A Prairie Home Companion
Short description
A Prairie Home Companion is set during the final broadcast of a long-running American radio variety show. The theatre that houses the station has been sold to a Texas conglomerate, and a representative has been sent to shut the operation down, so the performers and crew gather for one last performance of music, comedy and song. Among them are the Johnson sisters, Yolanda and Rhonda, a country duo whose career has faded; Yolanda's daughter Lola; the singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty; and the show's host, GK. The security man Guy Noir keeps watch backstage. The film follows the preparations and the broadcast itself as the cast faces the end of the program.
Robert Altman directed, from a screenplay by Garrison Keillor, and the film was produced by Tony Judge, Wren Arthur and David Levy. It was Altman's twenty-first feature, following The Company in 2003. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin play the Johnson sisters, with Lindsay Lohan as Lola, Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as Dusty and Lefty, and Keillor as GK. Around forty performers and fifty crew members are credited.
Made for about ten million dollars, the film took roughly twenty-six million worldwide. On IMDb it holds a critics' rating of 7.1 from 198 reviews, while on TMDB it has 6.3 from around 330 votes, a gap that suggests critics responded more warmly than the wider public did.
What's left behind the scenes
- Director Paul Thomas Anderson, who repeatedly called Robert Altman his cinematic mentor, served as a second-unit director on this film. His duties included observing the work process, assisting with filming, and Anderson was to become the primary director of the film in the event of Altman's incapacitation, as Altman was 80 years old at the time of filming.
- Instead of recording their parts in a studio, the cast performed live on stage, playing musical instruments and singing before a real audience. Afterward, director Robert Altman asked the audience which takes they preferred.
- The film was shot primarily at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul (a city in Minnesota where the radio show 'Prairie Sputnik' actually airs), where prop dressing rooms were constructed.
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