A Prairie Home Companion (2007)

Director: Robert Altman
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, John C. Reilly, Virginia Madsen, Lindsay Lohan, Kevin Kline
Released 05-01-2007

Had Robert Altman not died last November, this film would not perhaps have had the attention it received. Recent reviews surmised that this was certainly not Altman at his best and for some the film was a complete failure. His death inevitably brings a certain level of poignancy to the proceedings and certainly considering the story itself. The final broadcast of a radio show some 30 years after it had begun meant that it many ways for British audiences at lest the film had certain sentimentality it might otherwise have avoided. But if anything this only enhances the films appeal and quality. As the final scenes play out your left with an uncontrollable realisation that as this is the final time these characters will ever perform they are also the final scenes of one of America’s most powerful, enduring and influential filmmakers. Altman defined hi career by breaking with convention, overlapping dialogues, loose unplotted narratives and improvisational dialogue always made Altman’s films sometimes hard to engage with for certain audiences. Here though they work to fantastic effect. As the film opens and we are introduced to the performer’s dialogues overlap, the camera zips about using zoom and continually handheld achieving and intimacy with the characters almost immediately. Altman’s us of mirrors in the set design at times show the faces of the characters up to three or four times in a single frame. Ironic that you should spend so much time looking and watching these characters when their real life counterparts are only ever heard on the radio show. Garrison Keillor here playing himself is the anchor around whom everybody moves. The host of the show he is by far the most interesting character. His wealth of experience and servitude to the show creeps out over the course of the film as he tells anecdotes and stories about his past on this nostalgic evening.
Altman’s unique, original style also enhances the performances. By not using traditional shooting styles the actors are constantly in character. Never able to full out of it, delivering lines in a free and naturalised way, never saving lines for their close up, which invariably never comes. Altman using a continuing master shot for most scenes zooming in a specific moments and cutting to other cameras on to shape a scene and bring it together. The benefit of this approach and technique is that it’s sometimes hard to tell who’s an actor and whose playing themselves. It allows for some great moments in the background whilst over character’s sing or deliver lines in the foreground of the frame. One particular example sees singers on stage performing the radio show whilst in the wings others jokes around and have unheard conversations
As for the ensemble, every character brings such naturalised brilliance to the show that to an untrained eye they might not even look like their acting. The characters your connect with most are the long standing acts, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin play Yolanda and Rhonda, singing sisters whose chemistry creates and endearing relationship but their performances are so strong they are as captivating when alone. Lindsay Lohan proves her acting credentials with a subdued yet mesmerising performances as Lola, Yolanda’s daughter who writes poetry about suicide and performs with gusto and humour towards the end of the film. Tommy Lee Jones is brief but brilliant as “The Axeman”, a corporate suit who has come to shut down the show, Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly play Dusty and Lefty, lewd and mischievous cowboy’s who bring a playful boyish humour to the show. Kevin Kline adds surreal fantasy and some slapstick humour but never feels out of place with a perfectly performed role as Guy Noir, a 1930’s private eye who becomes fascinated in a way only a nourish hero can with Virginia Madsen. Delivering a curiously intriguing performance of mystical beauty as she floats around the characters as the Angel of Death. Yet another idea added poignancy by Altman’s death. A few particular lines are also coated in poignancy such as “The death of an old man is no tragedy”; Altman was 81, and on the announcement of a death of a performer Keillor responds to Lola pleading about announcing on the show that he “don't want them to be told to remember me”.

For Altman’s swansong he couldn’t have made a better film. Moments of pure joy are scattered about in an emotional, poignant and beautiful farewell for A Prairie Home Companion. We all die, as Garrison Keillor proclaims but like the final show itself Altman went out on a high.