Robert Altman's last hurrah: A Prairie Home Companion

Abstract

In one sense, Robert Altman's last film, A Prairie Home Companion (2006), follows in the tradition of genre revisionism which he began with the war film (M*A*S*H 1970), the Western (McCabe and Mrs. Miller 1971) and the private eye film (The Long Goodbye 1973). A Prairie Home Companion is Altman's version of the backstage musical: an account of a radio variety show, called A Prairie Home Companion, which is broadcast weekly from the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul Minnesota. The film presents this as the final broadcast of the show, because a Texas Corporation has bought out the Fitzgerald for redevelopment, although in fact the radio show continues to this day. But the emphasis on his realistic overturning of genres disguises the extent to which all Altman's films work on the principle of ‘putting on a show’. Realistic detail in performance, camerawork and setting (one of Altman's contributions to the aesthetic of 70s New Hollywood) contributes to building up a picture of a whole world, while we are reminded that this world is a flimsy, artificial construction which must inevitably end. The various acts are performed against a deep black background, as if the end were already encroaching, and an otherworldly ‘dangerous woman’ (in a white trench-coat) prowls through the show, for those whose end has been appointed.