It's the music! This is a film that you view to hear the music that was trapped in a time warp in the Appalachians and discovered by teachers and missionaries at the turn of the century (1900). Maggie Greenwall's film dramatizes this discovery as she relates in a short interview on the DVD. FYI, I've listed below the folk songs you'll hear as they were listed in the DVD credits. I suggest you turn on the subtitles to read the lyrics as they are sung. The music is really wonderful with its original folk phrasing and inflection.

This IFC film is also nicely crafted, well acted and good entertainment as a professional dramatization of this significant musical discovery. I also thought the fictionalized plot generally made sense. It began with a conflict that related to the position of women during that period and then progressed through increasingly difficult crises until it reached a climax and resolution; plot according to the book.

Janet McTeer carried the story as the musicologist, Dr. Lilly Penleric. She's an English actress with a long history, but it's the first time I have seen her. The backup cast that made an impression on me included Pat Carroll as the matriarch, Viney Butler and a young girl, Emmy Rossum as Deladis. An Irish actor, Aidan Quinn as Tom Bledsoe, did a good job opposite McTeer, but didn't seem quite authentic as a mountain man. Both Carroll and Rossum had significant singing parts which made me wonder whether they really did the singing. Other musicians in the film were obviously real musicians. This suspicion about lip-synching was only a bothersome afterthought. It made me realize that Greenwall probably had to make some decisions based on drama over documentary.

I also suspect that in the interest of drama, the mountain homes were cleaned up for our consumption. And there were two plot glitches that bothered me. I could not believe that the two teachers would be indiscreet enough to get caught romancing and I could not believe that Tom Bledsoe would walk away from his mountain life so casually.

But these are really minor. Like I said, it s the music! And the Western North Carolina Mountains where this was filmed are beautiful.

BTW, the same panther story about ripping off your clothes was told to my wife as a child. Scared her to death!

Folk Songs that are sung during the film Songcatcher

· Barbara Allen

· Come all You Fair and Tender Ladies

· Conversation with Death

· Down in a Willow Garden

· Johnny Scot

· Leather Breeches

· Lord Randall

· Lord Thomas & Fair Ellinor

· Mattby Groves

· Old Joe Clark

· Pretty Saro

· Sally Goodin

· Silk Merchants daughter

· Single Girl

· Soldiers Joy

· The Trouper and the Maid

· The Two Sisters

· Young Hunting

· When the Mountains Cry

· Pickin that Thang (Dr. Joe)