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This independent feature-length documentary film by Peter Rosen goes behind the scenes at A Prairie Home Companion, and inside the imagination of the man who created it.
Garrison Keillor takes his skits and jokes, music and monologues across the country in this free form, intimate look at the private man in the public spotlight.
PBS Broadcast on American Masters July 1, 2009 at 8 p.m. (check your local listings).
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More about the film:
Over one year of filming has resulted in an unusual portrait that cannot be defined by the standard terms of chronological biography: the subject himself is an enigma, and the fictional world he has created has become a real place in America. The film follows the writer-performer as he mingles fact and fiction to create one of America's favorite places, Lake Wobegon.
Today, there is no one like him. His take on America is both pungent and poignant. In the best tradition of Will Rogers and Mark Twain, Keillor mixes story telling and humor to give us a light hearted but deeply felt reflection of ourselves. A prolific author with more than 20 books to his credit and a weekly column, he is also a highly sought after speaker and lecturer. He is credited with reviving the virtually lost art of live radio entertainment in America; his weekly radio show, started in 1974, has more than 4 million listeners and is broadcast on 558 stations. Keillor and his characters leapt onto the big screen and an even wider global audience in Robert Altman's film, A Prairie Home Companion.
Keillor's down-home commentary and love of the authentically American, have made him into an "everyman philosopher." His highly entertaining radio show with songs and stories is written with a poet's heart. While comparisons will be made between him and America's great humorists and essayist - from H. L. Mencken to Mark Twain, James Thurber, Robert Frost, and Will Rogers, Garrison Keillor is unique. In this untraditional biography, we begin to see how and why.
86 minutes. Produced and Directed by Peter Rosen. Written by Sara Lukinson based on the monologues of Garrison Keillor. Executive Producers Susan Lacy and Sally Jo Fifer. Release date: June, 2008. PBS broadcast date: July 2009.
A co-production of Peter Rosen Productions, Inc. American Masters and The Independent Television Service.
NOTE: Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes is an independent production and is in no way affiliated with A Prairie Home Companion, Prairie Home Productions, or American Public Media.
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On July 4th, help us celebrate the 35th Anniversary of A Prairie Home Companion and the Fourth of July with a free live nationally broadcast show from Avon, MN.
From Garrison Keillor:
“When I was 16, Helen Fleischman assigned me to memorize Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 29, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state’ for English class, and fifty years later, that poem is still in my head. Algebra got washed away, and geometry and most of biology, but those lines about the redemptive power of love in the face of shame are still here behind my eyeballs, more permanent than my own teeth. The sonnet is a durable good. These 77 of mine include sonnets of praise, some erotic, some lamentations, some street sonnets and a 12-sonnet cycle of months. If anything here offends, I beg your pardon, I come in peace, I depart in gratitude.”
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Robin & Linda Williams are among the most popular guest performers of A Prairie Home Companion (they also appeared in the movie, have performed as part of the The Hopeful Gospel Quartet, and made appearances as Marvin & Mavis Smiley). This CD features some of the duo's best harmonies from the show. Among the 12 tracks are familiar fan favorites, including "For Better or Worse", "Visions of Mother and Dad", "Tied Down, Home Free" and the title track. A collection that is muy bueno!
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