Songcatcher (2000)
Film:
DVD:

Written & Directed by Maggie Greenwald
Starring Janet McTeer, Aidan Quinn, Emmy Rossum, Pat Carroll, Jane Adams

Features:

• Running audio commentary with writer/director Greenwald and musical score creator David Mansfield
  
• Interviews with Greenwald, Mansfield, Quinn, McTeer and Dolly Parton
  
• Making of featurette
  
• Extended musical scenes
  

Released by Lions Gate
Rating: PG-13
Region: 1
Anamorphic: Yes.

My Advice: Rent it.

Professor Lily Penleric (McTeer) is having a rough time. It's just after the turn of the 20th Century, and she's a musicologist trying to get a permanent position at a men's college. Despite sleeping with a married member of the board, she's voted down...again. Sick of it, she leaves to go visit her sister, Elna (Adams), who teaches in the mountains of Appalachia. While she's there she comes across the discovery of a lifetime: in the isolated communities there, ballads are being sung that are in the purest forms, having remained unchanged for generations. She begins to collect the songs for posterity and science, but there's a lot of differences up in the mountains than just culture.

This belongs to a particular subgenre of film, drama or comedy. It's the Interloper subgenre, i.e. someone from outside a particular society or subset of society comes in and brings with them their own notions, ideas and prejudices, which of course come into conflict with the notions, idea and prejudices of the society they find themselves in. This can be played for laughs or seriousness, and can go either direction: either the interloper "goes native" to some degree and everybody gets along, or the strange new world accepts the interloper as their own, regardless of fault or weirdness.

Now, I'm not going to say exactly which direction the film goes and why, but all of that just to establish that the core story you've seen or heard before. Thus, the burden of novelty is placed on the characters and situation that decorate the plot's skeleton. The results are a mixed bag. The primary problem you have here is that Lily is so extremely pretentious, and yes, sometimes even unknowingly selfish and cruel, that one has to really work at trying to like her. When she suffers setbacks, it was all I could do to not sit there and say, "Well, serves you right, you terrible bitch." I get the feeling it was not the intention of the film to produce this effect, but I think they made her too severe for what the story was trying to do. Sure, the gender-oriented repression of her peers is enough to piss anybody off, but it didn't seem to warrant how thoughtlessly she treated others for the first hour of the film.

The good news is that the cast is up to the task. And McTeer, whose previous work includes the godawful (but not her fault) Tumbleweeds, is quite good--she plays the severity and her struggle to fill the role of Interloper for all its worth. Aidan Quinn is always impressive, but here he took the risk of learning to play instruments and sing to boot, for which he should be commended. Also of note are the grandmother, played by Pat Carroll, and newcomer Emmy Rossum, whose voice is just gorgeous.

And that's another strong point in the film's favor: much like the this film's flawed distant cousin, O Brother, the music helps to fill in the script's gaps. Such moments as a cameo by Taj Mahal, Rossum's ballad-singing and a, for lack of a better word, hoedown--inject energy into a film that would have precious little without it.

The DVD itself is a decent enough entry in Lions Gate's "Signature Series." The commentary track with Greenwald and Mansfield is very informative, including information on how they filmed live performances to make the songs fresh and exactly how historically accurate the entire thing is. So it's definitely better than average. You also have some extended musical scenes, including a longer take of the Taj Mahal appearance and some more of singer Iris DeMent. So those are nice. The interviews are short--I believe all five total up to less than nine minutes--but Mansfield provides some good background on the research into the musical styles. It was a bit odd to see a Parton interview on here, until she mentioned that she had worked on the soundtrack--context is always important.

For the most part, if you enjoyed O Brother and its ilk, or appreciate ballads and Appalachian music, then this film is definitely worth a rental. Hardcore fans of the style should probably own because what the film is trying to accomplish, coupled with the music, makes for a decent package.