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Summary: Hidden Cultural treasure's
Review: Behold a lost world of music was found. These music treasure's are so profound they shocked my sences. The resinging of these tunes over many generations kept them in their pure form. The first voice you hear is that of a young girl. She lifts you out of your seat and almost moves you to tears. Her voice sets off an adventure to search the hills for more of the lost music. "SONGCATCHER" will catch your Heart, Ears and Hunger for more of the music that was found.
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Summary: Great music, acting. Poor plot.
Review: The music was well worth it - especially if you're a devoted folkie. The acting was good, and the cinematography was stunning. But, we were able to pick so many holes in the plot, and we ended up laughing at some of the plot turns and unneccisary details. Don't go for the story, but definately go for Emmy Rossum's golden voice!
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Summary: Delightful film, haunting music!
Review: Finally a beautifully moving film ... .... This is a gorgeous film - the cinematopgraphy is brilliant. The music is raw and honest. The acting sumptious. This is a film that will be in my movie collection and the CD one that is often played.
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Summary: SONGCATCHER
Review: I THOUGHT THIS MOVIE WAS ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL. THE MUSIC IS INTERESTING.
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Summary: Foot tapping.
Review: It was the best movie I have seen in years. Unlike Artificial intelligence, the characters had character, the music was excellent, and the portrayals were marvelolus. ....Unfortunately some of the themes were adult, at that might leave some viewers to miss this spectacular production. I would allow my 10 year old twins to see it,
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Summary: If you like folk music...
Review: Songcatcher is directed by Maggie Greenwald and stars JAnet McTeer and Aidan Quinn. It tells the story of a musicologist (McTeer) who goes to record the Scottish and Irish folksongs that the locals have preserved for generations. But she soon finds herself getting involved in other ways, including helping them with their struggles with the coal mining companies, and the friend she finds in a local musician (Quinn). I liked the actors, especially Janet McTeer who gives a very believable performance. I always believed that Aidan Quinn is one of the most underrated performers of our time. He also does a solid job here. Overall, it's the music that sells here. If you like folk music you might wanna see it. It may not be as interesting as that for others who don't like it.
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Summary: Appalachian roots are our roots
Review: Definitely a mixed bag of emotions in this one! Heart-stopping American roots music set in a mish-mash of minor story lines, most of which detract from the overall quality or merely add stereotypes to a movie that seems that it really wants to contradict those very stereotypes. First the good stuff. This is a story loosely based on the life of Olive Dame Campbell came to the mountains and found the treasure of music that make up the very life of these people. She collected the music while it was still raw and founded the roots of country and folk music. Her legacy lives on today at the Folk School (http://folkschool.org) in North Carolina. The movie features the wonderful simple music of the Scottish and Irish ballads ("love songs") handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter in these mountains. The acapella voice of Emmy Rossum, operatically trained, with capture your heart immediately and transport you through this musical journey. Pat Carroll as the mountain matriarch is the perfect match for the grandmother we remember singing to us as children, bringing a non-musical voice but a passion to the songs. Appearances from Iris Dement and Taj Mahal and others continue to provide the authenticity to the music. But the story lines, including a lesbian relationship, a stereotypical evil coal mine executive who wants to steal the lands from these people poor in material goods but rich in culture (the movie never says why), moonshine drinking, philandering, arson, etc almost make it painful to watch. The writer and producer would have served us better by sticking closer to the true facts behind Olive Dame Campbell and the legacy she and her husband gave us in the music and culture of the Southern Appalachians. Buy the movie for the music. It is worth the price.
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Summary: Great talent, good intentions, but...
Review: Watching "Songcatcher" reminded me of attending an illustrated lecture by a brilliant, compassionate but insufferable academic whose scholarly specialty is the music and history of Appalachia. Maggie Greenwald certainly gives us beautiful, striking pictures of the North Carolina hills; she brings on the best available actors--Janet McTeer, Aidan Quinn, Pat Carroll--to enact her tale; she hires the best available singers--Hazel Dickens, Iris DeMent, Emmy Rossum--to sing beautiful Appalachian ballads in authentic style. But instead of giving us a story that builds to a dramatically satisfying climax, Greenwald gives us a series of sermons about the exploitation of the hill folk, the despoiling of their land, the oppression of women. You agree with everything she says--you wouldn't have come to the show otherwise--but she preaches to the choir as if it had the collective brains of a field of kudzu. "Songcatcher" makes all the obvious points, and ends up in a fairly ridiculous tangle of melodramatic plot ends. But the talented people who collaborated on it ensure that it can't simply be dismissed. The movie is a series of set pieces, some of which are as beautiful as you might hope, and some unfortunately are not.
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Summary: Why had I never heard of this?!
Review: I rented this movie from Netflix because I was in the mood for something different...when it came in the mail, I read the synopsis and wondered what I'd been on. When my husband and I watched it, though, we were both enchanted. The movie itself is extremely well done, with excellent characters and a good story. The music...well, I'd never encountered this kind of music before, and when I first heard it, I wasn't impressed. But it grew on me quickly, and it's powerful stuff! SONGCATCHER is an awesome film more people need to see.
Note to the reviewer who was worried about a misinterpretation of "O Death:" as a first time watcher (and listener: I've never heard the song before), my impression of the song matched yours. I didn't notice the movie slanting its meaning.
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Summary: Bewitchingly wonderful
Review: Traditional folk ballads like you've never heard them performed before, all set amid the hollers and valleys and mountains of Appalachia. Janet McTeer, she of the luminous eyes, plays Dr. Lily Penleric, an academic in musicology who, when she is passed over yet again for full professorship in favor of a man, hies herself off to visit her sister at the tiny rural school she runs in the boondocks. Many issues are addressed in this stunning movie of surprising depth: racism, tolerance, lesbianism, clashing cultures, big business, repression, women's lot, etc.
In addition to McTeer, the marvelous Pat Carroll plays a grannie midwife who is a repository for a bazillion "songs," Aidan Quinn plays the love interest who is the bridge between the hill people and the "outsiders," and lovely Emmy Rossum, who has grown up a bit since this movie was filmed and now has the lead in Phantom of the Opera.
2000 Sundance Film Festival winner of a special juried prize for outstanding ensemble performance.
Absolutely do not miss this film - and buy the soundtrack.
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