A Prairie Home Companion

A Prairie Home Companion
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Altman
Produced by	Robert Altman Fisher Stevens
Written by	Garrison Keillor
Starring	Garrison Keillor Woody Harrelson L. Q. Jones Tommy Lee Jones Kevin Kline Lindsay Lohan Virginia Madsen John C. Reilly Maya Rudolph Meryl Streep Lily Tomlin
Music by	Garrison Keillor
Cinematography	Edward Lachman
Distributed by	Picturehouse New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	June 9, 2006
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$10 million
Box office	$25,978,442

A Prairie Home Companion is a 2006 ensemble comedy directed by Robert Altman. It was Altman's final film; he died in November 2006. The movie is a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities at the long-running public 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 holds both radio station "WLT" and the theater where the show is broadcast. The film takes place on the night of the show's last performance. The show has two visitors: an angel calling herself Asphodel (Virginia Madsen) comes to comfort the people who work on the show and to escort one of them to the afterlife, while "the Axeman" (Tommy Lee Jones), a representative of the new owners, arrives to judge whether the show should be canceled. He makes it clear that the show 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 reunited at Mickey's Diner. Their conversation pauses as they are joined by Asphodel, leaving the implication that she has arrived for another (or others)^[1] of their number.

Cast

• Garrison Keillor (the show's creator) as himself
• Meryl Streep as Yolanda Johnson (Streep later appeared on the actual radio show, reprising this role)
• Lily Tomlin as Rhonda Johnson, sister of Yolanda. They are from Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the last two members of a bygone family country music act
• Lindsay Lohan as Lola Johnson, who writes about suicide. She is Yolanda's daughter
• Woody Harrelson as Dusty, a cowboy
• John C. Reilly as Lefty, a cowboy
• 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 as the stage manager
• Maya Rudolph as the assistant stage manager
• Robin and Linda Williams as themselves (singing duo)
• Tom Keith as the Sound-Effects Guy
• Sue Scott as the Make-Up Artist

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.^[2][3][4] Using the working title The Last Show, principal photography for the film began on June 29, 2005, at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. 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 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 downtown St. Paul landmark, 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."

Reception

Critics

A Prairie Home Companion opened the 2006 South by Southwest film festival on March 10, then premiered in St. Paul, on May 3, 2006, at the Fitzgerald Theater, which had projection and sound equipment brought in for that purpose. The film's stars arrived in ten horse-drawn carriages. Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News anchored his newscast from neighboring Minneapolis, Minnesota that night so that he would be able to attend.

Critics' general reaction to the film was favorable, and it garnered an 81% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. 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",^[5] and later added the film to his "Great Movies" list.^[6]

Michael Medved gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying, "The entertainment value stands somewhere between thin and nonexistent" and "[it may be] the worst movie ever made that pooled the talents of four (count ‘em – four!) Oscar winners"^[7]

Desson Thomson from The Washington Post fell in between, saying in a review headlined "Honey, You Could Ask For More" (a reference to the theme song of the radio show and film) that while the movie had its strengths, it was weaker than it should have been.^[8]

Awards

Meryl Streep won the Best Supporting Actress Award from the National Society of Film Critics for her role; Altman was also posthumously nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Director.

Box office

The film had a successful limited release in the United States and grossed $20,338,609 domestically and $25,978,442 worldwide.

Home media

The DVD was released on October 10, 2006. Special features included deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes documentary, and commentary by Altman and Kline. A Prairie Home Companion Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on May 23, 2006, by New Line.

References

External links

• Official site
• A Prairie Home Companion at the Internet Movie Database
• A Prairie Home Companion at Box Office Mojo