Prairie Home Companion (2006, USA, Robert Altman)

Another episode of Ben and Dan being in nearly full agreement as to the merits of a film. Ho hum.



Ben sed:

Nashville meets A Mighty Wind. Which is redundant to the extent that Christopher Guest is pretty clearly a student of Altman in the first place. The point of my tagline is to indicate that APHC does not have any of the critical edge of Nashville (duh!), but nor does it go over to the full parody (albeit untimately tender) of A Mighty Wind. It's sensibility resides far to the middle of pointed social commentary and also far to the middle of mockumentary. In other words, we are dealing with extremely ironic nostalgia.

As I understand it, Keilor has had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek since day one of his show, already a facsimille of a long-dead cultural entity. So the film is a paean to a paean to the lost power of radio to unite otherwise isolated people through honest-to-goodness country music, comforting homily, crackerbarrel wit and all round agricultural wholesomeness. In short, it's a joke. But a loving one.

How successfully the film captures the spirit of the radio show is something I know nothing about, as I have never even heard a single broadcast. But I suspect at least something of the radio flavor is achieved to the extent the Keilor himself is so very present. He sticks out like a sore thumb among all the attractive and/or famous actors, but that works for him rather than against him as far as I'm concerned. He cracked me up. As did Streep and Tomlin. They are completely comfortable in Altman's open-script universe and they really hit it off. I liked Kevin Kline too (always have), indeed, the ensemble as a whole was very personable, as loveable as any slightly disfunctional family at the benevloent heart of comedy. I wanted to hang out with them too. It really boils down to that. So, I agree with the box that it is " a delightful, engaging movie" and disagree with Monic and Jacob who were too stupid to grasp that it's their own fault for being bored because "there is no story." (The angle is quite dumb though.)

I have to run to the dentist now, so this has to conclude. I just want to say that from the stylistic and technical side, it is very easy to take what Altman does for granted, especially in one of his lighter offerings. But there is always some remarkable uses of the camera to facilitate the naturalistic quality he establishes. APHC is not a brilliant piece of cinematography. Yet, there are neat things going on and at the deeper aesthetic level, Altman always achieves a unity of form and content. So long, Robert.


And Dan:

I'm so glad you were able to get into the spirit of the piece. I had a great time, in no small part due to the fact that I was able to tune into and groove on Keillor's wavelength. Like you, I've never heard his radio show, but (unlike you?) I have read some of his stuff, like Lake Wobegon Days, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I quite like that dry Scandinavian wit, that cool, emotionally detached approach to life (what's the joke he tells in the film? If you're feeling happy, just wait awhile, it'll pass), there's just so much unspoken angst and despair beneath it all (hello Mr. Bergman, you can have a seat in the front row). And as you and I have rhapsodized about Ms. Streep so often, you don't really need me to get into her performance much more than for me to note that she kicked it, yet again. That moment relatively late in the film when she walks behind Keillor and gives him a look worthy of a Medusa cracked me up. She's brilliant. And not a bad singer, either.

The angel WAS dumb, and while I do enjoy looking at Virginia Madsen (she's not much of an actress, I'm afraid), she really only had one even slightly interesting moment (the discussion of the penguin joke) and could have been excised without costing the film a thing. And while I do enjoy Kline's work, his character felt out of place here, as the noir conventions did not really fit with the nostalgia/paeon to the past thing that defines the rest of the film. That said, Kline is always watchable, and he gave the film some amusing moments, even if overall his character was a bit forced.

As you say, it's easy to gloss over just how much artistry there is in a minor Altman film like this, particularly when it seems like the film is really more of a Keillor show than an Altman production. But cinematographic concerns aside, just consider the challenge of keeping all these performers moving around and through this story, while maintaining the appearance of the kind of spontaneity that would define an actual live concert, not to mention the challenge of insuring tonal consistency for a performance that's supposed to take place over a couple of hours, but actually takes several weeks to film. These are things that most of us take for granted, but really this is no mean accomplishment; the film really flowed with apparent effortlessness from piece to piece, and it felt like the whole thing transpired over those few hours.