A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION

Since my teenage years, I have always had a strong affinity for old-time radio. To this day, the radio in my truck can often be found tuned in to the Sirius Radio Classics network. It’s an amazingly underrated art form that, sadly, for the most part, was forced into retirement with the advent of the television. One of the few outliers from the golden age of radio was a weekly 2-hour variety show called A Prairie Home Companion that aired every Saturday, broadcasting out of Minnesota. It was hosted by Garrison Keillor and it originally ran from 1974 to 1987 (it would be revived in 1992 and air through 2016). The show appealed largely to a mid-western audience and featured a variety of country, bluegrass, and folk music mixed with recurring comedy skits and storytelling.  

The legendary Robert Altman (M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player) would produce and direct his final film, A Prairie Home Companion, in 2006. It tells an imaginary tale where we watch the ”players” from the radio show go about their regular weekly on-air and off-air shenanigans, aware that the performances they are going to give will most likely be their last. Their long-running weekly show is being canceled due to a Texas corporate buyout of the theater from whence the show is broadcast. It seems the theater will be turned into a parking lot for better profit.  

Altman is renowned for allowing his actors to improvise and for allowing the chaos of normalcy to be appreciated. This film allows him an immense canvas upon which he can spread his story-telling style and draw upon an incredibly talented cast to pull it off. 95 of the film's total 105 minutes play out in real time. The viewer is truly immersed in the on-stage and back-stage happenings at the theater for almost the entirety of the film.  

Altman casts the real-life Prairie Companion host, Garrison Keillor, as GK, host of his movie’s version of the same radio show. Keillor is perfection as he calmly navigates keeping a “live” radio show moving forward, while never allowing for dead-air as those around him make mistakes or miss their cues. As he interacts with characters backstage, he conjures up more origins for his start in radio than Heath Ledger had origins for his interpretation of the Joker! Those at home listening to the radio show are treated to the singing Johnson Sisters (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin), the off-color cowboys Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly), and singer Chuck Akers (L.Q. Jones) among others. Many of the real-life radio Prairie Companion players are featured as background performers in the movie.

One of the many things I loved about this film is that it includes several ambiguous characters who challenge the viewer’s imagination with the events that are unfolding. One’s mind must be open to integrating anachronistic and/or supernatural characters within the confines of storytelling being weaved in real-time. The movie is set in 2006, yet relies upon a 1940’s 1940s-style gumshoe (Kevin Kline) to serve as the film's orator. A “dangerous woman” (Virginia Madsen) wanders about the backstage of the theater, interacting with the living, while representing the deceased. These characters challenge conventional perception and force the viewer to engage in the same mind-bending openness that old-time radio used to elicit. Sometimes we don’t need everything spelled out. Sometimes a story is best if it can be interpreted in many ways… with none of those ways being right or wrong. This story swirls with the inevitabilities of endings and beginnings.

I’m blown away by this film. It’s not perfect. It’s not even Oscar-worthy of being a Best Picture. But it is thought-provoking, extremely enjoyable, and art in its purest sense. It speaks. Whether you want to hear what it has to say… well, that’s up to you.