obsessiveness and perfectionism that at times seems like a curse as well as a gift.

Like the album itself, the documentary is kind of an enigma. It's not disclosed whether the album was a success or not -- there were really no hit singles, although Rolling Stone ranked it #151 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time -- and it tends to deliver a sense of what this record MIGHT have sounded like, since it discusses the songs that didn't make it onto the record as much as, if not more than, the ones that did.

At its core, "Darkness" is about the heartland of America and the tough lives that are forged within it. It's clearly grittier, more stripped down and angrier compared to "Born To Run," but like that album, there's still that sense of hope lurking underneath.

"One of the elements that was so striking between 'Born to Run' and 'Darkness,' on 'Born to Run' you had the character saying, 'Baby we were born to run, we're gonna get out,'" says E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg. "In the ensuing three years between 'Born To Run' and 'Darkness' it was made painfully clear you can't just run away."

And so the documentary conveys the change in writing that this album brought about in Springsteen. He moved away from writing a pure rock and roll record and evolved into writing themes that are very cinematic in scope, dealing with loneliness, the hardened lives of blue-collar America and, as he puts it, "deep despair and resiliency." I always think of "Taxi Driver" or similar '70s movies when listening to the songs from this album, and guitarist/songwriter Steve Van Zandt makes a comparison to John Wayne in "The Searchers."

"It's a reckoning with the adult world, with a life of limitations and compromises," Springsteen says. "But also a life of resilience and commitment TO life, to the breath in your lungs -- how do I keep faith with those things, how do I honor those things?"

He goes on to say that "after 'Born to Run,' I wanted to write about life in the close confines of the small towns I grew up in. The success brought me an audience, but it also separated me from all the things I've been trying to make my connections to my whole life. And it frightened me because I understood what I had of value was at my core, and that core was rooted into the place I'd grown up, the people I'd known, the experiences I'd had."

This success was one "dark cloud" that was hanging over "Darkness." The other was a lawsuit between Springsteen and his former manager Mike Appel. Having signed himself over to Appel early in his career, he was essentially Appel's property and thus had to abide by certain requirements that prevented him from making his own decisions. It was a painful period, it cost him his friendship with Appel and significantly delayed the production of this album, leaving the fate of his band members in limbo.

"It was a lawsuit about control, who was going to be in control of my work and my work life," Springsteen explains. "Early on I decided that that was going to be me."

This very well could have been the impetus of this obsessive-compulsive nature we see from Springsteen. Throughout we are witness to his relentless writing and rewriting of songs with alternate verses/endings, and in one painful instance, spending weeks trying to capture the correct drum sound. What he heard in his head was unable to be accommodated by the studios of the day, which provided unnatural sound -- frustrating for a band that was trying to capture the sound of performing live.

But these painstaking processes also lead to some fascinating revelations. One involves the efforts to try to integrate the urban-sounding saxophone into an album with a rural focus. "Badlands," for example, initially didn't have that sax solo until they worked it out. Yikes ...

There's also a great segment regarding the song "Because the Night," the melody of which was written by Springsteen, who in turn gave it to Patty Smith because, being a love song, he says he was too "reticent" and "cowardly" at the time to finish it. Ultimately, it didn't mesh with the lone-wolf, unattached quality of the album, so Smith took it, made it her own, and it became her only hit song. (Cool to see Bruce "cover" his own song).

But we begin to see Springsteen's affinity for scrapping songs because they didn't fit the album start to take its toll. At one point we're told that with "Born to Run," roughly nine songs were written and eight made it to the album. On "Darkness," Springsteen had written, in various forms, an astounding 70 songs that were pared down to the 10 on the album. One of these was "The Promise," which to me sounds like it could be the flagship song of this album, but it was never finished because Springsteen "felt too close to it."

For a guy who says early in this documentary that he felt the need to "get everything you want to say out right now because you don't know if this will be the last record," this all feels very peculiar.

"It's really hard to write a good song," says Van Zandt. "For him to write good songs, possibly could've been hit songs, and to not put them out, put 'em aside, took an enormous amount of discipline and willpower. It's a bit tragic, in a way, cuz he would've been one of the greatest pop song writers of all time."

These words feel poignant when we see an absolutely outstanding rendition of Stevie and Bruce improvising the early stages of "Sherry Darling," which eventually made it to "The River." And I'm happy to say it resides on YouTube, so I encourage you to check this out here.




But what we clearly begin to see is that Springsteen had a vision for this record, and he didn't give in to the temptation to sacrifice that for something that may have brought immediate success but very well could have ultimately rung hollow in hindsight. And we take this to heart when the documentary finally gets to the point where Springsteen ruminates about the lyrics of a few of these tunes.

Darkness on the Edge of Town: Tonight I'll be on that hill 'cause I can't stop/I'll be on that hill with everything I got/Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost/I'll be there on time and I'll pay the cost.

These are the exulting words near the end of this song, obviously proclaiming the resiliency of the character in the face of despair, and Springsteen expands on it.

"It's not forsaking your inner life force, how do you hold onto those things, how do we keep those things, how do we do justice and honor those things?"

Factory: The paradox of earning a living that takes the life out of you. I always found this to be very compelling and haunting in a way, but never knew that it was inspired by his father, who lost his hearing at his factory job.

Racing in the Street: Another poignant ballad that asks how we carry our sins through life, but with a very cool anecdote here -- there was an early version that had no girl. If you listen to the lyrics, you'll wonder how that could ever have been the case. Springsteen shopped both around, including to Stevie, who advised, "Go with the one with the girl. That's what happens in life, two guys are pals, and the girl comes along, and that's it!" Classic.

As the film closes as it began, with the chords of "The Promised Land" being hammered out, Springsteen begins to discuss the lyrics behind this anthem as well. And as he does, he seamlessly evolves into discussing the theme of the album as a whole, a testament to his vision of including only the songs that perfectly fit within his desired framework.

"[It's a song about] your illusions of adult life and a life without limitation, which I think everyone dreams of and imagines at a certain point. The song that needs to be sung is the song about how do you deal with those things and how do you move on to a creative life, a spiritual life, a satisfying life and a life where you can just make your way through the day and sleep at night.

"That's what most of those songs were about."

**********

Rather than run the risk of feeling incomplete, it's important to note that this film should be regarded as part of the massive re-issuing of the "Darkness on the Edge of Town" album, coming out Nov. 16. It's a box set that includes the remastered album, never-before-seen studio footage and 21 unreleased songs, and much more. You can get all the details here.

Why we love Bruce

In the spirit of Bruce Springsteen performing "No Surrender" with Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon at the London Calling: Live in Hyde Park concert (I have still yet to see this concert in its entirety somehow), Springsteen made a surprise appearance at The Stone Pony, in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

He joined Alejandro Escovedo for a three-song encore, including a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden."




Since his Working on a Dream tour ended, I've seen a lot of articles like this one, and I love 'em. He's gotta be the most down to earth and generous performer there is, because I rarely see instances like this with others. I'm reminded of his impromptu Thunder Road performance for a throng of Italian fans that gathered under his hotel balcony in Rome ... spontaneously performing The River with a street musician in Copenhagen unbeknownst to anyone except a group of passersby ... and what seems to be a myriad of other similar tales.

So keep playin', Bruce, whether it's bringing tens of thousands into delirium, or in front of a handful of shocked spectators ... rockin' with the up and comers or in front of nobody at all! The genuine love of music, performing and connecting with other people is inspiring and most appreciated.

While I'm on the subject, also wanted to share a gem "Backstreets" published recently. Eric Meola, who designed the Born to Run cover, did some extensive photography work with Bruce from 1977-78, and he will have a live gallery of these rare works in London during August.

I was particularly grabbed by the promotional poster and Meola's reflection on a trip West he took with Springsteen, which includes the spine-tingling roots of one of my absolute favorite tunes:

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We left the road at Unionville, and grabbed a bite to eat at a nearby roadside cafe. And then we went back. And by then the sky had gone black and the wind had come up. I shot some more, including a shot of Bruce in front of the car, leaning on the hood -- a long, thin dusty dirt road going off in the distance behind him, disappearing over Battle Mountain, as it began to rain and flashes of lightning filled the valley floor. It was one of those days and moments that will stay with you to the grave. There was that strong, fresh ozone smell after lightning has cleared the air, and the feel of the moisture mixed with the dry desert wind was something I had only felt once before.

A few weeks later I would be haunted when I heard the lyrics to "The Promised Land":

There's a dark cloud rising from the desert floor
I packed my bags and I'm heading straight into the storm
Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
That ain't got the faith to stand its ground

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Excellent ...

For more of "Backstreets" splendid reporting, click here.

I'll also throw in a photo gallery of the Springsteen concert I attended in Nashville last year.