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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Lions Gate
Salesrank: 5289
Released: October 23, 2001 |
| Our Price: $7.98 |
| Used Price: $7.37 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
When musicologist Doctor Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer) is passed over for a prominent teaching position, she leaves the city to visit her sister in the beautifully rugged mountains of Appalachia. It is here she discovers a wellspring of emotional tunes passed down from the original Irish and Scottish immigrants who settled in these parts. Determined to document the history of the songs, she immerses herself in mountain life, falls in love with a local musician, Aidan Quinn, and is profoundly changed by the generosity, strength, and freedom of the fiercely proud mountain people.
Description of Songcatcher:
Hauntingly beautiful folk music and stunning Appalachian scenery take center stage in this winner of the 2000 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize for outstanding ensemble performance. Musicologist Dr. Lily Penleric has a deep love of English folk ballads. After a humiliating failure to make full professor, she heads off to visit her sister's tiny school in rural Appalachia and finds herself in folk music central. Lily is entranced, but the locals are suspicious of the outlander's motivations. Issues of tolerance, clashing cultures, and Big Bad Men abound, but Songcatcher wisely focuses on the music. Janet McTeer does fine with the "repressed academic gets in touch with the earth" role, but her truly outstanding work is in revealing scholar Lily's rapture in her discoveries. McTeer leads a truly great cast, including the wonderful Pat Carroll, and a just-for-the-hell-of-it cameo by bluesman Taj Mahal. Songcatcher has a healthy respect for the mountain people it portrays, and an absolute reverence for their music. --Ali Davis
Songcatcher Reviews:
songcatcher 
2009-11-13 - I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie,the 'hill songs' were captivating both the words, and meaning behind them and how beautiful they sounded.The struggle of the miners to live and keep their land and still feed their children was moving.I highly recommend this to anyone my husband watched it with me and even he liked it.
Too bad 
2009-11-09 - Wonderful music and we will buy the soundtrack. But the movie could have been good if it weren't for the lesbianism (most of us do NOT want to see it portrayed on screen in such a flamboyant way), feminism, and dull ending. It's too bad they messed up what could have been a well made film.
Songcatcher: REALLY NEAT!!
2009-11-03 - This was a birthday gift for a friend so I have not viewed it yet. I have seen the movie years ago and it's great!
Plus I bought myself a copy and will watch that in the near future.
RA
The Songcatcher
2009-10-04 - This is a charming movie. It is well acted and beautifully photographed. For anybody who likes music, from folk to classical, this movie is of great interest as it traces the connection between Appalachian music and the folk songs of Ireland and Scotland. I bought it to show to the private film club I belong to. Almost everybody who belongs to this club is a musician of some sort and we all really enjoyed it.
Historical entertainment! 
2009-09-25 - From time to time I am captivated by a movie, song or book that truly takes me to a time or place of total entertainment. This movie does that. I'd seen it once before years ago, couldn't remember the title, but the story stayed with me. After being reminded of the title, I immediately ordered the movie and have enjoyed it again.
The musical history is valuable in itself. Holding on to these gifts is important to our generations to come, and this movie will inspire the viewer to remember ancestors and their contributions to our lives.
