Special Screening of ‘The Ties That Bind’ is a Treat for Serious Springsteen Fans Director Thom Zimny takes a close look at The Boss's landmark 1980 album "The River"
Written by Jenna Belhumeur
In Saturday night’s world premiere of The Ties That Bind, a packed house of Bruce Springsteen fans was treated to the latest documentary by Grammy and Emmy winning director Thom Zimny. The film focuses on the making of Springsteen’s iconic “The River” album, and features an intimate interview with the artist interspersed with archival concert footage and acoustic performances of favorite songs.
HBO is set to premiere the film on November 27. Zimny’s previous collaborations with Springsteen also aired on HBO and include the 30-minute special, Bruce Springsteen’s High Hopes, (2014) and the full length documentary titled, The Promise, (2010) which focused on the making of the “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” album.
During the Q&A session following Saturday’s screening, Zimny revealed that for The Ties That Bind, he consciously made an effort to differentiate the documentary’s style from The Promise While his previous film documents Springsteen’s struggle to find the sound for his fourth album by taking viewers into the studio with the musician and his E Street Band, Zimny said he wanted to make The Ties That Bind more personal and quiet. For this reason, instead of featuring other voices, the documentary consists of only one interview with the film’s main subject.
The film opens straight away with the Springsteen interview, allowing Zimny to set the tone for the rest of the movie. In one memorable scene, Springsteen recounts how his lyrical composition for “The River” involved a kind of narrative writing, where he would inhabit a character and sing in that character’s voice.
It should, however, be noted that the film is perhaps best reserved for serious Springsteen fans. Instead of providing an overview of Springsteen’s life or his journey towards stardom, it solely focuses on deep diving into the construction of “The River” and deconstructing the album’s lyrics. It thereby allows Zimny to shed light on the underlying emotions and motivation behind each song.
“I spent time with the lyrics to pay respect to Bruce’s fans’ relationship to those lyrics,” Zimny said.
Jenna Belhumeur is a recent graduate of Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, and currently works within the video department at The Wall Street Journal. Her first documentary short, BACK, explores the experiences of an ex-prisoner reentering society after 40 years behind bars. The film premieres at this year’s DOC NYC festival. Follow her on Twitter @jenna_bel
