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.
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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."
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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.
Quote from: macageAltman: ... And as Clark Gable said, "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn."
i hereby declare altman PAST INVALIDATION DATE.
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.
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.
Quote from: MacGuffin on December 13, 2005, 11:51:40 PM
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?
Quote from: killafilm on December 14, 2005, 09:08:57 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on December 13, 2005, 11:51:40 PM
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.
'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.
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.
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!!!
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.
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.
Quote from: MacGuffin on February 13, 2006, 08:07:15 PM
Asked how he felt about being nominated for an Oscar recognizing his life's work,
haha, he still might lose.
Trailer here. (http://www.aprairiehomecompanionmovie.com/trailer/trailer_lg.mov)
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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.
i didnt think i could've been less interested in this, but now i am.
regularkarate, you from austin?
i've listened to npr for ages already, but i just moved to austin svereal months ago and have since had my first opportunities to listen to a prarie home companion. i have a love-hate relationship with that show. i can never find garrison keillor's voice any less pompous. but as for the show itself...well, i love the guy noir and the librarian bits.
anyways, yeah it's north american premiere is opening up the sxsw festival...i've half-heartedly thought about going, but i'm sure it's been sold out for a while already.
heads up, mod: altman is doing a screening/discussion at the Museum of the Moving Image (astoria) in april.
Thanks for the warning about the trailer, RK. I'll skip it for now. Will you be at the premiere on Friday?
Trailer: very shitty
Anticipation: still very highly
what was so shitty about the trailer? i didn't think it was that bad
Quote from: Ghostboy on March 07, 2006, 12:06:08 AM
Thanks for the warning about the trailer, RK. I'll skip it for now. Will you be at the premiere on Friday?
Yes, I will be there, hoping that PT shows up.
Quote from: Xidentity Crixax on March 06, 2006, 11:49:52 PM
heads up, mod: altman is doing a screening/discussion at the Museum of the Moving Image (astoria) in april.
where'd you find information about this/how do i get a muthafuckin ticket?!
it's be great if you go into the theater, there will just be a parrot sitting there, and then you realize you've walked into the showing of "A Pirate Home Companion."
I just saw this.
PT wasn't there, unfortunately... and because he was busy with a play, Altman wasn't there, BUT John C. Reilly was and HE SAT RIGHT NEXT TO ME!
I ended up just giving him a hurried and panicked thank-you-for-being-awesome handshake on the way out.
anyway, the movie was pretty damn entertaining. It's not at all an insult when I say that my grandmother would love it. It was so obviously written by Keillor yet at the same time so obviously an Altman film. It was funnier than the radio show usually is, but still the same kind of humor and when the drama elements kick in, it gets a little cheesy, but it's so whimsical that it doesn't matter much.
In the end, I laughed a lot, but it's unlikely to end up on any top ten lists. And if there was any evidence of PT in it, it was burried by it's Altmaness... though I think there were a few shots that if given a different soundtrack and maybe overcranked a little looked like they could have been in a PT movie.
PT is in the Special Thanks... above everyone else. I clapped when I saw his name... so did one other person in the theater. JC probably thought I was retarded or something.
I am truly envious of you.
i am truly envious of all the people who just spent 2 1/2 hours with PT. the movie sounds like kind of a snooze.
I figured that might be you clapping, RK - I looked for you afterwards, but didn't see you.
The movie is awesome - but people who aren't familiar with the show are going to wonder what the big deal is.
New Trailer here. (http://progressive.stream.aol.com/aol/us/moviefone/movies/2006/aprairiehomecompanion_023097/aprairiehomecompanion_trlr_01_dl.mov)
So, Garrison Keillor will be on campus and giving a lecture later that same day (April 13) and I have nothing to say to him besides, "what was Altman like?!" :(
'A Prairie Home Companion'
Lindsay Lohan and other big names move into Lake Wobegon.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Robert Altman comes full circle with his latest film, "A Prairie Home Companion," which opens June 9. The ensemble comedy with music is based on Garrison Keillor's homespun 31-year-old radio show from American Public Media.
The veteran filmmaker, 81, began his career as a radio show writer. "This was in California," says Altman, who received an honorary Oscar this year. "I was experimenting and trying to write. I did one script for 'A Man Called X' — Herbert Marshall's series. I sold some other pieces. Then television raised its ugly head and wiped radio out. I went into industrial and documentary film."
The folksy Keillor and Altman happen to share the same attorney. "I was in Chicago shooting 'The Company,' a dance film, and our lawyer came to me and said, 'Garrison would love to talk to you. He'd like to make a movie.' We had dinner in Chicago."
Originally, Keillor wanted to make a film about Lake Wobegon, the fictional Minnesota hometown he brings vividly to life on the radio show.
"He's just a genius, you know," says Altman of Keillor. "I got to thinking about why don't we do his show. And that is what we did."
Shot at the home of "A Prairie Home Companion" — the jewel-box Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn., the film follows the fictional final broadcast of the series — the radio station has been bought up by a Texas company that is tearing down the theater to put up a parking lot.
Keillor's GK doesn't want to make a big deal about the show ending. But his cast is upset.
Besides Keillor, who comes across as a sort of hulking Jimmy Stewart, the movie features Kevin Kline as a dapper but klutzy Guy Noir, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as the singing sister duo Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson, Lindsay Lohan as Yolanda's pessimistic daughter, John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson as singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty, and Virginia Madsen as the angel of death.
Altman says it wasn't difficult to bring a radio show to life for the big screen. "His show is not just a radio show," says Altman. "There is always an audience, so it is played for an audience."
A Little Synergy on the 'Prairie'
Garrison Keillor's voice fuses with Robert Altman's vision as the homey radio hit "A Prairie Home Companion" goes Hollywood.
Source: Los Angeles Times
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For 30 years, Garrison Keillor has spent his Saturday nights putting on an old-fashioned radio show, "A Prairie Home Companion," the live variety program heard nationwide by 4 million listeners. But while building an institution by raising Midwestern self-deprecation and subversively folksy tongue-in-cheek storytelling to an art form, he's been harboring celluloid dreams — which is how his base at the Fitzgerald Theater was transformed last summer into the set of Robert Altman's latest film, "A Prairie Home Companion," opening June 9.
"This has been my ambition for years, to write for a dramatic medium," Keillor said. "Because I'm no good at it, and one aspires to do what one cannot do. I still have a hard time writing dialogue, because I come from people who didn't talk. We sat and chewed our food, looked out the window."
Keillor originally approached Altman with the idea of making a movie based on the characters of Lake Wobegon, the mythical Minnesota town where much of his storytelling is based, after a development deal at Disney fell apart. But after Altman and his wife, Katherine, a longtime Keillor fan, attended a live taping of "A Prairie Home Companion" on one of its regular tours across the country (it'll be at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday), the 81-year-old Altman decided that he'd rather make a movie about the onstage drama and backstage dynamics surrounding the making of a radio show. As he did in his last film, "The Company" (2003), a faux documentary about a season in the life of a troupe modeled after Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, Altman wanted to immortalize an ephemeral art form on screen.
So Keillor, 63, imagined a last night in the life of a program much like his own, "turning the show inside out" by writing a scenario based on real and imagined "Prairie Home Companion" personalities. Writing a fictional documentary about himself was, Keillor said, "an odd assignment. But I was intrigued by the idea. And I was 60 years old. When you're 60, you kind of think to yourself, 'This chance may not come again.' "
Regulars Sue Scott and Tim Russell play a fictional makeup artist and a stage manager, respectively. Regular chanteuse Jearlyn Steele plays herself. Dusty and Lefty, the singing cowboys — character sketches incarnated on the radio by Keillor himself — are reborn in the hilarious duo of Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly. "Prairie Home Companion" icon Guy Noir is now the theater's hapless security guard, played by Kevin Kline in 1940s attire. And central to the story are country music sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin) and Yolanda's daughter, Lola (Lindsay Lohan). The show's live audiences were replaced here by local volunteers.
All but two scenes were shot inside the Fitzgerald, which had been only lightly art-directed for its screen debut.
"The whole movie is inside — this is all in Keillor's mind," Altman said on a shooting break, sitting in a golf cart on the sidewalk outside the stage door that served as his way station in the 97-degree heat. "This has gotta be his humor, his tempo. I can't make up my own jokes. This is really about Garrison Keillor and his sense of humanity and his sensibility and his politics. All I'm doing is coming in and interpreting it. This guy's been in charge for 30 years. He has never, ever not been fully in charge of everything, except this movie. I have to see that he is in charge."
"No, he's the master of this world," Keillor insisted later from a glass-encased VIP lounge at the back of the theater that had been built by the art department for a scene in which Tommy Lee Jones — playing a broadcasting executive — comes to shut down the show. "Bob has an amazing, specific vision. He's here painting his picture with some materials that I've provided. But he has the upper hand and so, you know, that's good to know, so we don't have to fight. We know who makes the final cut."
This was how two of America's most singular voices found a common language, each calling the other one boss and going about his work. "They're two great forces coexisting," said Richard Dworksy, the house music director, who improvises onstage while Keillor performs, and a local boy whose parents owned the theater until 1983. "There's very courteous diplomacy going on."
"Keillor and Altman are a real natural combination," said Reilly, still in cowboy get-up. "There's something similar in the fabric of 'Prairie Home Companion' and some of the more well-known Altman movies — where there's a group of people, one comes in, one comes out and there's humor in it that's based on the acceptance of humanity and all its flaws and eccentricities. There's a kind of guiding ethic to the way they do the show, but it's also sort of chaotic. And that's very much Bob's sense of 'What are we gonna do? We're gonna find what happens in that moment and I'm gonna capture it and it won't be pushed or forced until the life goes out of it.' "
Creator's license
KEILLOR is known for rewriting right up until airtime, and much of the shoot involved Altman allowing him to hold forth from his stage, loomingly tall, in red tie and sneakers, while the house band jammed behind him and he and a rotating crew sang songs and jingles, told jokes and stories from the American heartland.
"Let's come in here now with a word about catchup," Keillor said in his homespun voice, delivering a service announcement for the fictional Catchup Advisory Board. "Yes, catchup — made from tomatoes that contain natural sunshine, which we need in this part of the country.... We come from people who brought us up to believe that life is a struggle — and if you should ever feel really happy, be patient — this will pass."
Then Altman yelled "Cut!" from the back of the theater. "That was great, Garrison," he said. "Let's try that one more time." Keillor improvised another take.
"I'm a writer, and there are times when I'm very proprietary about what I have written," Keillor said. "But there are scenes which, although I did write them, I'm glad to see them kind of smudged. Bob's very good at smudging. So the dialogue is kind of overlapping and a lot of things are going on and your sentences are kind of set into a flow of things that is actually a good fate for them. Had they been spoken like lines from Shakespeare, everyone would have seen that it wasn't Shakespeare."
Keillor has spoofed himself in the bumbling alter ego of G.K. "I am not playing myself exactly," he said, adding that his Hollywood dreams did not include acting. "Well, I mean I went along with it, but I certainly tried to get out of it. My hope was to write words that other people could say, and then I could sit in the dark and watch them. I wanted somebody else to play me."
Who, exactly?
"Well, George Clooney, of course," he said. "I couldn't really give myself much to do in the screenplay, knowing what little I was capable of — I couldn't have myself fall down the stairs, or burst into tears. We shot a scene and Lindsay was weeping. She did something to herself that produced tears. I wouldn't know how to do it. I don't cry in real life so how would I do it in a movie?"
The local press had its knickers in a bit of a twist about the celebrity onslaught, reporting Streep sightings in the Marshall Field's and the restaurant habits of the cast. But not even the presence of tabloid staple Lohan did much to disturb life in the quiet city of F. Scott Fitzgerald's birth. Downtown, Starbucks opens at 5:30 in the morning and closes by 6 p.m. and solitary homeless people drift like tumbleweeds down empty sidewalks. On St. Peter Street one evening at twilight, the only other living creature on the sidewalk was a rabbit.
But Mickey's Diner at 7th and St. Peter is always open, and the filmmakers couldn't resist using the camera-ready 1930s greasy spoon as a location. "It was an Edward Hopper scene," Keillor said of one shot where Kline sits alone at the counter. "When I saw what a beautiful shot Bob made over at Mickey's, I started to think maybe I'd made a big mistake in locking him up in this building."
Keillor had finished shooting for the day and changed into jeans, which did little to lend him a casual air. For all the coziness of his on-air persona, there is an awkwardness about his person — his stature makes it hard for most people to look him in the eyes, and he seems never to slip out of character.
The extras had gone home and Altman's director's chair had been moved onto the stage for a scene in the wings with Kline and Virginia Madsen (here as a dark angel in a white trench coat, haunting the wings). "I can't remember what prompted this, but in an early stage of development, Bob said, 'The death of an old man is not a tragedy,' " Keillor remembered. "I don't think he was referring to himself. But that just stuck with me. I asked for permission to write an angel into the script, and he gave it on the condition that there be no aura."
"Look at that — that's a picture," Keillor continued in a confidential hush, deflecting attention to the white-haired Altman, a pale, distant figure in the Caravaggio-esque house light, surrounded by silhouettes of the crew. "He's in his own world up there — the world of moviemaking. To the extent that I'm responsible for giving him something to work on that he's really enthused about, I feel as if I've done a good deed in a dark world."
One night after shooting, Altman gathered a nonexclusive mob of cast, crew, family and friends for wine, beer, pizza and a glimpse of the work in progress — an Altman tradition. On-screen, Harrelson and Reilly did a musical bad joke routine, Streep and Tomlin sang sweetly, Kline became the flesh and blood of Guy Noir, and through Altman's lens Keillor was both his oddly charming self and a suddenly probable leading man.
Scenes from this meditation on little guys and big corporations, God and country, the passing of time and the end of an era — in which the angel of death is a femme fatale, dangerous and beautiful and never far — were rendered all the more poignant by the specter of Altman himself, looking finally mortal in his ninth decade on Earth.
Those assembled laughed and cheered and burst into spontaneous applause, and tears. The lights went up and Altman looked around with the stricken air of someone who wasn't taking anything for granted.
"I needed a story, and that seemed to me to be the most honest story," Keillor said, pointing out that his own show died once in 1987 before being resurrected a few years later.
"So there is some aspect of truth to this. Every show does come to an end."
Altman and Keillor on Charlie Rose here. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7215677879111608819&q=tvshow%3ACharlie_Rose)
Altman admits to nerves ahead of "Prairie Home"
He is 81 years old, has an honorary Oscar and 50 years of television and classic movies like "MASH" behind him, but director Robert Altman admits he still gets a case of nerves ahead of a film debut.
His latest movie, "A Prairie Home Companion," hits theaters on Friday. Reviews are mostly good and the cast, which includes Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and teen idol Lindsay Lohan, is stellar.
But the film, which is based on Garrison Keillor's long-running radio show of the same name, covers the difficult subject of death, and Altman noted the movie likely will not draw the young fans for whom Hollywood's studios hunger.
"I'm scared shitless. I get very sensitive about reviews and what people have said," Altman said. "As long as I've been doing this, I still take it personally. I don't know why. I guess that's just my nature."
The reaction to "Prairie Home Companion" is made even that much more personal for Altman, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, because he grew up listening to old radio dramas, and his first job in entertainment was writing for radio.
"Prairie Home Companion" laments the passing of radio and tells people to laugh a little in the face of death. One question audiences may have is whether Altman was contemplating his own life and death when making "Prairie Home Companion."
But the director of classic films such as "Nashville," "The Player" and "Short Cuts," laughs at that suggestion.
"You'll know which (movie) is the career capper for me when you read about my death," he said.
Altman plans to begin shooting this fall a new movie, a fictional story about 24 people competing to win a car.
RECREATING RADIO
"Prairie Home Companion" attempts to recreate Keillor's radio show, which draws some 4.3 million listeners weekly on U.S. public broadcasting stations.
The program takes place in front of a live audience from its home in St. Paul, Minnesota, and blends country music, folksy jokes, Depression-era advertising jingles and common sense wisdom about current issues and popular culture.
The movie's structure is fairly unique as it combines elements of Keillor's real show with a fictional tale taking place behind-the-scenes after a big company has purchased the radio station and plans to shut down the show.
On the radio program's final night, characters like the singing Johnson sisters, Yolanda and Rhonda (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin), and comic cowboys Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly), are forced to contemplate their future. Lohan portrays Yolanda's daughter Lola, who represents a new generation of kids.
The veteran director lamented that fans of Lohan, 19, likely would not see her in "Prairie Home Companion" because the movie doesn't have the special effects and car crashes that today's kids seem to most enjoy in summer movies.
"Her audience is not going to understand our film," he said. But actor Reilly, 41, gave younger audiences more credit.
"The format of the show may pretend to be old, but it's very topical at the same time," he said. "Garrison doesn't steer away from the realities of modern life, and I think that's cool."
A Real Masterpiece. I loved every moment and I really wanted more. The songs that dusty and lefty are priceless, especially the bad jokes song. Man, really captured radio and what the rush of theatre is like.
Yes, this was pretty solid. These characters, their interactions with each other, and their performances will linger in the mind--they all seem to exist for longer than the running time of the film.
It's warm and comforting, and involving. You can see that one thing that Kellior and Altman most have in common is extremely sharp minds. They each can juggle a million things at the same time with such grace and precision. Kellior manages so many things in this film, and never makes a jerky or rushed movement; never loses his cool. I'll bet Altman is the same way. I have a strong respect for that ability.
And I normally don't make many comments on technical stuff, because I think that almost the worst thing you can say about a movie is that it looked nice or had neat camera angles, but the film's use of mirrors and other reflections were profoundly, profoundly impressive. Perhaps I don't mind saying that because I feel like it is more than just technical show off, but a real extension of the... the character of the film, really. The always moving camera, roaming around, picking up everything from every angle simultaneously through a series of beautiful reflections.
It's comfort food, and that's mm, mmm good.
Anyone pick up the free promotional DVD from Best Buy? It's got a little behind the scenes deal where PT shows up in like every other clip - Mouth twitching and all.
no but they had a few scenes of that on the HBO First Look
i saw this today. it was a pleasure to watch.
as skillfully and beautifully crafted as any altman movie but i feel like this is Diet Altman, maybe because he's about to DIE, which in turn is what makes me want to like this movie more--its sense of mortality. altman always struck me as anartist who stumbled upon fortune without aspiring for it, oblivious to his own talents. here i think he recognizes that the road is coming to an end, and he sees no better way to meet it than by making fun of it with his friends. garrison keillor, you should be my grandpa. ed lachman's a great and underappreciated cinematographer. it's a nice movie.
i end with this: lindsay lohan for best supporing actress.
ADMIN EDIT: SPOILER!!!!!
I would have been perfectly content watching the radio show performed by a lot of different talented actors, but they went ahead and muddled it! Actually the premise for a backstage murder is kind of cool, but it was too maudlin for my taste. The whole guardian angel thing shoulda stayed on the cutting room floor. Otherwise, this was an alright time.
SPOILER ^
^^^^^^^^^ SPOILER UP THERE WATCH OUT GANG^^^^^^^^^^^
so i saw this yesterday and i laughed a lot. i really didnt even expect it to be that funny. but i think the bigger mainstream cast helped. tom waits and lyle lovett were slated to play the singing cowboys but it went to woody harrelson and john c. reilly.. now i don't know about you, but the dialogue and lyrics they got in that movie.. there is NO WAY waits and lovett would've made it funnier. so i'm glad this beefed up the cast, it did wonders for the movie.
this will be the best movie of the year for me.
so long altman. :salute:
Spoilers
A Prairie Home Companion is disappointing. I went into the film knowing nothing of the radio show and knowing everything about Robert Altman and the sad fact is I got what I expected. Half of the film is a performance film of the radio show (mostly entertaining) and the other half is the backstage jibe amongst the cast and crew. Altman has a few signatures to his style and one is rambling conversation that allows everyone on screen to talk at the same time. The technique is a signature of eliciting realism. The great thing with using it is that the realism can throw off conventional storytelling at the right time. When he first used this technique in M.A.S.H, he mainly used it during the operating scenes and a few other scenes like the mock Last Supper. It was great because it kept the movie off balance and while the characterization could have been bland the movie became memorable because some parts felt improvised. The main thing with this technique (which became known as Altman-esque) was that he was not basing the entire movie off it. Actually, for his other major films in the 70s like McCabe and Mrs Miller and California Split, he only used it sparingly.
The problem with Altman is that he started to allow that technique to take over his films. It allowed a lot of his films to ramble on to little or no point. Or sometimes it rambled on to directly the wrong point. Case in point is Gosford Park. The film was an ode to Renoir's The Rules of the Game, but the problem with that film is that it had no sense of character that Renoir's film based itself on. The first hour of Gosford Park is a whirl wind of character introductions from the ruling class to the servants and just based on their menial conversations. Altman almost did that to show he could manage all those elements technically, but he was severing himself from the needed focus for the story. The focus of technical abilities over a character study was an elitist approach that was incapable of achieving the character insight needed. As the movie went on, it tried to illustrate similar ideas and insights that Renoir achieved but Atlman fails at. Robert Altman even referenced Renoir in every interview for the film as inspiration. I just can't believe he truly had Renoir in mind while making it.
With A Prairie Home Companion, Altman allows the camera to follow all the stories in the same way. Its just yet again the conversations are all so menial that they feel like they were picked randomly and are indicative of no larger themes. The performance is the last broadcast for the radio show but many of the actors reminiscence on small things as they would before any show. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin's conversations aren't very interesting and drift off into odd subjects of little point. The argument against this criticism is their conversations are real. Sorry, this is a film. A film is created and edited to be interesting. The only character who serves as a memorial to the memory and meaning of the radio show is a dubious character in the Angel who can be seen by some characters and not others for no reason. She has one scene where she remembers what the radio show meant to her and it barely scratches the surface of anything meaningful. Her character is an add in for a story that has no idea where it is going beyond the performance piece. She has too many questions about her and resolves too many problems in the story too easily. The main problem she resolves of Tommy Lee Jone's character of the big business man. His character is so one sided it is only indicative of how hollow this story is. He comes in as the true bad guy and says lines that are so canned and false and indicative of the cliche of the businessman type. Tommy Lee Jones had to just pose for that performance.
In the end, I came in knowing nothing about the radio show and I left feeling like I truly knew little more. It could be wrong of me to lay blame into Altman for the script and the direction of the story since he did not write this, but he has not written hardly any of his films ever. He has had input though in his stories. In 1994, Pauline Kael commented on Robert Altman in an interview that reveals the situation of his relationship with writers when he did The Player: "The book [The Player] is about how writers are mistreated, and Robert Altman is notoriously not interested in writers or fidelity to writers. He turned it into an amused satire of Hollywood." Not only did he turn it into a satire, but did so with the original author contributing to the screenplay as well. One has to imagine Garrison Keiller was also writing to the personality and interests of Robert Altman. Arthur C. Clarke was the author of the novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, but only after Kubrick approved each chapter while making the movie.
Another sad fact is that Altman works with great actors here. They all do fine but they all have so very little to do. The major exception is Lindsay Lohan who was terrible. Her performance was nothing more than a contribution of poses and facial reactions to everyone else on screen. When she ever spoke, her pitch hardly radiated above her limited ranges. She even spent most of film slouched in a chair looking down as if she was playing the role of a stage hand to all the other actors who were really contributing.
QuoteIts just yet again the conversations are all so menial that they feel like they were picked randomly and are indicative of no larger themes.
i haven't seen the film yet so i can't comment specifically on any particular scene or the movie as a whole, but i feel in general "altman-esque" dialogue is not so much used for thematic implications as it is to just create a general emotion or feeling. I would even disagree with you when you say that his dialogue is primarily useful because it derails any sense of conventional storytelling. yes, its a "signature of eliciting realism" but i wouldn't say its much more than that. i've always felt with altman that its not what they say, but how they're saying it; therefore, the conversations don't really
need to be about anything more than meaningless conversation..
Quote from: JG on June 27, 2006, 05:53:10 PM
it is to just create a general emotion or feeling.
See, when he uses it sparingly, I can understand that working scene by scene. But to base an entire story off this concept is dubious. It makes his films have lttle considerations for all the other elements important in a story. It also leaves me with the general impression I always have gotten from his work that nothing he has done has ever been intellectually challenging. They flow over me with great ease and ask very little of my attention.
GT, what you didn't like about the backstage conversations-- their meandering "real" quality-- is what makes them work in a Prairie Home movie.
part of what i love about the the radio show is that it's something you're supposed to remember like it happened to people you know... despite how obviously packaged it is. i thought that their pointless backstage conversations were a beautiful adaptation of that element of the show.
this is block party with white people. its a nostalgic celebration of life and i enjoyed it quite a bit. like GT, i knew nothing about the show coming into the movie, but in no way did that hinder my experience. i don't know how necessary the madsen subplot was, but her performance certainly didn't help the cause.
oh and garrison keilor for best actor.
Has anyone noticed the reason behind the PG-13 rating?
"Risque Humor"
Just saw it. A delight.
Humorous moment: when Tommy Lee Jones, as a corporate henchman, asks Kevin Kline what F. Scott Fitzgerald has written. If that doesn't signify cultural cluelessness, what does?
I thought it was rather poignant when the set was broken down by a bunch of apemen who obviously would never go into a theater otherwise. Kline plays the piano amidst the din.
New Line has just revealed that Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion will arrive on DVD on 10/10 (SRP $27.95). The film will be offered on disc in anamorphic widescreen video with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras will include audio commentary with director Robert Altman and star Kevin Kline, deleted scenes (with optional commentary), the Come Play with Us: A Feature Companion featurette, the Onstage at the Fitzgerald: A Music Companion featurette with extended musical performances and advertisement segments, song selection and the film's theatrical trailer.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedigitalbits.com%2Farticles%2Fmiscgfx%2Fcovers2%2Fprairiehomecompaniondvd.jpg&hash=e75661cb779bd82a000346879e006015623c1b80)
Quote from: Reinhold on June 27, 2006, 08:03:05 PM
GT, what you didn't like about the backstage conversations-- their meandering "real" quality-- is what makes them work in a Prairie Home movie.
part of what i love about the the radio show is that it's something you're supposed to remember like it happened to people you know... despite how obviously packaged it is. i thought that their pointless backstage conversations were a beautiful adaptation of that element of the show.
Sorry I missed this originally. I'll reply briefly.
The word realism is being thrown around too much as a description of quality work. In the 1940s and 50s the word did hold more place with differentiating good and bad or stale and ambitious. Now that we're 50 years past that period and realism is an everyday thing in film, I think we should begin to look for other words, such as structure, plot, meaning, character, depth and purpose.
Yes, the film simultaneously adapts the live show along with backstage conversations. But for what point? I think the film missed out in many ways to give larger comment on the show. The only thing this film does is reenact a point of criticism from Andy Warhol. He asked that films be judged on what was more interesting: the film or the coversation between actors at lunchtime? The question here would refer to the live show or the actors talking during hair and make up. I'll gladly remember the live show as the better part of this movie.
Altman, Keillor Share `Prairie' Tales
What was it that made "A Prairie Home Companion" such a quintessential Robert Altman movie that also captured the gabby spirit of the Garrison Keillor radio show on which it was based?
Maybe it's because when Altman and Keillor get together, they don't sound that different from the rambling raconteurs of the radio program and the chatty Altman characters who talk over one another's dialogue.
Altman and Keillor sat down with The Associated Press to discuss their oddball movie, a solid theatrical mini-hit that debuts Tuesday on DVD.
The cast includes Keillor as host of a fictionalized version of the radio show, along with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Tommy Lee Jones, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, Virginia Madsen and John C. Reilly.
Debuting in 1974, the show airing on public radio stations features songs, jokes, gag commercials and Keillor's monologue about the make-believe town of Lake Wobegon.
The show is going strong. But Keillor, who wrote the screenplay, set the film on the show's last night as the St. Paul, Minn., radio station where it's produced is scheduled for demolition.
The story weaves in a supernatural element with Madsen's character, an angelic visitor from beyond.
It's far different from what Keillor imagined when he first met with Altman about collaborating on a movie. As they share a sofa at the Four Seasons hotel, Altman and Keillor trade sociable barbs and interrupt each other's thoughts, much like the Altman characters of "M-A-S-H," "Nashville," "The Player" or "Gosford Park."
AP: What sort of movie did you originally have in mind?
Keillor: I had some morbid story that I wanted to do ...
Altman: About people sinking in a boat ...
Keillor: Something like that. So he listened to it. He didn't listen to it for very long. I think about 20 minutes, 15 minutes ...
Altman: That's a long time ...
Keillor: Ten, actually. And we got to the end of it, and he just didn't think it was anything he wanted to do. It would have been a Lake Wobegon movie. A small town where all the women are strong ...
Altman: All the men are good-looking. I didn't want to get into a film where all the men were good-looking.
Keillor: It kind of limits your hand there, doesn't it?
Altman: Yeah. Puts me in a game I don't want to be in.
AP: So it sounds like you turned it back around at Garrison and said, "Why not do `A Prairie Home Companion'?"
Altman: That's my exact quote. I said, why don't we do your show? Why don't we just do your show?
Keillor: It was a terrible idea, but I managed to revise it to save him from the disaster it would have been if he had gone ahead as he wanted. He wanted to have a Lake Wobegon monologue in it, and he wanted to have actors reading off pieces of paper as we do in radio. ... I saved him from his path toward disaster.
Altman: Well, but I've been saved by all kinds of people.
AP: Who had the idea of adding the fantastical element with Virginia Madsen's character? (Altman and Keillor point to each other.) OK, I take it it was a pure collaboration?
Altman: Absolutely. This thing grew like top seed.
Keillor: He was an easy person to write for, because he doesn't go in for meetings.
Altman: I don't like meetings. Since we had the set lit and ready to shoot, when the script came in at that exact moment, I didn't want to stop and have a meeting. So we just went ahead and shot.
Keillor: He was easy to write for also because I don't think he ever really read the script.
Altman: Well, the script is not to be read.
Keillor: I would send it by e-mail attachment, and a couple of days would pass, and I'd get a response from him. He'd say, "This isn't bad," "I think you're on to something here."
Altman: I have a whole list of those.
Keillor: If I'd been in development with a studio Disney, just to name one ...
Altman: I wouldn't have been there ...
Keillor: There would have been a 50-page memo, and it would have been filled with conflicting observations from 14 different people ...
Altman: Conflicting egos.
Keillor: "You need to pick it up a little bit at this point." "We need a point of quiet reflection." "The arc of the story lags here." "Where is the hero and the hero's wound?" "Where's the chalice?"
Altman: We get all that.
Keillor: You must never have read Joseph Campbell.
Altman: Who's Joseph Campbell?
AP: Did you always expect Garrison to co-star?
Altman: It never occurred to me, doing this without Garrison in it.
Keillor: It occurred to me.
Altman: Then one of us becomes redundant.
Keillor: I thought they were in serious negotiations with George Clooney to play me, and I was all for that. That's why I had my character putting his pants on at the beginning of the movie. I thought it would be really interesting to have George Clooney pulling his pants on.
AP: Why was it important to have Garrison on-screen?
Altman: This is what the movie is about. This was the reason to do it. He's a performer of a very unique DNA.
Keillor: Unique would be a very polite way to put it, yes. ... It's a piece of variety, and so the beauty of it is, it gives each of these performers tremendous freedom to do these wonderful turns, to sing and to perform. My character is the little wooden figure who comes out of the clock every so often and makes a little circle and then goes back in.
Altman: Carrying an ax.
Keillor: You have to have some kind of an M.C., and that's what I do. But I was very careful to write the part to place it comfortably within my parameters as an actor, which are very narrow. I run the gamut from A to B.
Altman: He did do that.
AP: How do you think Garrison really did as an actor?
Keillor: I'll leave the room if you want me to leave the room.
Altman: No, no, no, no.
Keillor: What he said at the time was, I was adequate. Marvelously adequate.
Altman: No, he served the purpose.
Keillor: Remind me to ask you for a blurb for my next book.
Altman: Do I have to read it?
Keillor: No.
Altman: Then I can give you the blurb, yes.
This might just be clickbait (so many things are), but I'd never encountered this notion before in my PTA-wanderings. (I was quite familiar with this notion of 'backup director', but not that he might have been more creatively involved than that.)
10 Movies Rumored To Have Been Directed By Other People (https://screenrant.com/movies-rumored-directed-other-people/)
Quote2/10 A Prairie Home Companion
When celebrated filmmaker Robert Altman signed on to direct the 2006 musical comedy A Prairie Home Companion, he was unfortunately rather unwell at the time, with the movie being his final creative effort. Hiring director Paul Thomas Anderson to help him out with the physical side of the job, Anderson was officially considered a 'back-up' director for the project should anything happen to Altman during the shoot.
It's also reported however, that Anderson was much more active in the production than his back-up status let on, getting heavily involved with the actors as well as setting up shots. Due to this, it's widely believed that while Altman is credited as the film's sole director, Anderson was the key creative force behind the production.