SONGCATCHER

The year is 1907. Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) is a musicologist specializing in traditional English and Celtic folk music. When she is passed over for a Dean’s position at the school where she teaches, she hightails it to the Appalachian Mountains to visit her sister (Jane Adams) who helps run a grade school like a Peace Corps volunteer. Lily brings along recording equipment in the hope of cataloguing some of the local music, but she is totally unprepared for what she discovers - that the music she thought of as an archaic art form - the same music she has dedicated herself to preserving - is alive and well and residing in the Appalachian culture. When she hears the school’s young ward (Emmy Rossum) begin to sing "Barbara Allen" with the purity of the mountain air, Lily’s spirit and zest for life is renewed. She reasons that if this song was brought over by the first wave of immigrants from the British Isles and passed down from one generation to the next, then there must be hundreds more. Suddenly, Lily’s future is bright and clear. She embarks on her new life’s mission - to record the songs, submit them to her academic superiors, and stake her claim in the halls of higher learning. All she has to do is convince the inhabitants of the mountain region to sing! Sing! Sing! Lily becomes a "Songcatcher."

The most enjoyable aspect of "Songcatcher" is the timeless music sung by some of today’s top roots and Country music artists, like Taj Mahal and Iris DeMent who happen to have bit parts in the movie. The songs seem to be rediscovered every few generations and given a new life. Many of the selected songs like "Matty Groves" and "The Cuckoo Bird" whose origins sometimes precede the settling of America were staples of the folk boom of the late fifties and early sixties. Strains of "Barbara Allen" run through the perennial 1951 movie classic, "A Christmas Carol" with Alistair Sim; it was resurrected during the sixties as well; and it was later given a pristine treatment by Art Garfunkel in the seventies; and now here it is again as the first showpiece in "Songcatcher." Despite the good music, the movie does have it’s drawbacks. Determining how much the good outweighs the bad may have more to do with taste than art. Once writer/director Maggie Greenwald gets her message across, the movie seems to drag its feet until a new element is introduced that points the way to the music’s eventual acceptance in the outside world. There is also a lesbian relationship that is handled tastefully through nuance and gesture until it becomes the focus of a vindictive act. Then the relationship comes across as a shallow plot device to help the movie reach its predetermined ending.

On the plus side, "Songcatcher" has a genuine feel for the people and their homeland. The sweltering heat of summer and the beauty of the mountains are as much a part of the movie’s character as the music that celebrates its unique way of life. Maggie Greenwald imaginatively uses Lily to illustrate the way individual songs were changed from their original form to meet the demands of the ever changing local idiom. The music reflects the same yearnings common to both the past and the present. There are songs for every occasion - love - birth - death - joy - sorrow - revenge - murder. Lily sees them all as part of America’s heritage to be shared and used to explain a misunderstood way of life. Her efforts are thwarted by the few who see her as a carpetbagger while there is a very real threat posed by one of their own who wants to exploit his own people on behalf of the corporations who want the mineral riches hidden below the surface of the land. Tom Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn) is a guy who’s seen enough of the world to recognize the sincerity in people. He sees it in Lily and becomes a catalyst for her acceptance as well a the romantic interest. Through Lily he becomes aware that the march of civilization and the wonders of the modern world, like Lily’s recording machine, will makes its imprint on his way of life sooner or later. When it does, he will need to be part of it if he is to survive with Lily at his side.

I can ‘t think of too many movies that share a tangential relationship with "Songcatcher" except perhaps the Alan Freed Rock’n Roll movies of the fifties where Freed goes from club to club to see the recording artists of the day break into their latest song. Last Year’s "O’ Brother Where Art Thou" might be recommended for its hit soundtrack which, like "Songcatcher" has recordings of vintage songs of its particular era, but the music is used more like a Greek chorus to complement or comment on the situation of its characters at particular moments in the movie. I can recommend a book by Greil Marcus called "The Invisible Republic." It uses Bob Dylan’s and The Band’s album, The Basement Tapes as a jumping off point to explore the influence of Harry Smith’s Folk Song Anthology of the early 50’s on the folk movement that emerged later in the decade. The Anthology, currently available on the Smithsonian Institute’s own label, is a collection of some of the first commercially available recordings of roots, folk, and country music from the 20s and 30s They are arranged by theme rather than chronology to create a specific mood and reaction to the music from one song to the next. The roster of artists is as diverse as Blind Lemon Jefferson, The Carter Family, and Uncle Dave Macon. Marcus dissects each selection, sometimes tracing its origins much the same way that Lily Penleric might do in "Songcatcher." The CD box set of the Harry Smith Collection is a bit pricey, but their are six CD’s with an average of fourteen songs per disc. If you love folk music and its many offshoots into country and rock, "The Invisible Republic" is a must read.

Copyright 2001

"Tumbleweeds" ( 1999) - Janet McTeer was nominated for an Oscar as a Southern woman who is constantly running away from one abusive relationship after another, much to the consternation of her daughter who would like to finish at least one school year at the same school. Kimberly J. Brown matches McTeer tit for tat as the daughter. Gavin O’Connor, who plays one of the better men in the film, is the movie’s writer, producer, and director.

"The Ballad of Little Jo" (1993) - An unusual western, based on real events, has Suzi Amis as a disgraced woman who heads west to try carve a life you herself pretending to be a man. Thiss sounds improbable, but Greenwald’s skill as a story teller makes it happen.