Chris Cornell provides original song for Armenian genocide movie (Includes first-hand account)

A great story has the ability to attract exceptional talent who are excited to contribute in any capacity. The Promise was an official selection at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and is set in 1914 during the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. The film stars Academy Award winner Christian Bale and Golden Globe winner Oscar Isaac, and is directed by Academy Award winner Terry George who also helmed Hotel Rwanda. And now it features a new original song by multi-Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Chris Cornell.

Cornell just released a lyric video for the song, which is now available via all streaming services and digital retailers. Notably, the artist will be donating all proceeds from the song to the International Rescue Committee, which responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises to help restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster.

The video is a lovely mix of footage from the film that appears in semi-transparent bursts with calligraphic lyrics superimposed. The scenes are not shown in any order nor do they have direct relevance to the words being sung, though they often represent significant moments in the movie. The song itself has a heavy, melancholic tone and melody that speaks of love and loss, which is fitting of the movie’s subject matter. Michael (Isaac) went to Constantinople to gain a formal education in medicine so he could return to his village a fully-trained doctor. While there, he becomes enchanted with an Armenian artist named Ana (Charlotte le Bon), sparking a rivalry between Michael and her American photojournalist boyfriend, Chris (Bale). But when unrest in the Empire turns into violence against ethnic minorities, they all put their petty jealousies aside in order to survive.

Statement by Cornell:
“The film and plot are your band mates, and the song has to be true to the story and the characters in it. The Promise to me is mainly about paying homage to those we lost in the Armenian Genocide, but it’s also about shining a light on more recent atrocities. The same methods used in the Armenian genocide were used to carry out crimes against humanity in Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda and right now in Syria on multiple fronts, contributing to a massive global refugee crisis. Unfortunately, the words ‘never again’ seem like just words when we recall these mass executions of the twentieth century, as well as renewed racism and prejudice around the world. Even in the US, the warning signs — isolating groups based on race and religion — are evident. We really need to tell these stories and keep telling them in as many different ways as we can. As humans, we have a tremendous capacity to trudge ahead in our lives and not look at the difficult and challenging moments… but I think it’s important. Educating ourselves on the past is the best way to understand the present and avoid future atrocities by understanding and intervening. We must educate and stand as one to combat this fear and violence, and as citizens of the world, work to protect each other’s human rights.”

Similar Posts

  • Review: ‘The Divergent Series’ sacrifices ‘Allegiant’ for the big picture (Includes first-hand account)

    Movie franchises based on a collection of books are often akin to a big-budget television miniseries in that all of the parts come together to comprise the whole. The ending of one film informs the beginning of the next and removing an episode throws the whole narrative into disarray (in the good series anyway). The key difference is successive parts are released annually rather than weekly, extending the wait between significant plot developments. The downside of this structure in movies is the penultimate chapter is often positioned as little more than a setup for the epic conclusion. The Divergent Series: Allegiant is the third picture in a four-part series.

  • Review: ‘Inside Out’ has all the feels (Includes first-hand account)

    It’s human nature to wonder what other people are thinking or how they’ve come to feel the way they do, but it’s often impossible to determine the correct answer without some assistance from the person in question. Moreover it’s generally believed every person is the sum of their experiences, but what does that mean? Leave it to the people at Pixar to come up with an entertaining, animated response that may not be true but is definitely more fun than the reality. Inside Out goes inside the head of a little girl to show just how our personalities work and why we sometimes feel the way we do.

  • Review: ‘Siddharth’ explores the darker corners of India (Includes first-hand account)

    Seeing an Amber Alert for a missing child generates a lot of emotions, regardless of whether you have any connection to the family. It’s easy to sympathize with the concerned relatives as your mind wanders to the worst case scenario with equal lack of effort. Both of these reactions are a part of human nature as empathy strengthens our sense of community and the other attempts to prepare us for bad news. It’s troublesome to see an unsupervised child in a crowded mall; how much easier it must be for predators when the kid is alone in a teeming a city. Siddharth is the name of a missing 12-year-old from Delhi.

  • Review: ‘Ouija’ isn’t much better than a cheap parlour trick (Includes first-hand account)

    For those that dabble in the occult, there are generally strict rules that must be followed in order to prevent one side from harming the other. Not following these instructions is often the starting point for supernatural horror movies. In some cases it’s a simple oversight, but other times trouble is the result of someone haphazardly throwing caution to the wind and the rulebook with it. In Ouija: Origin of Evil, a family is so overwhelmed with the possibility of reconnecting with a deceased loved one they are oblivious to the evil they’ve unleashed.

  • Review: ‘Traders’ deals in humour and extraordinary enterprise (Includes first-hand account)

    Recession, unemployment, bankruptcy and general financial ruin. These are issues impacting people all over the world and there is no easy solution to the problem. As homes and belongings are threatened with foreclosure and repossession, people become desperate to find a way out. With the wolves at the door, even the most radical answer is better than no answer at all. In Traders, one man creates a gateway to an extreme resolution to people’s money troubles — though it doesn’t all go according to his plan.