If you're a fan of Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion, there's a good chance you're already familiar with the documentary The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes. It's just the nature of Keillor fans to find out what's going on. The touring dates sell out practically before anyone knows they're on sale.
If you happen not to be aware, and have any interest in Garrison Keillor at all, you simple must check out this wonderful documentary. More than a year of filming put together by Peabody, DGA and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Peter Rosen, showcases the brilliantly indescribable man who brought radio variety back to a world that had no idea it was interested.
Originally airing on PBS' American Masters, the DVD is available with more than an hour of extras, and they are decidedly worthy additions.
It's an approximately 90-minute look at the man behind the mythical town that has become everyone's hometown, and his efforts on and off stage that result in a show that is still winning people over after 35 years. Even with that track record for the show, 20 books published, Robert Altman's film treatment, and a syndicated weekly column, it can still be difficult to describe one's fondness for Keillor in any of his methods of engagment.
While the Altman film takes on quite the adventure, and is probably more documentary in its own way than we might believe, with The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes we are taken not only behind-the-scenes, but behind that as well, and get a surprisingly intimate portrait of how the show, and Lake Wobegon's residents, move from Keillor's mind to the stage and over the airwaves.
The DVD includes outtakes, a filmmaker's biography, an interview with Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor, and Garrison Keillor's Talk to Students, which is almost as wonderful as the documentary.
This is a real gem that is going to go unnoticed by a great many, and that's a shame on several fronts. A fascinating look into the life and mind of easily one of our time's greatest humorists should not slip by without any fanfare at all. Even apart from that, this is a well-crafted documentary that pieces together a rich, vibrant story in a case where its subject is at all times doing its level best to deny anything remotely like vibrancy.
Here's an interview with director Peter Rosen on Garrison Keillor from our friends at New Video
Check out a quick teaser below, and leave a comment to be entered to win a copy for yourself. Winner will be randomly selected on September 21st. You must be in the U.S. or Canada to be eligible to win.
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About Marc Eastman
Marc Eastman is the owner and operator of Are You Screening? and has been writing film reviews for over a decade, and several branches of the internet's film review world have seen his name. His reviews have brought him personal praise from the director of a major motion picture, and have been used as required reading in a course at a major University. These priceless rewards, along with just bags of cash, keep him from straying from freelance writing. He is also a member of The Broadcast Film Critics Association and The Broadcast Television Journalists Association.
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