USA,
2006, 103 min
Shown in 2006
CREDITS
- dir
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Robert Altman
- prod
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Robert Altman, Wren Arthur, Joshua Astrachan
- scr
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Garrison Keillor
- cam
-
Ed Lachman
- editor
-
Jacob Craycroft
- cast
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Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, Tommy Lee Jones, John C. Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson
- source
-
Picturehouse, 597 Fifth Avenue 7th Fl., New York, NY 10017 FAX: 212-956-1942. EMAIL: info@picturehousefilms.com.
-
COMMENTS
Lily Tomlin and Virginia Madsen in attendance.
OTHER
Homespun Americana doesn’t get any more down-to-earth than in Garrison Keillor’s beloved public radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion, the wistful auditory museum of fictionalized old-time song-and-dance acts, witty repartee and vintage ad jingles that has been entertaining listeners since 1974. Now the ultimate on-air raconteur joins forces with the consummate big-screen auteur Robert Altman for what is certain to be hailed as a movie for the ages. A Prairie Home Companion arrives packed to the rafters with old familiars and new twists as Keillor and his station WLT players (that’s “with lettuce and tomato” for the uninitiated) prepare to deliver one final show in front of a studio audience at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota before a Texas corporation takes over the airwaves and the house lights go down on WLT forever. In the tradition of his classic ensembles Nashville (1975), Short Cuts (1993) and Gosford Park (2001), Altman weaves together another unforgettably stellar cast, including Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as the country sister act Rhonda and Yolanda Johnson; John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson as crooning cowboys Dusty and Lefty; Kevin Kline as the down-on-his-luck security guard Guy Noir; Virginia Madsen as the mysterious woman in the white trench coat; and Lindsay Lohan as a dour teen who finds her voice, like so many before her, on a stage that could rightfully be called an American institution. With a sense of jubilant nostalgia for people, places and eras past, Altman and Keillor have concocted a musical-comedy extravaganza that is, in its own unique way, as timeless as the radio show that started it all.
—Andy Bailey
FACTOID #51
The first silent film screened at the Festival (now an annual tradition) was The Scarlet Letter (1924) by the great Swedish director Victor Sjöström, on October 24, 1968. The film’s star, Lillian Gish, was honored with an in-person tribute two days later.
