A Prairie Home Companion
Radio like you've never seen it before.
A comic backstage fable about a fictitious radio variety show that has managed to survive in the age of television.
On a rainy Saturday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, fans file into the Fitzgerald Theater to see "A Prairie Home Companion," a staple of radio station WLT, not knowing that WLT has been sold to a Texas conglomerate and that tonight's show will be the last.
Member Reviews
Pure Altman, real charm - eoguy
There is something about Robert Altman's last movie that feels a little magical. If the commentary is any sign, he kept his hands out of much of the process of this film and solely directed. The outcome is a director who leans on the style he has spent his career perfecting, and, even moreso than usual, lets his actors perform their roles to their fullest.
Prairie Home feels organic. It starts out a little slow and builds its rich characters through their interaction with each other. If you have the patience, you'll witness some true acting genius, some of it improvisational, along the way. One of highlights include Maya Rudolph's improvised disorganization as she loses hold of the radio scripts while on stage, with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin stretching for time while she franticly searches.A good film and tribute to radio's possibility - RoddyPiper
One theme of the film is that this radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" is out of place in the modern world. After all, radio is just for recorded music, NEWS, and “Talk” -- surrounded by a sea of Commercials. In contrast this radio show has live music, comedy drama, and satiric commercials for non-existent products – clearly impossible! So early on in the film it leaks out the show has been cancelled, and this performance will be the last. We watch the impact of this news on the entertainers. (Watch especially the impact on Garrison Keillor, which is the centre piece of the film.)
The radio show behind this movie is what kept me sane thirty years ago while taking economics by correspondence, sitting in the attic so I could concentrate away from the kids for a few hours, and listening to the show while I was typing papers.
The film is a great way to introduce the show to those who have never heard it, as well as a reward for those who have listened to the show for decades but never seen it. Of course just as films cannot be books, this film cannot be a radio show, but I was only disappointed in one thing left out of the film: on radio, when the last half hour is looming, Garrison Keillor begins what is for many people the radio show’s highlight. Softly speaking into the mike for anywhere from five minutes to twenty minutes, he begins a story disguised as NEWS. This is the replacement for the NEWS that regularly disrupts all other radio air. It is news from his imaginary home town, always begun with the comforting introduction “Well, it was a quiet week in Lake Wobegon . . .”
Fans of the radio show should not sit before the film in anticipation of that wonderful, irreplaceable soliloquy.Radio Is Dead - BlackSheep
Real life American radio show, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, becomes fictional fodder in director, Robert Altman’s film of the same name. After 32 years on the air, the show has not changed a bit. Host, Garrison Keillor (played by Keillor himself) broadcasts live from a Minnesota theatre in front of a loyal audience. Various acts perform songs, ranging in message from spiritual to romantic to borderline naughty while messages from sponsors are interspersed throughout. Gracing the stage in song are colorful, quirky (read Altman-esque) characters played by a gamut of folk from Meryl Streep to Lily Tomlin to Woody Harrelson to John C. Reilly. It doesn’t stop there either. The cast continues to round out with the likes of Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, Tommy Lee Jones and little Lindsay Lohan. And those are just the A-listers. Nearly the entire story takes place over the course of the show’s final broadcast, practically shutting out any possibility for conventional structure and allowing for character work and integrated back story. Altman has given us a backstage pass to A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION’s swan song, what ultimately becomes a contemplation on death that is served with soothing melodies that soften the looming sadness and grief.
In true Altman style, all of these different lives converge to create a world unto itself. This world is reinforced by Altman standard elements like lengthy credit sequences, conversations running over others and fluid camera movement crossing from the back stage to the actual stage and from floor to floor. The result is a multi-leveled maze that Altman somehow manages to make sense. Whilst doing so, Altman also sneaks in the film’s greatest irony, that some traditions don’t die but continue to thrive after four decades of filmmaking.
Member Reviews
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Pure Altman, real charm - eoguy
There is something about Robert Altman's last movie that feels a little magical. If the commentary is any sign, he kept his hands out of much of the process of this film and solely directed. The outcome is a director who leans on the style he has spent his ...A good film and tribute to radio's possibility - RoddyPiper
One theme of the film is that this radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" is out of place in the modern world. After all, radio is just for recorded music, NEWS, and “Talk” -- surrounded by a sea of Commercials. In contrast this radio show has live music, ...Radio Is Dead - BlackSheep
Real life American radio show, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION, becomes fictional fodder in director, Robert Altman’s film of the same name. After 32 years on the air, the show has not changed a bit. Host, Garrison Keillor (played by Keillor himself) broadcasts ...