Robert Altman's Last Radio Show

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Movie
German title Robert Altman's Last Radio Show
Original title A Prairie Home Companion
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2006
length 105 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Robert Altman
script Garrison Keillor
production Robert Altman,
Wren Arthur ,
Joshua Astrachan ,
Tony Judge ,
David Levy
camera Edward Lachman
cut Jacob Craycroft
occupation

Robert Altman's Last Radio Show is the last completed feature film by American director Robert Altman from 2006 . The comedy is loosely based on the US radio show A Prairie Home Companion by Garrison Keillor , who plays himself, and mixes elements that appear documentary with fictional elements. It was produced by the film studios GreeneStreet Films , River Road Entertainment and Sandcastle 5 Productions , among others . The film opened in US cinemas on June 9, 2006. The official German theatrical release was on April 12, 2007. The film was shot on HDCAM .

action

The private detective Guy Noir reports on the program for the 30th anniversary of the popular radio show A Prairie Home Companion , which he himself attended as a security guard on a rainy Saturday evening in Saint Paul , Minnesota . While the popular show seemed to survive in the age of television , the radio station WLT was bought by Texas investors. The small theater is now to give way to a parking garage. Presenter Garrison Keillor doesn't show anything and confidently leads the audience through his last show with fictional commercials and stories about an invented city called Lake Wobegon .

Backstage, sisters Yolanda and Rhonda Johnson wistfully remember the good old days. The country singers had started their music careers with two other sisters as a promising quartet, Yolanda himself had maintained a liaison with Keillor. Also part of the party are the vulgar cowboy singing duo Dusty and Lefty alias the Old Trailhands and Yolanda's daughter Lola. The teenager who writes depressive poetry is given the great chance spontaneously and unplanned in the show to step onto the radio stage as a singer for the first time when there are six minutes of airtime left at the end. A pregnant stage worker, the new owner's expected representative, and a mysterious blonde woman in white who brings about the death of show veteran Chuck Akers, add to the excitement behind the scenes.

History of origin

The film is based on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion by Garrison Keillor, which has been broadcast live every Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. on the US station National Public Radio from 1974 until today . The name goes back to a radio show that existed in 1969 and was named after the Prairie Home Cemetery in Moorhead , Minnesota . The show is broadcast by around 590 radio stations in the USA, has over 4 million regular listeners there and is also broadcast worldwide via satellite. A Prairie Home Companion has been a guest at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota since 1978 . Garrison Keillor himself wrote the script for the film, whom Die Welt described as "a kind of Harald Schmidt and Stefan Raab rolled into one". The script is based on a jointly written fictional short story by Keillor and Ken LaZebnik . The renowned American director Robert Altman was hired for the production , who had already successfully peeked behind the dazzling facade of country music with his award-winning drama Nashville (1975) and Georgia (1995) . In addition to Garrison Keillor, who plays himself, such well-known actors as Oscar winners Meryl Streep , Kevin Kline and Tommy Lee Jones as well as Woody Harrelson , Lindsay Lohan , Virginia Madsen , John C. Reilly and Lily Tomlin have been signed on. Tomlin made her film debut as an actress in Robert Altman's Nashville in 1975 .

Filming began on June 29, 2005 at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul and ended just under a month later on July 28. It was the second major film production, alongside Niki Caro's Kaltes Land , to be shot in Minnesota in 2005. Other theaters in the Minneapolis and Saint Paul area were also used for the shooting , as well as Mickey's Diner (36 W 9th Street), which is the city's landmark. For insurance reasons, Paul Thomas Anderson joined the filming as an on-call director. Anderson, made famous by projects such as Boogie Nights (1997) or Magnolia (1999), should take a seat in the director's chair if 80-year-old Robert Altman could not have finished filming.

reception

Robert Altman's Last Radio Show was premiered on February 12, 2006 at the Berlin International Film Festival , the “Berlinale”, and was represented in the competition there. Robert Altman's 86th directorial work since the documentary Modern Football (1951) and a total of 37th feature film was praised by the critics and understood as a superbly performed ensemble film and a loving homage to the radio. Following screenings as the opening film at the South by Southwest Film Festival (March 10), in LaGrange , Georgia (May 6) and in Italy (June 1), the comedy officially opened in US theaters on June 9, 2006. 2006 Altman was awarded the Honorary Oscar “for a career that has repeatedly redefined the art form and inspired filmmakers and audiences alike” (official statement of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ). The award was presented to Altman, previously unsuccessfully nominated seven times as director and screenwriter, on March 5, 2006 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin as actresses on the Last Radio Show .

Reviews

  • “Of course this film is about what social and cultural identity, past and future, life and art have to do with one another. Like all of Robert Altman's films, this one is also an ensemble film, but it is also much more than the astonishing sum of outstanding performance in a light-hearted and light-hearted story of loss. 'A Prairie Home Companion' is a shamelessly nostalgic declaration of love for American popular cultural history and at the same time a completely non-didactic request for indulgence and kindness. " ( Berliner Zeitung )
  • “In fact, this film has a lot that one hopes for from a late film by a revered filmmaker, above all: an immense sovereignty in the use of its resources, a free-floating looseness in dealing with its material, a noticeable joy of playing on the part of all those involved and, in addition to a gentle mildness all that so much style, other than so old-fashioned it cannot be said, how it has become rare in the cinema. Even where it is reasonably hearty. " ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung )
  • “The struggles that Robert Altman is fighting are, it seems, only of a purely aesthetic nature. In 'The Company', his last film, he devoted himself entirely to the conflicts that determine an art form. Back then it was ballet, this time it is radio, to which he has dedicated a wonderful homage with 'A Prairie Home Companion'. It was the lightest and at the same time the most demanding film of the day, with furious actors (Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Lily Tomlin) and a sophisticated construction through which three media come together. " ( Der Spiegel )
  • “It turned out to be a nice, warm, funny film… 'A Prairie Home Companion' is so lovable, so smoothly gliding, that every now and then I have longed for something nostalgic, for a goal other than to go on for a few more years are allowed to do what one is good at and has always done. Robert Altman's 37th work has something of the cheerful resignation of old men who sit on park benches and eat sandwiches. " ( Der Tagesspiegel )
  • “Robert Altman's last film is a cheerful, melancholy look at a piece of American radio culture and at the same time an intelligent reflection on death and parting, the staging of which once again shows the director's full artistry. Cinema tip from the Catholic film critic "( Lexicon of International Films )

Remarks

  • The film was Robert Altman's first work that was produced with digital cinema cameras in the HDCAM standard, without film cameras.
  • Michelle Pfeiffer was originally intended for the part of the dangerous woman , but she withdrew from the project.
  • A few weeks before filming began, Robert Altman had been parodied on the radio show. In an episode of Guy Noir , a featured character on Last Radio Show who also appears in the film, Altman was portrayed as a director making a movie where people stand around talking and making hand gestures.
  • George Clooney was offered the role of detective Guy Noir . However, due to scheduling conflicts, he was forced to drop out of the film project.
  • The original idea was to hire Tom Waits and Lyle Lovett as the singing cowboys Lefty and Dusty .
  • The original changing rooms from the radio show were not used for the film, as they were way too small, according to the production designer. Allegedly, Garrison Keillor's changing room alone would have been the size of a “very, very small bathroom” (O-Ton: “about the size of a very, very small bathroom” ).

Awards

Robert Altman's film was considered the favorite for the Golden Bear for best film at the Berlinale , but was defeated by Jasmila Žbanić's post-war drama Esma's Secret - Grbavica . Nevertheless, the comedy received an award from the Berliner Morgenpost readers' jury . Last Radio Show was largely ignored by the US critics' associations and only supporting actress Meryl Streep won the National Society of Film Critics Awards for both her role as Yolanda and for her Oscar-nominated part in David Frankel's The Devil Wears Prada . Altman was posthumously nominated for Director's Award at the Independent Spirit Awards , but the award went to Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris ( Little Miss Sunshine ).

Berlinale 2006

  • Prize of the readers' jury of the Berliner Morgenpost
  • nominated for the Golden Bear for Best Film

Bodil 2007

  • nominated for best American film

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards 2007

  • nominated in the category Best Acting Ensemble

Chicago Film Critics Association Awards 2006

  • nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category

Gotham Awards 2006

  • nominated in the category Best Acting Ensemble

Independent Spirit Awards 2007

  • nominated in the category Best Director

National Society of Film Critics Awards 2007

  • Best Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep)

Satellite Awards 2006

  • nominated in the categories
    • Best Supporting Actress (Lily Tomlin)
    • Best adapted script

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Robert Altman's Last Radio Show . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2007 (PDF; test number: 108 869 K).
  2. ^ Locusts à la Altman: "Prairie Home Companion" . In: Die Welt , February 13, 2006
  3. ^ Journal film-dienst and Catholic Film Commission for Germany (eds.), Horst Peter Koll and Hans Messias (ed.): Lexikon des Internationale Films - Filmjahr 2007 . Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89472-624-9