Product Details

• Actors: Garrison Keillor, Tim Russell, Sue Scott
• Directors: Peter Rosen
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: DOCURAMA
• DVD Release Date: July 7, 2009
• Run Time: 86 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001P8M9GE
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,705 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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Editorial Reviews

About the Director

Peter Rosen has produced and directed over 100 full-length films and television programs which have been distributed worldwide and have won awards at the major film festivals. He has worked directly with some of the most important figures in the arts such as Leonard Bernstein, Yo Yo Ma, Beverly Sills, Sherrill Milnes, Stephen Sondheim, Alexander Godunov, Midori, Martha Graham, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Van Cliburn, Claudio Arrau, I. M. Pei, and Garrison Keillor.
He won the prestigious Directors Guild of America Award for his production Here to Make Music: The Eighth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. The show also won a primetime national Emmy Award. He was again nominated for the DGA Award for his film First Person Singular: I. M. Pei. He won the Peabody Award for Playing on the Edge: The Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Garrison Keillor's resonse to a posting on his website
Glad you liked the Peter Rosen documentary. I haven't seen it. But I imagine it's good because THE MAN CERTAINLY TOOK A LOT OF FILM IN SHOOTING IT. He was in my house, in my car, backstage at the theater, and like all photographers or videographers, he wanted more, more, more. A truckload of videotape. Me tying my shoes. Me putting yoghurt on my bran flakes. Me blowing my nose. I think he learned about video documentary from Andy Warhol. And of course after he had invested weeks and weeks and weeks in shooting the thing, I couldn't very well tell him to stop, so on and on it went. (I believe he started filming in the summer of 1969.) Endless. And each time I got divorced and started a new family, HE HAD TO GO BACK AND SHOOT EVERYTHING AGAIN. It drove me almost out of my mind and my mental health was precarious to start with. The lawsuit, I am confident, will be settled out of court. I struck Peter, but very lightly, just a slap in the face and a kick in the shins, and why he is asking three-point-six million for mental anguish, I don't know, but if we go to trial, I will have plenty to say about mental anguish. The man took years out of my life.

Product Description

America's foremost humorist and commentator, Garrison Keillor
takes his skits and jokes, music and monologues across the country in his traveling radio show, spinning his stories into American gold. This freeform, intimate look at the private man in the public spotlight goes behind the scenes of America's most popular radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, and inside the imagination of the man who created it.

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: Lake Wobegon.

A man compelled to speak for his people with humor and nostalgia, Keillor singlehandedly revived the art of live radio for generations of fans by creating an onstage world that deeply resonates with his audiences. His take on America is both pungent and poignant. In the best tradition of Will Rogers and Mark Twain, Keillor mixes storytelling and humor to give us a lighthearted but deeply felt reflection of ourselves.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A DVD for all PHC addicts - white, brown, Carnatic, Country or in between., July 16, 2009

By	Saty Satya Murti "Aspiring vege-fusion cook" (NorthEast Kansas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My vintage is close to Garrison Keillor's, but I grew up some 8,500 miles away in Madras, not Minnesota. It was under very different economic, political and social circumstances. Yet there is much that I share in my values, experiences and joy of my less-than-consequential life. There are many things that I have enjoyed, regretted, emulated and aspired for but lacked the voice and eloquence to pronounce. They find expression in Keillor's tales, jokes and songs. Prairie Home Companion's ability to bridge transcultural spreads, week after week, through radio is the magic of it all. Visual input is unnecessary for this; in fact it is an impediment. It heightens my awareness that I am not a white Christian with a rural childhood; it even dilutes the commonality of virtues and values.

I have always enjoyed Keillor and his creations. Since the '70s when I used to volunteer at WAMC (Albany, NY), and till now, I have admired, drawn inspiration from and laughed, often en famille, by listening to Keillor. This DVD is an extension of this enjoyment. Cheap as I am, I have never brought myself to attend his shows in person. The closest I got to was to watch it on live cam in the past and on PBS specials, and his movie "A Prairie Home Companion."

This DVD is a soft, slightly disassembled, peek into Keillor explaining Keillor. It refers to his roots, his folks and his community. It ambles over to his New York days, returns to his St Paul living room and moves over to clippings from his shows. Back and forth -- disturbing continuity at times. There are jokes and songs aplenty. Sue Scott, Tom Keith, Tim Russel and Fred Newman feature prominently. Others such as Robert Altman, Jearlyn Steele and Meryl Streep walk in and out. They talk about failed predictions ("end of radio"), mutant fish-dogs, how to "be yourself," and about kindness. They dilate on such "un"contemporary virtues as "who your are is important," and an ordinary life is good enough. It is fun to hear and philosophize about these timeless anti-platitudes from Keillor et al. They seem to be so much at ease than those who preach these qualities. Nostalgic signature tunes play at various junctures. Rhubarb pies and red shoes, accents and attitudes sprinkle this American Masters Independent Television Service visual excursion. By the way, are Dusty and Lefty, our endearing cowboys, missing from this DVD?

I notice that most of the cast, crew and audience are not brown like me. They share little with my childhood of Nehru's socialist India. In the 1950s joy was not a priority, more rationed and in short supply than food, foot wear and clothing. Little brown legs, instead of yellow buses, walked us to a Hindu school that imparted a liberal education emphasizing English, regional languages and Sanskrit. Our music was Carnatic and not Country, and our seasons were hot, wet and hotter. Our worship was in Temples, individualized and not structured, not organized and congregational as in Churches. They told us to be always respectful, kind, but wary, of all minorities (Muslims, Sikhs, Chinese and Anglo-Indians) in the post-partition, post-independence milieu. We looked with admiration and reverence to Britain, Soviet Union and the US., in that order at times, for acquiring "foreign" influence. Our family, tolerant Hindu liberals, taught us to admire the hard working Protestants, the ever smiling nuns and the never tiring Jesuit educators. Little surprise that I can readily see the universal appeal to tolerance, kindness and acceptance. This is the radio spell that Keillor casts every week on us. And then, of course, joy of life, something this transplant struggles to recognize.

Keillor's main message is in his radio shows, but this DVD is an adjuvant that will make the message tastier. If you have seen Altman's 2006 "A Prairie Home Companion" movie you may consider this DVD an optional item.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Laid-back genius, September 10, 2009

By	Cornelius S. Cowles (Murrieta, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a twenty year fan of everything Keillor, this behind-the-microphone tour of a year in the life of America's most original humorist was sheer delight. He is as he seems: a congenial, humble, self-deprecating artist whose genius lies, in part, in his incredible powers of observation. One gets the feeling that every experience he has and every person he meets is grist for his hillarious skits and one-of-a-kind Lake Wobegon monologues. Like Billy Graham in the religious realm, Keiller put together a basic team early in his Prairie Home Companion career that has stayed and worked together and sustained each other for decades. He seems preeminently comfortable in his `red shoes.' Like his Lake Wobegon tapes and CD's, this is a DVD that we will watch with enjoyment over and over again.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthwhile DVD as seen by a non-follower, July 8, 2009

By	Steve Kuehl "SLV Video" (Ben Lomond, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I have a small volume of customers that love this guy's show, have rented the DVD (A Prairie Home Companion) and follow his work similar to the Paul Harvey crowd. I never listened to their show or even saw APHC, but I did follow Paul Harvey for years and can understand the draw this kind of entertainment has.

This latest documentary covers the span of time before and after that live show in the Minnesota rain a couple years ago. After hearing and seeing his artistic process, I feel compelled to write very little after visualizing a great writer like him. This is a must see for his fan base and I feel they will get a worthwhile product containing plenty of snippets about Minnesota, about how things used to be in the radio industry, Keillor's random thoughts, unscripted interviews and above all - rhubarb.

The supplements contain some redone footage from the Prairie Home Companion release, outtakes of a sort and a few other items that make this a solid purchase, even for someone that knew little of him prior to this viewing. The overall title has a slight introspective feel to it, that I think maybe caters to the crowd looking for something in themselves, over finding it in some random semi-fictional tripe. Hope you get something out of it.