A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
US, 2006, 100 minutes, Colour
Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson, L.Q. Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keilor, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madson, Maya Rudolph, Tim Russell, Lily Tomlin.
Directed by Robert Altman.
For thirty years or more, commentators have written about films having an Altmanesque style. They mean that the film often has long takes, that characters intersect, talk, talk over each other, pass by and that the director does not mind whether we can see and hear everything exactly. Rather, he wants us to share the experience in its complexity, getting as much out of it as we can but never mind if we miss some of the detail.
Looking back, we know that Nashville (his masterpiece?), A Wedding, The Player, Short Cuts, Kansas City, Cookie’s Fortune, Gosford Park, The Company, all work in this way. Now, at age 80, he has made a wonderfully typical Altmanesque entertainment, A Prairie Home Companion.
It is well worth seeing and enjoying. It is a celebration of life. And it has a strong sense of humour.
The person responsible for the humour is longtime broadcaster and writer, Garrison Keilor. His Lake Woebegone stories are a delight to read as mixtures of homespun and shaggy dog stories as well as literate writing. He has broadcast A Prairie Home Companion for over thirty years before a live audience. We now have the chance to share something of what that live audience has enjoyed.
Keilor himself appears as himself and lives up to his reputation even though he is a somewhat fictionalised character. For the film’s purposes and for a sense of dramatic edge, the story concerns the closing of the show, the bulldozing of the theatre (filmed in Keilor’s theatre with many of his regular cast, band and stage hands) for a car park. This is the last show before a Texas millionaire (Tommy Lee Jones) takes over. The spirit of the last show, the hope that it might be saved and the camaraderie between the players as well as their performances (and jokes and the singing of commercials) is what makes up the film.
It opens like a film noir with a private detective’s voiceover in a diner. Actually, the character is one created years back by Keilor, Guy Noir, who is now security for the theatre. As played by Kevin Kline, he is often hilarious, too serious by half, yet clumsy and deadpan. Dapperly dressed, he fumbles and pratfalls very much like Inspector Clouseau (and Kline had just come from his role as Inspector Dreyfuss to Steve Martin’s Clouseau in the remake). He also encounters a mysterious woman in a trenchcoat (Virginia Madsen) who turns out to be a fan, now dead, who is something of a guardian angel (with the touch of the avenging angel).
There are two groups of country and western singers. Two sisters, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, do quite a few numbers – Meryl Streep enjoying herself and letting loose. Lindsay Lohan is also there as her daughter. The other group consists of Dusty and Lefty who also do some numbers including the hilariously crass song, Bad Jokes (penned by Keilor). They are exuberantly played by Woody Harrelson and John C.Reilley.
This is a tribute to radio, live radio, the audiences, the homespun humour and music of the American mid-west and its values.
1.The acclaim for the film? Joy? Celebration? Americana – humour, folksy? Yet with irony, affirmation?
2.The film as Altmanesque – the big cast, the fluid camera style, the fluid style of the film, interweaving characters, situations, dialogue?
3.The personality of Garrison Keilor, his history, radio, stories, Lake Woebegone? The folksy touch for the Midwest? The country and western music? His comedy, irony? The characters he created, like Guy Noir? Playing before a life audience for so many decades? The sounds, the effects? His band? Writing the screenplay, wit and imagination, performance, the fictitious persona? His relationship with Guy, with the singers, with his staff? The audience? The sponsors?
4.The program, the title? The Midwest? The audience over the years for this program? The celebration of life, the celebration of the program? The closure? The millionaire from Texas, pulling down the theatre, the carpark? The Texan without regrets? The comment that people could get different jobs, would have to move on? The issue of what was lost by the closure of the program?
5.Guy Noir and the opening soliloquy, the private eye thriller? The diner, the lighting? Kevin Kline as Guy Noir, his appearance, his explanation of himself, his private detection, loss of his job, security for the program and the theatre? Well dressed, his dapper manner? Yet his Inspector Clouseau gaffes and pratfalls? Checking security, with the various members of the cast? His seeing the angel, his reaction, flirtatious, puzzled? With Garrison Keilor? The discussions about death? Coping? His gaffes with Loretta, her pregnancy? The phone call – with her standing by? The end – and his finger towards the angel trying to see who was to die? Giving a tone to the film?
6.The character of the angel – and her strange presence throughout the film? Virginia Madson, the glamorous blonde, the trench coat? Her different appearances, gliding through the theatre? Guy Noir’s explanation, her going to the church? Coming back to the theatre, wandering? The people who saw her and those who didn’t? Guy Noir seeing her, Keilor seeing her, the lunch lady? The others not? The mystery of who she was, why she was there? The plainness of her story, the car crash, her listening to the program? Her inability to understand and laugh at the penguin joke? Her discussions, explanation of her death, her being an angel? Her wanting to do good, share the happiness of life, care? Chuck’s death and her helping him? The discussions with the Axeman? In the car, his accident? Her wanting to save the program – but not saving it? Her final reappearance in the diner?
7.The Johnson family, Yolanda and Rhonda? Lola as the daughter? Strong characters? Their caring for each other? Symbolic of the other performances on the program? Arrival, their performance, their talk amongst themselves, the reminiscences, the story of their family, the older sisters who stopped singing, their mother teaching them to sing? Their nostalgia for performances? Their singing, the commercials, the songs? Their on-stage personalities, the two sisters complementing each other as they talked? Yolanda and her past relationship with Garrison Keilor, the edge to her interactions with him? Sentiment, Yolanda’s love for her daughter, Lola and her age, writing the poems, the theme of suicide? Reading her poems and people’s reaction? Her going on-stage, singing Frankie and Johnny, needing prompts for the lines? Her becoming an agent, coming into the diner, her matter-of-fact treatment of the family?
8.The various singers, Linda and Robin Williams? Their performances? Jearlyn and the commercials, her songs, her strong and buoyant personality? Chuck and his song? The band and their skills? The focus on the conductor, his piano-playing? The individuals?
9.The sound effects man – and the comedy of his five minutes of doing all the sound effects, improvising, his skills? Humour?
10.Chuck, his age, the flirtation with the lunch lady? His going down after the performance, preparing for the meeting of the lady? Ready for death, the angel helping him to die? His lying there, Dusty and Lefty finding him, Guy Noir and his awkward reaction? The lunch lady, the discussion with the angel? Her grief at Chuck’s death?
11.Dusty and Lefty, as personalities, working together, rivalry? The floor manager and his exasperation with Lefty’s vulgarity? The lassos, the songs? Their popularity? The Bad Joke song and the hilarious bad jokes? Coping with Chuck’s death?
12.The floor manager, the staff, the functioning of the program? Loretta, hard, her pregnancy? Her pretending that she was giving birth? Exasperation with Keilor, with Guy Noir – and the humorous phone call?
13.The Axeman, the Texan background, his reaction to the program? His saying that life must go on and change? His accidental death?
14.The place of radio in American media history, live radio, the audience? The exuberance? A 20th century art form – gone but celebrated?
