Songcatcher
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Movie Reviews of Songcatcher
Movie Review: A Must for the Study of Southern Culture.
Summary: 5 Stars
To preserve Southern culture is to preserve a culture with strong roots for many Americans. Just as this film depicts an attempt to preserve old English ballads that have survived nearly intact because of the isolation of the mountain people, the film itself is important because it, itself, is an attempt at cultural preservation. The mountain setting of the film is extraordinarily rich, the characters are thankfully more real than stereotypical, and the story is rich and fullfilling. Pat Carroll's performance is exceptional. One of the major plusses of this movie is the way the set design and cinematography contributes to the story. In one key scene shot inside a cabin, the crude conditions are clearly shown by the daylight winking through the walls. The plight of the characters' living conditions is certainly obvious in the story, but that cabin told the rest of the story. In another scene, several people are dancing outdoors and the camera is positioned so that the viewer seems to be standing in the crowd. The scene develops as all but two of the characters dance and the movement of the camera around the dancers to a high angle shot from the trees stretches and isolates the scene so that the dancers are shown to be some distance from the two non-dancers. This shot establishes not so much a rift between the characters, but a separation.
This film is very similar to Donald Davidson's novel, The Big Ballad Jamboree (University Press of Mississippi), and I strongly recommend both the movie and the book to everyone wanting to enjoy the richness of true "hillbilly" life and music.
Movie Review: Lovely film, very fine...
Summary: 5 Stars
There aren't many musical films that are successful, lately. This one works on many different levels. This year, the film version of "Phantom of the Opera" was released, and, arguably, the best thing about it was Emmy Rossum's performance."Songcatcher" features her film debut, and she sings wonderfully, though in a considerably different style.She definitely displays her future greatness. This is another film about misunderstood cultures, set in 1907. There are the expected "strange" characters, who endear themselves. Unlike other reviewers, I'm not going to blab away the plot. I must say that Janet McTeer was wonderful (haven't seen her lately); Aidan Quinn was solid, as were Jane Adams & E. Katherine Kerr and a powerfully snakey, evil delivery by David Patrick Kelly. The great Taj Mahal has a chance to show his stuff, especially on the DVD extras.The wonderful Iris de Ment also has a chance to shine. Musical director David Mansfield put this all in perspective, and since music controls this film, it's success is very much to his credit. My favorite element of the film was the appearance of Pat Carroll, hard as nails, sweet as sugar...as her own agenda required. A truly complex and well-layered performance. She was the best.Director Maggie Greenwald should be very proud, presenting a fine, entertaining film. I look forward to her future endeavors.Movie Review: The Importance of Music
Summary: 5 Stars
I have seen many reviews trash this movie but I absolutely loved it. There were many things going on in this movie but the central theme was always the music. The pure music of Appalachia handed down through generations. What we today call "old timey" but during the time frame of this movie it was "life music". Take yourself back to a time before electricity in the mountains, before running water, before TVs, radio's and all the modern things we have and you see where the movie is set. In the mountains, when live music, sung and played by families and friends was a way of life. Was ingrained in their fabric and handed down from parent to child. This movie was an outstanding depiction of that time. Of the lifestyle and hardships of the mountain people and how the music ran through it all.
From birth to death music was the constant thread of life. If you have any interest at all in "old timey", "roots music" or "bluegrass" you need to see this movie. If you have a curiosity about the Appalachian Mountain folks just after the turn of the century this movie will also hold some worth. See it and enjoy it!
Movie Review: Pitch perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
I have used this movie for student viewing in American Music and World Music (North America) undergraduate classes. It provides an excellent introduction to the problems that early ethnographers encountered in working with informants in the Appalachian mountains. Aside from the mountaineers' (justified) suspicion of outsiders, the scholars themselves had to grapple fiercely with their own class-based prejudices, not to mention the rapacious designs of the coal company owners, "establishment" religious organizations, and more. (That such entities often considered themselves the natural allies of the ethnographers, and expected reciprocal recognition for it, created yet another obstacle for serious, unbiased research.)
All of this is subtly but accurately put forth in the movie, which doesn't prevent it from also containing GREAT MUSIC and a reasonably accurate view of Appalachian "hill" life at the turn of the previous century.
I hope this doesn't make it sound too much like a sociological tract, because it's also a very entertaining and moving human drama, and a well-made film.
Movie Review: Bewitchingly wonderful
Summary: 5 Stars
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.