![]() Susan Ketchin : I'd like to ask you about the characters in Cold Mountain, the intimate relationships they each seemed to have with the music in their lives. We know, already, what Inman's fate will be. Later on, in a scene that flashes back to the time just before the war, when the choir is singing another Sacred Harp hymn, in foursquare formation in Ada's father's rough-hewn country church, the irony is brought home to us like a twist of a knife: On this bright morning, people dressed in Sunday best, the whitewashed church filled with sunlight, Ada and Inman begin to fall in love. For what seems like an eternity, we watch men being blown up, men falling into a vast pit of dead and dying bodies, the wreckage and debris of a horrendous battle (more than 5, 000 men died in one afternoon), as the choir sings, "In this world of sorrow and woe/I don't care to stay here long." It is the sacred and most profane in terrible juxtaposition. ![]() It is a bitter irony this music provides us. In the opening scenes, of the Siege of Petersburg and the Battle of the Crater, a choir of shape-note singers sings out in robust fashion, a hymn from the Sacred Harp, "I Don't Care To Stay Here Long" as the bloody carnage of the battle is played out on the screen. The film showed, to chilling, dramatic effect, the power of these old songs, this music, to intensify and comment upon the action before us. The result was a score and soundtrack that beautifully enhanced the novel's story and the mountains it came from. Dirk Powell was asked by Mingella to play his fiddle on the set while filming was going on he and Frazier were consulted throughout to assure authenticity, as Powell put it. Music for the film was performed by Dirk Powell, T-Bone Burnett, Allison Krauss, and Jack White (who also appeared in the film as Stobrod's musical collaborator). Of the eight Academy Award nominations this film earned, one was received for best original score by Gabriel Yared, others for best song(s) by Sting ("You Will Be My Ain' True Love") and T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello ("The Scarlet Tide"). In 2004, the film, Cold Mountain, directed by Anthony Minghella (who also wrote the screenplay) was released. Who could resist? We sat together, in silence, drinking cabernet, listening to the music of the mountains, and taking in the wonderful smells of the dinner Katherine was preparing. And you will stay the night." In the fading light, it seemed the snow was falling more rapidly than ever he was sure the back roads were already impassable. Charles said, "Let's open a bottle of wine. Charles and his wife, Katherine, a professor at North Carolina State, were two of the most hospitable, kindly people I've ever met. This kind of blanketing snow was unusual for North Carolina (at least in the Piedmont where we were) and was to turn out to be a freakish blizzard that dumped two and a half feet of snow over eastern North Carolina in the space of about four hours. The huge, floating flakes had already covered the entire landscape outside. ![]() When we finally stopped talking, looked up from our study of liner notes and old hymnbooks, we noticed that snow had started falling. For more than two hours, we talked together and listened to favorite, legendary songs and ballads, and took what for me was an astonishing journey through the music of his homeland, the mountains and hollers of the American South. I met with Charles Frazier, author of the National Book Award-winning novel, Cold Mountain, on a cold, bleak-looking January afternoon at his North Carolina farmhouse, situated on several acres of land, outside Raleigh. ![]() Another key character is Ruby's father Stobrod, a ne'er do well fiddler. He hopes to reunite with Ada, who in the meantime has been surviving the war with the help of a character named Ruby. For those unfamiliar with or forgetful of the novel, it follows the journey of Inman, a Confederate soldier, back to his home in the North Carolina mountains. But further, they serve as surrogates for faith in a harsh world that yields no easy answers. Folk songs, as Ketchin and Frazier discuss them in the context of the novel, serve as commentaries on the fragility of human existence, the problems of the soul, and the hope for redemption. Their conversation underscores the centrality of what has become known as old-time music to the culture of southern Appalachia. Susan Ketchin, author of The Christ-Haunted Landscape: Faith and Doubt in Southern Fiction (1994), has kindly shared an interview she conducted with Charles Frazier about his novel Cold Mountain, and specifically the inspiration he drew from sacred music. An Interview with Charles Frazier, Author of Cold Mountain
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |