Songcatcher Streaming
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Songcatcher Streaming.
Movie Title: Songcatcher Songcatcher is available for streaming or downloading. |
This is a aesthetic and modern film, made even more so by its joyous celebration of folk music. Beautifully nuanced, well paced, and highly moving, this haunting film is an absolute gem. It is no wonder that it won the 2000 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. The performances in this film are simply stellar and salubrious of recognition.
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The year is 1907, and the highly independent and bright Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), a celebrated musicologist, has once again been passed over for promotion by the college at which she teaches. Inflamed, she decides to pull up stakes and go to visit her sister, Elna (Jane Adams), who is one of two women teaching at a settlement school in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina.
When Janet arrives, she hears one of her sister’s helpers, Deladis (Emma Rossum), singing an obsolete folk song that she recognizes. It is being sung in a blueprint that she has never before heard it sung. Upon discovering that the song was handed down generationally in this insular community, she realizes that she may actually be hearing the song as it may originally have been intended to be sung. Exasperated by her discovery, she sets about capturing as many songs as she can from these fiercely proud, mountain people. In carry out, she is memorializing a rich, oral, musical history.
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Her project takes Janet on a voyage of self-discovery, both personal and professional. Along the plot, she becomes immersed in the the lives and traditions of these mountain people, realizing what an integral fraction music plays in their lives. While dreadful in terms of creature comforts and leading a harsh, hardscrabble sort of life, these mountain folks have a culturally rich, oral tradition and are a veritable cherish trove of stale songs.
While catching the music and lyrics of these broken-down songs for posterity and wider appreciation, notating her discovery of these songs for a book that she hopes to write, Dr. Penleric makes the acquaintance of a number of mountain men and women, including a tough feeble bird, Viney Butler (Pat Carroll) . This leads to meeting with Viney’s suspicious but knowing, talented, and obedient looking grandson, Tom Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn), with whom she ultimately developes a passionate relationship that correlates nicely to her passion for music.
A number of other subplots are woven throughout this film. One involves her sister, Elna, who becomes enthusiastic with a adore that dare not negate its name. There is also a admire triangle between two of the mountain woman and the husband of one of them. Young esteem and coming of age are also themes that are touched upon. Meanwhile, a mining company seeks to occupy out the land from under these people for a mere pittance. All of these subplots support to illustrate the often harsh reality of life in the mountains. The only dilemma that I found was with the subplot gripping Elna and her lover, Harriet, in terms of the complacency that surrounds what ultimately happens to Harriet. It was a most disturbing resolution that did not ring altogether just. Detached, the overall strength of the film is such that it overcomes this incongruity.
Janet McTeer gives a no nonsense performance, and the blueprint that the music seems to transfix and transform her is a joy to scrutinize. Jane Adams, as Elna, gives an exquisitely splendid and sensitive performance, as does E. Katherine Kerr in the role of Harriet, the settlement school teacher with whom Elna is interested. Aidan Quinn gives an colorful and thoughtful performance as a mountain man who has been to the outside world and found it wanting. Pat Carroll is sensational as Viney Butler, the mountain woman who takes the vicissitudes of life in bolt and wears many hats: mother, grandmother, midwife, musician, singer, and oral historian. Emma Rossum, however, is positively delicate as the young, unusual faced, mountain lass with a smile and notify that will mosey your heart apart. She is a astounding, young performer with operatic training and the ability to order like Dolly Parton. What a bag!
Cameo appearances by Taj Mahal, Iris Dement, and others wait on to further enrich this film. The music and songs are played and sung live, which makes them resonate with authenticity and adds a vibrancy that might otherwise be lost. The folk dancing is a joy to survey, as the mountain people catch around for a jamboree. The film, shot on status, captures all the physical beauty of the terrain, as well as the rusticity and harshness of life in the mountains. This is simply a mammoth film that is well worth having in one’s personal collection.
The DVD is first rate, providing a distinct, quality relate and mountainous sound. It offers a incredible commentary with the director, Maggie Greenwald, that explains the underpinnings of the film. There is also an engaging feature on the making of the film. All in all, it is a must have DVD for music lovers, as well as for those who simply be pleased a well made and beautifully acted film. Bravo!
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 agreeable characters and a excellent account. 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 hasty, and it’s much stuff! SONGCATCHER is an awesome film more people need to sight.
Note to the reviewer who was haunted 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 leer the movie slanting its meaning.
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