Interview: Robert Altman
With A Prairie Home Companion, Altman trains his legendary talent on the decades-long radio phenomenon created by Garrison Keillor, a world of rich characters beloved by millions who enjoy the broadcast to this day. As usual, Altman surrounds himself with a cast of stellar talent including Lily Tomlin, Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Robin Williams and Keillor himself. The project is business as usual: capturing a slice of life and the essence of real people (embodied by fictional characters) living so convincingly that an audience has no choice but to become a part of their world through the act of viewing the film.

To this end, Altman shot the entirety of A Prairie Home Companion in St. Paul, Minnesota's Fitzgerald Theater — where Keillor has been broadcasting his show since the late 70's. It's this attention to detail — whether it's for a character's costume or an entire set piece — that gives Altman the power to suspend disbelief and utilize the full breadth of film as a multisensory getaway. He's done it over and over through the likes of M.A.S.H., McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Pręt-á-Porter, and Gosford Park, spanning time and place to demonstrate the thing that makes people tick no matter where or who they are.

How did you come to adapt A Prairie Home Companion into a film?

I was in Chicago doing a dance picture, The Company. Garrison and I share a lawyer, and he said Garrison was interested in talking to me about a project, blah blah blah. Like all these things, that's the way they grow.

So this wasn't very long ago at all, because The Company is pretty recent.

It was just a few years ago.

I'm assuming that it interested you right off the bat, given its ensemble nature and, of course, its notoriety as a radio show.

I was a fan of Keillor's and his show and it came up and we started talking about it, you know. It grew, like [Prairie Home Companion character] Topsy [Chapman]. (Laughs)

You're working with some of your regular actors but also some very new talents like Lindsay Lohan. How did you decide on the casting?

When we started putting it together, her agent approached us and asked if there was anything in it for Lindsay. We had this part of Meryl's daughter and we were working on that, so we just developed it a little bit.

When you cast celebrities, is there any concern about the preconceptions people have of them? Did you worry or think about Lindsey's profile as a "pop princess"?

Well, you know, I'd seen her work and I thought she was pretty good.

So it just comes down to that for you.

That's what it comes down to!

I think that kind of purity — the unalloyed regard for talent — is missing in a lot in film, both on the grand Hollywood scale and the smaller, independent scale. I guess it's just hard.

It's all hard. (Laughs)

Given the notoriety that your projects have for improv or at least the semblance of improv, how did you work with Garrison and his script to collaborate on a story that was so wholly his while letting your own style come through?

The same way I do with everything: get a bunch of actors in a room and you have a script or an idea and you start doing it.

Was there a big rehearsal process for it?

We rehearsed just two or three days on the music with Meryl and Lily and Lindsay, and then the two cowboys, John C. Reilly and Woody Harrelson. We worked their act out together. But other than that, it was business as usual.

As one who's been considered an independent throughout your career, what does the term mean to you?

I don't know what it means! It could mean not out of
a major factory, you know. It's what comes out of a
little factory.

You said during your Oscar acceptance speech that you've never had to direct a film that you didn’t choose or develop. That said, there is a pattern in your projects, reflecting political and social issues of the time. How conscious are you of this when you choose a project?

Well, I don't go out to make statements. I think that I
like to deal with things that are interesting to me and things that are current with my thinking. That's what
gets my attention.

Right. Going back to the process of filmmaking, there's
a perception among the film industry that producing
and directing are two very distinct and difficult jobs,
yet you do them both frequently. A lot of smaller,
independent filmmakers tackle them simultaneously
just because there's no one else to do it. How have
you learned to balance those two jobs?

You're just solving different parts of the same problem, whether you're producing or directing or whatever your role is in the process. But I don't think about those things too much; I just figure what we want to get on the screen and then figure out how to do it. Mainly, it's how to sell it.

How to sell it from a storytelling point of view or from
a literal business point of view?

From a business point of view. There are lots of things, you know, that are attractive and I'd like to make, but
you can't make 'em all.

So does that factor into whether or not you're going to make something — whether it's going to be able to be seen by a lot of people?

Well, whether it's going to be able to be made.

Get funded, you mean.

Right. It doesn't work when you're sitting up in your own little tower musing. You'd rather have the wherewithal to do these things.

Now that people have digital cameras at their disposal and can make a film with their own computer, a lot of
little films get made and there's just no way for them to get seen. They're made, but there aren't channels for
them to be accessed.

There aren't really. It's complicated.

I'm sure that for someone with a track record like yourself, there are still obstacles to every film you make, but then there are struggles for somebody who's a first-timer.

That's really tough...but they have more energy. (Laughs)

With so much to balance in making a film, especially when you’re low-budget and have no money and are doing everything yourself, what are the most important lessons you've learned about staying true to the story and the soul of a film, while balancing all the business and the technical aspect of it?

It's all part of the same pot, you know? You jump in and you just start doing it and then you make it. You have to overcome the obstacles — of which there are a lot, always — because there's a lot of people, a lot of money involved, a lot of egos, lots of things.

You aren't really spending a lot of time musing on the current condition of film or anything like that.

No, I've got enough problems keeping myself straight. (Laughs)

Well, I for one am glad that you never gave up, because seeing Nashville was one of these experiences that really woke me up — in a really good way — and I have to thank you for that.

Oh, I love that movie!

It was the first film I saw that was about real people living life on the screen, so thanks for that gift, In the end, I think that’s what most independent filmmakers try to do — make authentic films about real people.

Well, I think we just try to get something done, you know, and make it as big as you can and as small as you have to.