Earlier this year, when the film, The Promise was released, it put itself as one of the only films to tell the story of the Armenian Genocide. A horror bookmark in our history books. During the credits of the film, is the song of the same name performed by Chris Cornell. Now, a month after his untimely death, Cornell’s collaborators have released the final music video to the song.
Cornell’s desire for the video was to highlight the suffering of refugees worldwide according to directors Meiert Avis and Stefan Smith as told to Rolling Stone. Through the course of making the video, the directors would continue to share rough cuts to Cornell who gave continuous feedback. He would keep telling the directors to give the video a hopeful tone even though the video dealt with a difficult subject matter. The final cut of the video is Cornell’s vision.
A few months ago, a lyric music video was released showing scenes from the feature length film. With this new video, the focus widens to a more contemporary feel. The video opens up with old photographs depicting an early time. These photographs were donated by photographers and charities of refugees from Syria, Libya and as well as other places. Time burns swiftly and moves forward to feature modern footage of war torn nations. The footage in the final cut of “The Promise” shows families escaping from bombs while emerging images of children being rescued, reunions and pro-refugee demonstrations. Throughout the video, Cornell appears stationary as he plays acoustic guitar in a darkened studio.
Since the song was written by Cornell to be used in the film about the atrocities of the Armenian Genocide, the video showcases the atrocities of what it going on in the world today. If the film, The Promise, wasn’t released this year and Chris Cornell had written this song and revealed the video today, the issues depicted would still remain relevant.
“The Promise” will become Cornell’s last video which bumps his previous one for “Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart,” a solo video which was released back in 2015. The video was taken off Youtube because in the video, Cornell is seen facing execution by hanging in the Old West. The hanging plot mirrors his suicide death.
The video for “The Promise” is released today, on June 2oth to mark World Refugee Day. Proceeds of the song will go to support the humanitarian charity International Rescue Committee.
It is important to know the truth of what happened and to carry on. To keep the memory of what happened alive and to show that the promise that we made to “persevere and thrive” is still with us.
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