Songcatcher (2000)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Maggie Greenwald

Writer (WGA):

Maggie Greenwald (written by)

Release Date:

1 March 2001 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama | Music

Plot:

After being denied a promotion at the university where she teaches, Doctor Lily Penleric, a brilliant musicologist...

Plot Keywords:

Mountain | Song | Musician | Musicologist | Appalachia

Awards:

5 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

Janet McTeer	...	Professor Lily Penleric, PhD
Michael Davis	...	Dean Arthur Pembroke
Michael Goodwin	...	Professor Wallace Aldrich, PhD
Greg Russell Cook	...	Fate Honeycutt
Jane Adams	...	Eleanor 'Elna' Penleric
E. Katherine Kerr	...	Harriet Tolliver
Emmy Rossum	...	Deladis Slocumb
Pat Carroll	...	Viney Butler
Stephanie Roth Haberle	...	Alice Kincaid
Aidan Quinn	...	Tom Bledsoe
Bart Hansard	...	Hilliard
Erin Blake Clanton	...	Polly
David Patrick Kelly	...	Earl Giddens
Kristin Hall	...	Isabel
Michael Harding	...	Reese Kincaid

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and an intense scene of childbirth.

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Australia:M | New Zealand:M | USA:PG-13 (certificate #37448)

Filming Locations:

Asheville, North Carolina, USA

Company:

ErgoArts

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Kudzu is shown growing in the forest. Kudzu was introduced into Appalachia in the 1930s from Japan to slow erosion. Kudzu would not have been present during the period this movie covers.

Quotes:

Lily Penleric: Are you drunk?
Tom Bledsoe: I'm not drunk, I'm... celebrating.

Soundtrack:

Lord Randall

I'm not drunk, I'm... celebrating.

What is life for? That's a question that many people throughout the ages have asked. There is no question in the mind of Tom Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn). Life is for enjoying. His idea of enjoying is playing music and drinking corn liquor. I don't know if I can argue with that.

Neither could Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), Doctor of Musicology, who came up into the mountains to visit her sister Elna (Jane Adams), and discovered music that had not been heard by "outlanders" in hundreds of years. Songs that were originally written in Ireland and Scotland and hidden in the Apppalatian Mountains. She discovered that there was indeed culture among those whom the outlanders considered ignorant, inbred hillbillies, and she was determined to capture and share that culture.

In the process, she learned what life was really all about. It was a beautiful, tender story about people and differences; like the reaction over the discovery of her sister's partner, Harriet (E. Katherine Kerr).

The music was awesome, and this was Emmy Rossum's first movie. I loved her in The Phantom of the Opera, The Day after Tomorrow, and Mystic River; and now add another great performance to the list. I wasn't inclined to see Posiden, but I will make it a point now to see her again.

I have to end with a note about Pat Carroll, who played Viney Butlet. Her career is is old as i am and I am sure that I have probably seen her many times over the years and not known who she was. I will not forget now, as she was the most interesting character in the movie. Brava!