A Prairie Home Companion (2006)

A look at what goes on backstage during the last broadcast of America's most celebrated radio show, where singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, a country music siren, and a host of others hold court.

Director:

Robert Altman

Writers:

Garrison Keillor (screenplay), Garrison Keillor (story),

Stars:

Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Meryl Streep

3 wins & 10 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Marylouise Burke	...	Lunch Lady
Woody Harrelson	...	Dusty
L.Q. Jones	...	Chuck Akers
Tommy Lee Jones	...	The Axeman
Garrison Keillor	...	GK
Kevin Kline	...	Guy Noir
Lindsay Lohan	...	Lola Johnson
Virginia Madsen	...	Dangerous Woman
John C. Reilly	...	Lefty
Maya Rudolph	...	Molly
Tim Russell	...	Stage Manager
Sue Scott	...	Makeup Lady
Meryl Streep	...	Yolanda Johnson
Lily Tomlin	...	Rhonda Johnson
Tom Keith	...	Himself - Sound Effects Man

Storyline

"A Prairie Home Companion", hosted by humorist Garrison Keillor, is a down home radio variety show recorded and performed live in front of an audience in a theater in St. Paul, Minnesota. A show from another era, "A Prairie Home Companion" has been canceled. The regulars are performing on the last show, including Dusty & Lefty, singing/guitar playing cowboys with a risqué sense of humor, and the Johnson Girls, a sister singing duo of Rhonda and Yolanda who have a penchant for talking over each other. As the show goes on, the regulars, backstage, talk about their lives in relation to the show. Other goings-on include Yolanda and others trying to convince her shy somber daughter, Lola, to sing on this last show. As all this goes on, a mysterious woman in a white trench coat who is on a mission wanders around the theater, while the show's dim security guard, Guy Noir, who usually has nothing to do security-wise, follows.

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Plot Keywords:

singing | cowboy | radio | backstage | st. paul minnesota | 

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Taglines:

Radio like you've never seen it before.

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Music

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for risque humor

Details

Official Sites:

Bac Films [fr] Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English Norwegian

Release Date:

9 June 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

A Praire Home Companion - Bastidores da Rádio

Filming Locations:

Fitzgerald Theater - 10 Exchange Street E., St. Paul, Minnesota, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£75,355 (UK) (5 January 2007)

Gross:

£75,355 (UK) (5 January 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Picturehouse Entertainment, GreeneStreet Films, River Road Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS Dolby Digital DTS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Instead of pre-recording their parts in studio sessions, cast members performed live in the theater, singing and playing their own instruments in front of a real audience of whom Robert Altman asked to choose their favorite takes.

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Goofs

The group of four people sitting at the table in the diner react as if the Dangerous Woman is walking toward them (changing their facial expressions, changing their postures, moving their eyes, etc.), but in the next shot she has not moved from her position just inside the doorway. She then begins walking toward them.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Radio Announcer: Market reports today, barrows and gilts uh two hundred twenty to two hundred sixty pounds, they're lower at forty dollars uh sows are steady three hundred five hundred pounds thirty four to thirty seven dollars going over to feeder cattle, beef steers - one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty dollars and two hundred to three hundred
[fade out]

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Crazy Credits

There is a credit for Sign Painter in the film, although it does not appear on the official site.

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Connections

Referenced in The 78th Annual Academy Awards (2006)

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Soundtracks

"Blues At The Fitz"
Music by Pat Donohue
Performed by Pat Donohue

User Reviews

Lake Wobigon Daze

A gentle piffle, "A Prairie Home Companion" is the Summer's most lovely find - a movie that is easy on the ears and seemingly made of sheary, impossible gossamer that would spindle or crush under a more heavy-handed production.

The impressive cast seems to be having a whole lot of fun - Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, Lindsay Lohan, LQ Jones et al all have perfunctory if labored singing voices, but it is scripter Garrison Keillor that is the thread that stitches this one together so well. The result is an infectious, genial collection of characters and occasions whose easy charms stay with the viewer days after the film finally unspools its last credit.

Although I have never heard a PHC performance before, the film plays as a tribute to the old days of radio shows and more over, a loving though chilly valentine to the radio days of old. Anyone old enough though not near an NPR station might not know the show but most certainly can hum the tune.

Keillor, he with an alien-like E.T. observation of the goings-on at the final performance of his 30+ year-old live radio show, has a wonderful announcer voice and an above average singing voice that anchors the honest, down home corn-pone credibility of the film. He is a cypher through the picture - a guy you could listen to for hours chat about his exploits, introduce faux commercials and sing a song about nothing in particular. GK has such an ethereal presence that you look at him with such amazement because a "regular" joe like he earns such a shorthand with his audience and can stand toe to toe with aplomb next to Oscar winners like Kline and Streep. It's a great, understated performance.

The movie, directed by the legendary Robert Altman, has such a light touch that it's hard to not fall easily into it's flow. It's dreamy, slight and surreal, yet sets up its universe that is vaguely of today - but what world still has an actual radio show broadcast across the nation so detailed and entertaining as this? Altman and Keillor do the amazing - they deny the audience of any cheap emotion and pathos or short cuts to pay off the scenario. As much as this movie is about the wistful honor and simple entertainment of such a radio programs that used to rule the airwaves in the 1930s through the 1950s, both writer and director refuse to pander to suspected emotional payoffs or happy endings that lesser film creators might. This is a cold, simple and honest movie about the last kick at the can of a venerable institution, and as they choreograph it: so what? Every show, as Keillor says in the film, is the last show. Big deal.

Despite it's frigid demeanor, "A Prairie Home Companion" is filled with warm, quiet moments that offers each cast member has a shining, sterling moment of performance - though none takes centre stage and overpowers or overacts. If anyone goes swinging for the balconies, its Altman regular Tomlin, who creates such a wonderful counterbalance to Streep's simple, honest Minnesotan singing sister partner that she stands as the picture's meta heart - a desperate, hardened yet proud woman backed into a career corner who doesn't know what to do after her regular job is prematurely retired by big radio business. Tomlin deserves an Oscar.

For a film that is steeped in a sentimentality that no longer exists, Altman keeps his sharpened artist eye wandering the set for the most interesting player in the room instead of mourning the sad gone before. There's no release in the movie, no eulogy for the past. "A Prairie Home Companion" is a straight-forward document of what was, not what could have been or what will be.

The director's brilliance is that his lens cares about what technical and bits of business that come to affect in the making of the final show which really tell the story - of a group of people who spend their Saturday nights singing songs, telling stories and transmitting their folksy well-wishes to an imaginary audience listening in on their bedside table radio. In the movie, Altman and Keillor let their staged audience seated in the cavernous Fitzgerald Theater in Minneapolis or those sitting in shoebox movie theater in Anywhere, USA fill in the relevance.

One of the best movies of the year.