A Prairie Home Companion is a 2006
ensemble comedy elegy directed by
Robert Altman, his final film released just five months before his death. It is based on
A Prairie Home Companion, a program broadcast on
public radio stations in the
United States and elsewhere. The film is a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities on a long-running
radio show of the same name.
Plot
A long-running live radio show is in danger of being canceled by new owners of the company that owns both the radio station and the theater from which the show is broadcast. The film takes place on their last night's performance, accompanied by two visitors. An angel (
Virginia Madsen) calling herself Asphodel comes to comfort the people that work on this show and to escort one of the performers to the afterlife, while a representative of the new owners ("the Axeman," played by
Tommy Lee Jones) arrives to judge whether the show should be canceled. He makes it clear that it is not what he considers modern popular programming, and though he too is escorted by the angel, the show is shut down anyway. In an
epilogue at the end of the film the former cast members are re-united at
Mickey's Diner. Their conversation pauses as they are joined by Asphodel.
Cast
- Garrison Keillor (the show's creator) as himself
- Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, who hail from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the last two of what was once a popular family country music act
- Lindsay Lohan as Lola Johnson, Yolanda's daughter who writes poems about suicide
- Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as Keillor's radio characters Dusty and Lefty, the singing cowboys.
- Tommy Lee Jones as the Axeman, a businessman from Texas who has come to shut down the show
- Kevin Kline as Keillor's radio character Guy Noir, a film noir P.I. repurposed as the program's security director
- Virginia Madsen as the Dangerous Woman, "Asphodel," who may or may not be the Angel of Death (Asphodel is a flower, referenced in the poem "Demeter And Persephone" by Alfred Lord Tennyson and associated with death and Hades in Greek mythology)
- L. Q. Jones as Chuck Akers
- Tim Russell & Maya Rudolph as the stage manager and his assistant
- Robin & Linda Williams as Themselves
- Tom Keith, as the Sound-Effects Guy
- Sue Scott, as the Make-Up Artist
Five of the stars (
Garrison Keillor,
Kevin Kline,
Lily Tomlin,
John C. Reilly,
Virginia Madsen) as well as all the other members of the cast of the film (except Sue Scott, Meryl Streep and Lindsay Lohan) are
midwesterners. Three (
Tommy Lee Jones,
Woody Harrelson and
L. Q. Jones) are from Texas, the state given rough treatment by the WLT cast and crew.
Production notes
To receive insurance for the shoot,
Robert Altman had to hire
Paul Thomas Anderson as a "backup" director to observe filming at all times and be prepared to take over for Altman in case of his incapacity.
[Indie Wire][Washington Post][New York Times].
Principal photography for the film began on June 29, 2005 at the
Fitzgerald Theater in
Saint Paul, Minnesota (the usual venue for the radio show). Filming ended on July 28, 2005. The film was the second major picture (after
North Country, starring
Charlize Theron and Harrelson) to be filmed in
Minnesota in 2005.
Because the Fitzgerald is a rather small building, other
stage theaters in the
Minneapolis-St. Paul region had been considered as stand-ins. With some effort, the necessary film equipment was crammed into the structure. The
basement was also used for
sets due to lack of space. Set design also had to make the show more visually interesting, and fake
dressing rooms were used in the film (the movie's production designer noted that Keillor's actual dressing room is "about the size of a very, very small
bathroom").
Mickey's Diner, a landmark of downtown St. Paul, is also featured.
On November 1, 2005, the
Star Tribune reported that an early screening in
New York City for film distributors resulted in a heavy bidding war.
Picturehouse bought the rights, and company President Bob Berney, "aiming to capitalize on the name recognition of the 31-year-old radio program, recommended that the title revert to
A Prairie Home Companion. 'At the screening, Garrison said that to broaden the film's appeal, they were thinking about changing the name to
Savage Love, so we may have an argument there,' Berney said." The main potential audience for the film is people familiar with the radio program.
Reception
Critics
A Prairie Home Companion opened the 2006
South by Southwest film festival on March 10, then premiered in
St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 3, 2006 at the
Fitzgerald Theater, which had projection and sound equipment specially brought in for that purpose. The film's stars arrived in ten horse-drawn
carriages.
Brian Williams of the
NBC Nightly News anchored his newscast from neighboring
Minneapolis that night so that he would be able to attend.
The general reaction to the film by critics was favorable, as it garnered an 81% "fresh" rating at
Rotten Tomatoes, a site that tallies prominent reviews.
Roger Ebert awarded the film four out of four stars, saying, "What a lovely film this is, so gentle and whimsical, so simple and profound."
[Chicago Sun-Times review by Roger Ebert], and later added the film to his "Great Movies" list.
[Great Movies review by Roger Ebert]
It had its detractors, however. Film critic
Michael Medved gave the film one and a half stars (out of four) saying, "The entertainment value stands somewhere between thin and non-existent" and, "
may be the worst movie ever made that pooled the talents of four (count ‘em - four!) Oscar winners"
[Michael Medved's Movie Minute]
Desson Thomson from
The Washington Post came between the two, saying that while the movie had its strengths, it was weaker than it should have been, in a review headlined "Honey, You Could Ask For More" (a reference to the opening theme song of the radio show and film)
[The Washington Post review by Desson Thomson].
Awards
Meryl Streep won the Best Supporting Actress Award from the
National Society of Film Critics for her role in this and
The Devil Wears Prada; Altman was also posthumously nominated for an
Independent Spirit Award for Best Director.
Box office
The film had a successful limited release in the States and grossed $20,338,609 domestically, with $25,978,442 being the worldwide gross.
Home media
The DVD was released October 10, 2006.
Special features
Soundtrack
A Prairie Home Companion Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on May 23, 2006 by
New Line.
