Product Description: When musicologist doctor lily penleric is passed over for a prominent teaching position she leaves the city to visit her sister in the beautifully rugged mountains of appalachia. It is here she discovers a wellspring of emotional tunes passed down from the original irish and scottish immigrants. Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 05/25/2004 Starring: Janet Mcteer Jane Adams Run time: 109 minutes Rating: Pg13
Amazon.com: Hauntingly beautiful folk music and stunning Appalachian scenery take center stage in this winner of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for outstanding ensemble performance. Musicologist Dr. Lily Penleric has a deep love of English folk ballads. After a humiliating failure to make full professor, she heads off to visit her sister's tiny school in rural Appalachia and finds herself in folk music central. Lily is entranced, but the locals are suspicious of the outlander's motivations. Issues of tolerance, clashing cultures, and Big Bad Men abound, but Songcatcher wisely focuses on the music. Janet McTeer does fine with the "repressed academic gets in touch with the earth" role, but her truly outstanding work is in revealing scholar Lily's rapture in her discoveries. McTeer leads a truly great cast, including the wonderful Pat Carroll, and a just-for-the-hell-of-it cameo by bluesman Taj Mahal. Songcatcher has a healthy respect for the mountain people it portrays, and an absolute reverence for their music. --Ali Davis
Loved ^ The first time I viewed this movie was in Charlotte, NC at a motel while with an older couple - friends I had driven down for a meeting. I was awake early AM and turned on tv - HBO and saw only a portion of movie. I did manage to get the title and pulled it up on Amazon, therefore I purchased a copy. I viewed it in its entirety and a year later enjoyed it with a cousin. Thus, I ordered this last one for her own personal copy. I have since loaned my copy to my daughter-in-law to view. I am from the foothills of North Carolina and my Mother grew up in Madison County, North Carolina. Her Mother grew up in Yancy County and my Grandfather played musical instruments and danced, though I do not know which instrument he enjoyed.
Thank you for allowing me to write a review of the film.
It was well presented and done to show wonderful history of mountain people.
Rebecca Green
The music of my life ^ This movie was very interesting for me, being from Appalachia. It very well could be a story of people I either know or am related to. It was delivered quickly, as are ALL my orders from Amazon.com.
Vintage Music ^ Picked this movie up years ago, and it has became a favorite for me. I have shared this wonderful movie with many people and they all have love it also. I would recommend to all ages. A lovely family movie. The music is awesome, classic appalachia songs, that where brought from other countries.
The hills have ears ^ Loosely based on the real life story of Olive Campbell, 'Songcatcher' is the story of Lily Panleric, a priggish but well-meaning American academic who adores the folk music of the British Isles, training her students to appreciate the emotional purity that folk music possesses. When she is denied a coveted music professorship, she packs it in and decides to visit her sister who runs a ragged school in the Appalachian mountains. She then discovers the locals know a huge store of English folk ballads like 'Barbry Allen', and in versions even purer than survive in England. This leads to some interesting debate with the locals on whether the music should be shared with outsiders, or whether that would compromise its purity. Eventually she convinces them, and sets out to capture the music on wax phonograph cylinders (this being pre-vinyl 1907).
From an artistic perspective 'Songcatcher' isn't a very good film (mediocre acting and Hollywood-style melodrama) but that isn't the reason you should watch it. The reason to watch it is the subject matter, the beauty of the songs, and the store of ancestral memories they contain.
Awesome ^ AWESOME MOVIE. FANTASTIC look into the old timey ways of mountain folks. The dvd extras are great too, with singing and different stuff. Just great.
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