Jun. 07, 2006 - Issue #555: Oiler Fever
Altman animates the radio star in A Prairie Home Companion
It’s the sentiment that something valuable is passing us by, yet eulogizing it will only tarnish its sweet flavour. Better to get on with the show, enjoy the ephemeral glow while it lasts, make your exit before the bastards pulling the plug can gloat over their dismal little victory.
The film moves beautifully through moments onstage and off during the final evening of Keillor’s gloriously anachronistic titular live radio show, broadcast from the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul, Minnesota.
Though Keillor’s a consummate entertainer, there’s (characteristically for Altman) little narrative structure to the film, and the unifying devices that are used make for the corniest things in the movie, such as a Bogart-esque voiceover by a former private detective named, no kidding, Guy Noir (Kevin Kline, having a grand time with a goofy role) and a visiting angel in white (a vague, flake of a part played robotically by Virginia Madsen).
But story is not of the essence here; it would interrupt the flow, not to mention the comic timing. Events come and go, anxieties rise and fall—there’s even a death—but nothing breaks the sublime mood nurtured by all involved, the devilish persistence of humour and grace and the shared knowledge that the best things in life just seem to flutter past—whether we like it or not. There’s modest but lovely rootsy music from sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson (Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, both radiant, at ease and clearly inspired by the irreverent atmosphere), as well as singing cowboys Dusty and Lefty (Woody Harrelson and John C Reilly, mercilessly funny in their stream of dumb, off-colour jokes) and anecdotes, introductions and bizarre impromptu advertisements for local business from “G K” (Keillor, of course, simultaneously charming and impenetrable in glasses, no nonsense George W navy suit and absurd red sneakers).
Maybe even better is the chatter between Dusty, Lefty and Chuck (the marvellous L Q Jones), between Guy and the corporate axeman (the playfully near-inhuman Tommy Lee Jones —who else but Jones could warrant such a description?) and especially between Rhonda, Yolanda and Yola’s daughter Lola (the perfectly cast Lindsay Lohan), who writes morbid poems about suicide.
Nowhere else is Altman, teamed with cinematographer Ed Lachman, so utterly in his element. The camera glides under golden light along innumerable reflections in dressing room mirrors that are alive with the spontaneous laughter of charming women, whose conversations dart between past and present, between fond feelings toward traditional values and ruthless jabs at Christians and Texans. Altman’s almost palpable delight in passing time with these people reveals, what I think, is his true source of mastery as a filmmaker.
Altman’s 81 now. He’s been making films for a half-century, had one big hit (M*A*S*H) and countless bombs, been hailed as a genius, virtually ignored and then hailed all over again. A Prairie Home Companion may be his last film—it certainly feels like a last film.
Compared to many filmmakers, what makes this or any other Altman film work or not work is a source of considerable dispute and seems to change with every watching. Whatever else we get from him now, I think it’s safe to say his work will outlast every model of film criticism used to analyze him.
We’re still trying to really figure him out, and cheers to him for not seeming to care in the slightest. V
Opens Fri, Jun 9
A Prairie Home Companion
Directed by Robert Altman
Written by Garrison Keillor
Starring Keillor, Meryl Streep,
Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline
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