A Prairie Home Companion

[MacGuffin]

Director Altman Is a Commanding Presence

Kevin Kline is in the zone. The Academy Award-winning actor is so focused on his role as hard-boiled gumshoe Guy Noir that he doesn't notice he's cut his finger as he shoots a scene for the "A Prairie Home Companion" movie in the lobby of the Fitzgerald Theater.

Decked out in a pinstriped suit and with his hair slicked back, Kline does take after take, adding funny asides under director Robert Altman's quiet gaze. Kline does a pratfall over a bar counter, pops the cork on a bottle of champagne and drinks a toast with "Saturday Night Live" actress Maya Rudolph, who's playing an assistant stage manager.

"I'm bleeding!" Kline declares at the end of a take.

He holds up a bloody left ring finger as his makeup artist applies a tissue to it.

"I'm surprised he didn't notice it," Rudolph says.

"Notice? Notice? I was acting!" Kline says, sounding like the Master Thespian.

Kline is among a bevy of stars including Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Lindsay Lohan, Woody Harrelson, Virginia Madsen and Tommy Lee Jones bringing life to Garrison Keillor's script about backstage goings-on at a not-too-fictional radio show.

Coupled with the legacy of Altman, whose films include "M-A-S-H" and "Nashville," it's a rare combination of star power as well as bringing Altman, a filmmaking maverick, together with Keillor, the creator-host of "A Prairie Home Companion," the variety show heard on public radio by more than 4 million listeners each week.

"He's a movie guy," Keillor says of the 80-year-old Altman. "The moment they started shooting this picture it's like he became 30 years younger. He's tremendously focused and capable."

Wearing a jogging suit and tennis shoes, the white-haired, goateed Altman is a commanding presence on the set. He allows the actors to improvise on Keillor's script, hustling them into position with an occasional call of "Let's boogie."

"With him (Altman), nothing's etched in stone. A script is a foundation, or a blueprint, kind of written in wet cement," says David Levy, one of the movie's producers.

It's a freedom that inspires admiration from the actors.

"It's more than the alpha male. You can feel he's a powerful man, and yet, he's so kind. There's a lot of love around him," says Madsen, who plays a mystery woman who may be the Angel of Death.

Madsen compares the "Prairie Home" set with that of the 2004 movie "Sideways," for which she received a supporting actress Oscar nomination.

"Everyone is so free. There's nobody with a bullhorn, nobody tapping their watch. And it's like, `Oh my God, it feels so good to make a movie this way.' Movies like this, they always turn out to be good," she says.

When a birthday cake is wheeled out for the pregnant Rudolph, who turned 33 on the last full day of shooting, she announces to her unborn baby: "I wish you'd come out just like Bob Altman."

"I like him a lot and I like his movies a lot, too. In every sense of the word, I'm a big Bob Altman fan," Rudolph says later in an interview.

Sitting next to Altman is Rudolph's boyfriend, Paul Thomas Anderson, whose own films "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" have drawn comparisons to Altman's work. Anderson's chair is labeled "Pinch Hitter," meaning he's ready to fill in should Altman become sick or unable to finish the picture. (That doesn't turn out to be necessary, and the movie wraps three days ahead of its 25-day schedule and on budget.)

Anderson, 35, calls working with Altman "dreamy."

"It's a gift, I guess, is the best way to say it," Anderson says, pausing while a scene outside the Fitzgerald is set up. "He's put up with my presence, and I just like being around him."

Keillor, 63, calls making the movie "one of the amazing experiences of my young life."

As in life, Keillor plays a radio announcer in the movie. It features Streep and Tomlin as the singing Johnson sisters, Lohan as Streep's daughter, Harrelson and John C. Reilly as singing cowboys Lefty and Dusty, and Jones as the Axeman, who's dispatched by the radio station's new corporate owners in Texas to shut down the show.

Keillor says Lohan is a "good comic actress." He recalls a scene in which the teen star runs at him with tears in her eyes and accuses him of being cold and unfeeling.

"And she wept onto the sleeve of my suit. I have a suit that has Lindsay's tears on it," Keillor says.

When Altman Keillor first talked about doing a movie on Lake Wobegon Keillor's fictional town where "the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average" Altman suggested a writer to Keillor, but that didn't work out.

"And I said, `You know, we should do your show, and you should write it. Because it's your humor, it's your sensibility. It's not mine.' And I've tried very hard to do his stuff rather than my own," Altman says.

Filming the movie at the elegantly restored Fitzgerald, the home base for Keillor's Saturday night radio show, and using the "Prairie Home" radio team helped make for a smooth production.

"It's just been one of those blessed shoots where everything worked and everything worked smoothly," says Tim Russell, who does voices for the "Prairie Home Companion" radio show and plays the stage manager in the movie.

The movie doesn't have a distributor yet, but an early 2006 release is planned.

Meanwhile, Keillor is getting ready for the Sept. 24 kickoff of another radio season. And he's eager to shoot another movie.

"I can't wait to do it. I've been working on the screenplay for years," he says.

[MacGuffin]

At 80, Robert Altman Still Filming

He moves slowly. His posture is slumped. But when it comes to making movies, 80-year-old Robert Altman has a young man's fire.

The director recently completed shooting a movie based on humorist Garrison Keillor's popular radio show "A Prairie Home Companion" on budget and three days ahead of schedule.

But there's little time to rest. Altman says he already has two more projects lined up "Hands on a Hardbody," about contestants who win a car by touching it the longest, and a movie version of "Resurrection Blues," one of the late Arthur Miller's last plays.

"I'll be doing this as long as I last and as long as people allow me to do it," says the white-goateed Altman, who appears fresh and clear-eyed after a nap on the last night of major shooting on the "Prairie Home" movie.

Altman has more than 30 movies to his credit and five Academy Award nominations for directing, though he hasn't won an Oscar. With his ensemble casts and use of overlapping dialogue which gives viewers the feeling of eavesdropping on real conversations Altman blazed a cinematic trail in the 1970s with "M-A-S-H" and "Nashville."

After stumbling with "Popeye" in 1980, Altman came back with "The Player" (1992), a Hollywood satire; "Short Cuts" (1993), a collection of Raymond Carver short stories; and the murder mystery "Gosford Park" (2001).

Altman got his start in television on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." He's hard-pressed to remember his influences, but knows what he would avoid:

"I would see a film and I'd think it's so bad, I'm never going to do this. So most of that influence that I've had is by directors whose names I don't know."

___

AP: How do you stay active at 80 years old and all these years in the business?

Altman: Well, what else would I do? Maybe sleep. No, it's what keeps me going. I love it. I have a terrific time at it. There's nothing I would rather do than play in this big sandpile.

AP: What attracted you to the "Prairie Home Companion" movie?

Altman: Well, actually, Garrison and I share a lawyer in New York. And when I was in Chicago shooting a dance film called "The Company" (the lawyer) contacted me and said Garrison was kind of interested in doing a film. And he (Keillor) liked my stuff.

AP: Were you a fan of "A Prairie Home Companion"?

Altman: My wife is a big fan, and I was very aware of Garrison and his stuff and listened to it quite a bit.

AP: How do you attract the stars that you do for a production like this, like Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin?

Altman: Well, I don't know. Lily I've known. She's the only one of these people I've worked with before. But I think it's reputation. I've done a lot of films. But I think Meryl came into this and wanted to do this because she got to sing. And I think all of them are the same way. They got an opportunity to do the kind of things that normally they don't do, they don't get invited to do.

AP: How did Lindsay Lohan get involved?

Altman: A lot of these actors are from the same agency of hers, and they called and said, "We'd love to put Lindsay in this thing. Is there a place for her?" And we made a place for her. Because she attracts an audience. We know that we're going to get all the "Prairie Home Companion" (fans).

AP: You'll catch a teenage crowd because Lindsay's in it.

Altman: Yeah, I mean there's that, and there's Meryl. And then also we'll attract the press. So it will be written about. Now whether it will be written about kindly will depend on what it is, what it looks like. And so far all the parts I'm very happy with. I haven't seen them together. I don't know what it's going to add up to. But my instinct and my experience tells me we've got a little diamond here.

AP: You've had movies that have been great popular and critical successes. But I like some of the almost cult films, like "O.C. and Stiggs."

Altman: Well, I've never had a big hit movie. "M-A-S-H" was probably the biggest. I don't make those kind of films, and I never have. I wish each one of them would just do billions of dollars worth of ticket sales, but they never do and they never will.

AP: Is it audience's taste?

Altman: I think it is audience ... The audience is teenage boys, 14-year-old boys. And I have never made a movie that's attracted a 14-year-old boy. The one I kind of went after, that was about them, was "O.C. and Stiggs," and that was a big flop.

AP: Does it seem like the directors who were critical favorites of the '70s, who forged new cinema, like yourself and Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, are the old guard now? You have Paul Thomas Anderson here on the set.

Altman: Well, his pictures are better than mine, and his pedigree is really better. But he's just doing me a big favor. I'm not insurable, because of my age. So I had to have a standby director, and I was shocked when Paul said that he would do that. I didn't even ask him. And he's a good friend of mine, and he's always been very generous to me. He says all his movies were just ripping me off. But he's just been great about it. Because otherwise, they had to have somebody that would take over in case I croaked.

AP: Would you ever hope for a directing Oscar or a lifetime achievement Oscar, or does it matter to you?

Altman: Oh, that (lifetime achievement) wouldn't interest me too much. That's just for longevity if that kind of thing happens. When you get into your 80s, that's when you're up for those awards. And they're all nice, and there's nothing wrong with them. ... But the Oscar for the films, it'd be nice. But I don't make those kind of films, and I don't think that will ever happen. And as Clark Gable said, "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn."


Director Robert Altman and actress Maya Rudolph munch White Castle hamburgers as they talk during the shooting of the movie version of "A Prairie Home Companion," about the popular radio show July 27, 2005 in St. Paul, Minn. Rudolph plays an assistant stage manager in the movie.

[Pubrick]

Altman: ... And as Clark Gable said, "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn."

i hereby declare altman PAST INVALIDATION DATE.

[MacGuffin]

Picturehouse wins itself a 'Companion'
By Anne Thompson, Hollywood Reporter

After a heated bidding war, Picturehouse has acquired all North American rights to "A Prairie Home Companion," written by radio host Garrison Keillor and directed by Robert Altman, it was announced Sunday by Bob Berney, president of Picturehouse.

Keillor plays himself in the backstage musical, which he wrote in close collaboration with Altman. Their mutual attorney, George Sheanshang, put the two men together; Keillor was planning to write about his famed Lake Wobegon, but Altman suggested instead a movie about Keillor's 30-year-old radio broadcast. Per usual, the 80-year-old veteran filmmaker was able to assemble a dream team of film stars to populate the stage of the famed Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn., where Keillor and his radio crew broadcast every Saturday night to some 35 million listeners stateside and around the world.
 
Meryl Streep and Altman veteran Lily Tomlin star in the film as singing sisters, teen fave Lindsay Lohan is Streep's daughter, Kevin Kline takes on the persona of the radio show's Guy Noir, John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson play two warbling cowboys, Virginia Madsen portrays a mysterious Angel of Death and Tommy Lee Jones is the corporate axeman who arrives to shut down the broadcast after its last live show. The on-stage performers sing songs written by Keillor and his musicians; a soundtrack album is expected.

"It's a variety show," said Altman, a longtime fan of Keillor's radiocast. "We wrote it as we went along. As we were casting people, he was rewriting constantly. This guy's a genius. We deferred to each other. He's been in charge of himself and his show for 30 years and so have I. So we suddenly had a monster with two heads." Altman finished the film ahead of schedule, in 22 days.

Writing and starring in his first movie "was a cakewalk," said Keillor, who attended the New York distributor screening Thursday night. (Another unspooled in Los Angeles on Friday). "Of course, I have no experience in film whatsoever. Mr. Altman was not interested in making a movie about a man coming home to a small town in the midwest. He was clear about that. He wanted to make (a) backstage fictional documentary about a radio show. It's a vanishing phenomenon; that intrigued him." Keillor has every intention of writing another script, possibly to star Kline as Guy Noir. "Meryl Streep thought that was a good idea and wanted to produce it," he said. "I have a few frying pans on the stove."

"The music folds in and drives the film," said Berney, who paid between $3 million and $4 million to acquire the movie. He plans a "grassroots-oriented" campaign next spring and summer to chase the infrequent moviegoers who attended both "The Passion of the Christ" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which he released at Newmarket Pictures and IFC Films, respectively. "As one of Altman's best and most hilarious films, it will work on both coasts. And Garrison Keillor has great middle-American appeal, too. The film has a small-town-in-summer feel."

"Companion" was produced by Altman's Sandcastle 5 Prods. and executive produced and cofinanced by GreeneStreet Films and River Road Entertainment. The sale will help Capitol Films sell foreign territories at the upcoming American Film Market.

Picturehouse, which is currently in postproduction on River Road's "Fur," beat out several bidders, including Fox Searchlight and Focus Features. Berney had been tracking the movie since Sheanshang sent him the script for the movie, which was independently financed with equity investors for less than $10 million.

The deal was brokered on behalf of Picturehouse, the joint venture of HBO and New Line Cinema, by Ben Zinkin, senior executive vp worldwide business and legal affairs; New Line Cinema; and Sara Rose, senior vp acquisitions at Picturehouse.

[MacGuffin]

Altman's 'Companion' in latest pic: high-def
Source: Hollywood Reporter

An array of digital production tools enabled director Robert Altman to take a roving look at "A Prairie Home Companion."

Based on the last broadcast of Garrison Keillor's celebrated radio series, "Companion," to be released in June by Picturehouse, marks the first time Altman shot a movie in high-definition video.

Altman wanted to be able to record for at least 30 minutes consecutively without reloading as some scenes in the film are as long as 23 minutes. The HD cameras also came in handy because some of the interior settings had low lighting levels.

Cinematographer Ed Lachman ("Far From Heaven") headed up the camera department, which used the first-generation Sony HDCAM F-900s with the latest Fujinon HD zoom lenses.

"The Fujinon lenses respond in a more filmic way," Lachman says. "There's a feeling of depth and warmth. They cover more of the frame than an ENG lens. The resolution and contrast is corrected up to the edges of the frame. There was more of a feeling of shape and depth to the image than with the other HD lenses we tested."

Ryan Sheridan, the production's HD engineer, says the crew employed lots of long, fluid shots.

"It was the perfect mix of live-performance camerawork and dramatic theatrical cinematography," Sheridan says. "(We were) able to capture everything from extreme close-ups to extreme wide shots with two lenses, and sometimes with just one."

A trimmed-down Evertz Fiber Optic single cabling system also helped to make the production more efficient and compact by consolidating numerous HD cables into a single fiber connection.

"We could run a camera outside and down the street, keeping it centrally controlled the entire time," says camera operator Robert Reed Altman, the director's son.

The cameras were fed back to two 20-inch HD monitors displaying both A and B cameras, and three Sony SRW-1 VTRs housed the footage.

[killafilm]

Altman's 'Companion' in latest pic: high-def
Source: Hollywood Reporter

An array of digital production tools enabled director Robert Altman to take a roving look at "A Prairie Home Companion."

Based on the last broadcast of Garrison Keillor's celebrated radio series, "Companion," to be released in June by Picturehouse, marks the first time Altman shot a movie in high-definition video.

What about The Company?

[polkablues]

Altman's 'Companion' in latest pic: high-def
Source: Hollywood Reporter

An array of digital production tools enabled director Robert Altman to take a roving look at "A Prairie Home Companion."

Based on the last broadcast of Garrison Keillor's celebrated radio series, "Companion," to be released in June by Picturehouse, marks the first time Altman shot a movie in high-definition video.

What about The Company?

Apparently the Hollywood Reporter is like most of us, and has forgotten all about it.

[MacGuffin]

'Prairie Home Companion' to Open Film Fest

"A Prairie Home Companion," director Robert Altman's screen adaptation of the longtime Garrison Keillor radio program, will open this year's South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas.

The movie, featuring Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan and Keillor himself, will make its North American premiere on March 10, festival organizers said Monday. The film is scheduled to arrive in theaters in June.

"I can't think of a more perfect opening night film than 'A Prairie Home Companion,'" said festival producer Matt Dentler. "Not only do you have great masters like Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor involved, but it's also a celebration of entertainment and the creative spirit."

The South by Southwest film festival, scheduled to run through March 18, also will feature the United States premiere of "The Notorious Bettie Page," starring Gretchen Mol as the famed pin-up girl; "loudQUIETloud: A Film About Pixies," a documentary about the rock band the Pixies' reunion tour; and "The King," starring William Hurt and Gael Garcia Bernal in a family drama set in small-town Texas.

[RegularKarate]

Maybe I'll be able to actually get into this one... it's the opening night film... those are hard to get into.
Maybe PT will be there... why wouldn't he?  C'mon... he should go!!  What if he does?  I think I might shit myself.

[Pozer]

Try your best to get in there, RK!  I've been fortunate enough to come in contact with P.T. twice now.  Got to talk to him quite a bit the 2nd time around.  Totally approachable and cool in the presence.  Make it happen!!!

[MacGuffin]

Altman premiere offers welcome comic relief at gritty Berlinale

Audiences at the Berlin Film Festival cheered the world premiere of a good-natured musical comedy by veteran US director Robert Altman with an all-star cast including Meryl Streep and Woody Harrelson.

"A Prairie Home Companion" offers a behind-the-scenes look at the wildly popular US radio show by Garrison Keillor, who also wrote the screenplay and co-stars in the film.

Streep leads Altman's ensemble cast as a country singer who regularly appears on the program with her sister (Lily Tomlin) and has long carried a torch for Keillor, in a sweet plot line the two play to hilarious effect.

She told a news conference she had long been a fan of the show, which has relied on the same winning formula of gentle humor and musical interludes from the American Midwest for three decades.

"I'm a very sophisticated, jaded, seen-it-all kinda gal who lives in New York City. There is something about the world that Garrison Keillor creates that locates a place in our childhood, in Americans' childhood. We grew up listening to the radio in a more innocent time," she said.

"For me it was really great to locate something true about America, something about the heart of it, and something that cuts across all levels of sophistication and humanity about who we are as Americans."

Streep said she had waited a lifetime to work with Altman, who said he was also drawn to a widely popular aspect of American culture at a time when the image of the United States was suffering around the world.

"I think it's very American," he said of the radio show.

"I think the main reason for its popularity, its uniqueness, is the fact that Garrison and company have done this show for the radio audience and they haven't aspired to do anything else but deliver this to this radio audience.

They haven't tried to become other than they are.

"We tried in the film to capture the soul of Garrison's humor, his way of communication and the show generally."

Several reporters said after a press screening that the film was a welcome relief after a rough start to the festival driven by hard-hitting political themes and bleak takes on human nature.

"A Prairie Home Companion" opens with a gentle Sam Spade send-up, as Kevin Kline plays Guy Noir, a trenchcoated security man hired to guard the theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the show is performed to a live audience.

"The show has been on the air since Jesus was in the third grade," he says, but delivers the news that the theater is to be shut down by a real estate developer (Tommy Lee Jones) who wants to build a parking lot.

The picture is buoyed along by Keillor's charming corny humor and the rich entertainment in the terrific old-time musical numbers performed by the actors.

"I didn't know that she did anything else but sing. When I hired her I didn't know she had acted before," Altman joked about Streep.

But Altman, who is to turn 81 this month and will be honored with a lifetime achievement Oscar on March 5, taps deeper themes of love, death, loss and the inevitable end to even the most extraordinary careers.

"A Prairie Home Companion" is one of 19 pictures in the running for the Golden Bear top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, running through February 19.

[MacGuffin]

Altman's Film Wasn't Political on Purpose

Director Robert Altman says his big screen adaptation of "A Prairie Home Companion" wasn't intentionally political, but "reflects the truth of what's going on in ourselves."

The film was in keeping with Garrison Keillor's tradition of weaving politics into his radio show, but not overtly so, Altman said.

"I don't think that you can make a piece of art or a song, or poem all of these reflect the kinds of feelings that rub off on us; reflect the truth of what is going on in ourselves," Altman said Sunday following a screening of the movie at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The film, a fictionalized account of the last broadcast of the 30-year-old radio show, tells the story of what happens when Keillor finds out he's been taken over by a big conglomerate.

Meryl Streep, Woody Harrelson and Kevin Kline, star alongside Keillor in the film, which was shot on location at Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the radio show is based.

Asked how he felt about being nominated for an Oscar recognizing his life's work, Altman said it was more important to him than receiving an award for an individual film.

"I'm very, very happy, very proud about that. I can't think of a better award," Altman said. "To me, it is better to be recognized for all my work than just for a couple of things."

Altman got best-director nominations for "M-A-S-H," "Nashville," "The Player," "Short Cuts" and "Gosford Park," but has never won an award.

[Pubrick]

Asked how he felt about being nominated for an Oscar recognizing his life's work,

haha, he still might lose.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer

[RegularKarate]

damn, what a shitty trailer... Could that narration be any worse?

I wish that trailer had come out a week later, after I've seen the movie.