Songcatcher

Plot

In 1907, Dr. Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), a professor of musicology, is denied a promotion at the university where she teaches. She impulsively visits her sister Eleanor (Jane Adams), who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia. There, she discovers a treasure trove of traditional Scots Irish ballads, which have been preserved by the secluded mountain people since the colonial period of the 1600s and 1700s. Lily decides to record and transcribe the songs and share them with the outside world.

With the help of a musically talented orphan named Deladis Slocumb (Emmy Rossum), Lily ventures into isolated areas of the mountains to collect the songs. She finds herself increasingly enchanted, not only by the rugged purity of the music, but also by the courage and endurance of the local people as they carve out meaningful lives against the harsh conditions. She becomes privy to their struggles to save their land from Earl Giddens (David Patrick Kelly), representative of a coal mining company. At the same time, Lily is troubled when she finds that Eleanor is engaged in a lesbian love affair with her co-teacher at the school.

Lily meets Tom Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn), a handsome, hardened war veteran and talented musician. Despite some initial resentment, she soon begins a love affair with him. She experiences a slow change in both her perception of the mountain people as savage and uncouth, and of her sister's sexuality as immoral. Hoping to help share the culture of the mountain people with the wider world, Lily convinces Clementine McFarland (Rhoda Griffis), an art collector, to purchase a painting done by a local woman.

Events come to a crisis when a young man discovers Eleanor and her lover, Harriet, kissing in the woods. That night, two men set fire to the school building, burning Eleanor, Harriet, and Deladis out of their home and destroying Lily's transcriptions of the ballads and her phonograph recordings. Rather than starting over again, Lily decides to leave, but she convinces Tom and Deladis to "go down the mountain" with her to make and sell phonograph recordings of mountain music. As they depart, Cyrus Whittle, a renowned professor from England, arrives on a collection foray of his own, ensuring that the ballads will be preserved in the manner that Lily had originally intended.

Cast

The character of Viney Butler was based on Mary Jane Queen, whom Greenwald consulted when researching the film.

Soundtrack

The film's score was written by David Mansfield, who also assembled a roster of female country music artists to perform mostly traditional mountain ballads. Some of the songs are contemporary arrangements, and some are played in the traditional Appalachian music style. The artists include Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Maria McKee, Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch and Patty Loveless. Singers Emmy Rossum, Iris DeMent, and Hazel Dickens, who appeared in the film, are also featured on the soundtrack.

The soundtrack album inspired the 2002 follow-up album by Vanguard Records, Songcatcher II: The Tradition That Inspired the Movie, that compiled recordings of some of the songs selected for the film as performed by authentic Appalachian artists. The recordings are mostly from the 1960s, out of the Vanguard vaults.

Track listing

1. "Fair and Tender Ladies" (Traditional, performed by Rosanne Cash) – 2:56
2. "Pretty Saro" (Traditional, performed by Iris DeMent) – 2:54
3. "When Love Is New" (Composed and performed by Dolly Parton) – 5:16
4. "Barbara Allen" (Traditional, performed by Emmy Rossum) – 0:43
5. "Barbara Allen" (Traditional, performed by Emmylou Harris) – 4:35
6. "Moonshiner" (Traditional, performed by Allison Moorer) – 3:34
7. "Sounds of Loneliness" (Composed by Patty Ramey, performed by Patty Loveless) – 3:44
8. "All My Tears" (Composed and performed by Julie Miller) – 3:11
9. "Mary of the Wild Moor" (Traditional, performed by Sara Evans) – 3:51
10. "Wayfaring Stranger (Traditional, Maria McKee) – 3:24
11. "Wind and Rain" (Traditional, performed by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings) – 3:25
12. "The Cuckoo Bird" (Traditional, performed by Deana Carter) – 3:33
13. "Score Suite # 1" (Composed by David Mansfield) – 5:01
14. "Conversation With Death" (Traditional, performed by Hazel Dickens) – 3:01
15. "Score Suite # 2" (Composed by David Mansfield) – 4:58
16. "Single Girl" (Traditional, performed by Pat Carroll) – 1:04