Prairie Home Companion, A

Synopsis: A comic backstage story about a live radio variety show on its farewell performance, that amidst the laughs contemplates the nature of the end of things.

A Prairie Home Companion is another unique Altman blend of stylized naturalism. It's an energetic reflection on the end of things, and the beginning of things, with the trademark gaggle of great performers.

Garrison Keillor wrote and stars in this fictionalized story of Garrison's real radio variety show (Keillor parodied Altman on the real Companion with a skit on a film called "People Standing Around Talking and Using Hand Gestures"), which is often performed live from the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul, Minnesota. In Altman's film, the show is about to be closed after the radio station has been bought out. The performers and supporters come together on closing night for the ebb and flow of layered conversations on their lives as performers of country and western, bluegrass, gospel and comedy songs. The filming in the theatre and cosy dressing rooms gives a sense of intimacy, as if we are both appreciative audience to the live stage performance as well as flies-on-the-wall backstage.

Altman is definitely one of the masters at bringing a little sophistication to such a scenario. His film is a celebration of music and friendship, with Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as country music sisters, Lindsay Lohan as Streep's nihilist daughter, Woody Harrelson and John C Reilly as singing cowboys, Kevin Kline as the noir security guard and Virginia Madsen as an enigmatic stranger in a white trenchcoat. Even Tommy Lee Jones arrives to cast his critical eye over proceedings as the take-over man. Altman somehow manages to bring these well-known faces together without overburdening the story with the distraction of celebrity-spotting.

The film flows energetically between conversational vignettes and musical/comedy segments as characters move between their dressing rooms and the stage. The performers face the end of their run with humour and pathos, whilst the enigmatic, angelic figure played by Viriginia Madsen infuses proceedings with the theme of all things having their alloted time. Keillor's mellifluous tones bind it all together with a seemingly effortless stream of concocted advertisements, introductory spiels and tunes, and, backed up by his indefatigable sound-effects man, ad-libbing when things go awry.

A Prairie Home Companion creates all the wonder and energy of live variety radio along with the sense of lregret that we audiences have mostly abandoned this form of homely entertainment.

 

 

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