Robert Altman was one of America’s most original and innovative directors during the Hollywood new wave renascence of the 1970’s. He only made a few comedies, which is a great shame, because M*A*S*H is one of the great dark comedies of our time. It is a fresh original and extremely dark satire on the absurdity of forcing regular people to live through the horrors of war. The movie is also the source for one the longest running and funniest network sitcoms ever made.
In a very European vein, the movie does not follow a standard linear plot, but works as a sort of observatory film of the various characters that serve in the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) in South Korea during the Korean war of the 1950’s. Clearly there was an intent on a satirical commentary to the ongoing Vietnam war that was raging at the time. If the producers had allowed the movie to be set at the present time during that war, the music would probably have had a harder edge, and the copious amounts of alcohol consumed in the film, would probably have been replaced by recreational drugs. Other than that, the Korean setting was very similar to what was happening in Southeast Asia at the time. The MASH unit is located only 3 miles from the front line, as a constant convey of ambulance helicopters keep flying in the wounded for quick lifesaving patch-up work by the MASH unit doctors.
The movie’s humor derives from the quirky characters, from doctors, nurses, officers, and orderlies who work in the unit. The movie identifies three doctors as the leaders of the camp. They are Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland), Trapper John McIntyre (Elliott Gould), and Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt), and all three are prone to pranks, womanizing and heavy drinking. The fact that they are all married is besides the point as the film seems to hint that everything is forgiven during war. Their in-camp protagonists are Doctor Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), and nurse Margaret Houlihan (The truly wonderful Sally Kellerman). Frank and Margaret are gung-ho military types and extremely religious. Those are considered negative attributes, as far as the movie is concerned. Both are shown to be hypocrites while our heroes embrace their amoral behavior as a survival instinct to being in the situation, they are in. Most of the film’s comedy lies in the cruel pranks waged against Frank and Margaret, who represent the establishment.
Altman was very keen in developing a realistic almost documentary style to the way he films the movie, and one of the innovative techniques used here is having numerous characters talk at the same time, within one singular scene. While this was initially confusing for me, it forced me to concentrate on the dialogue more intently, which resulted in a taking in more deeply each scene. This was especially effective in the scenes that take place withing the surgery tent.
In the scenes that take place within the surgery tent, Altman chose to use realistic, dirty, and very gory details. The surgeons would be performing sometimes multiple life or death surgeries at the same time while working in the tent. The seriousness of these scenes is enhanced with the purposeful realism and gore. They are the perfect antithesis to the constant jokes and pranks waged in between the arrivals of the wounded. Even here however a joke or two will be cracked in the one-liner style of Groucho Marx. However, while surrounded by so much gore, those jokes just seem to emphasize the horror of the actual war. In between this devastating work, our heroes would act out extremely cruel but hilariously funny pranks on their uptight nemesis, that being Frank and Margaret. By making Frank and Margaret so unlikeable, the movie worked to help me enjoy the cruelty done to them.
I always must take the period a movie is produced into consideration when reviewing the social standards being shown. M*A*S*H is a movie that is as sexist and racist as they get when looked at through today’s perspective. Women are treated like sex objects to be used for the sole benefit of the men, and one black man even gets the connotation of, “spear-chucker”, which even when being defended as being a description of his Olympic javelin throwing prowess, sounds abhorrent and insulting. In general, the characters in this movie are not very sympathetic. They are however very funny, and their satire is incisive as well as to the point.
The movie climaxes with one of the funniest American Football games ever put to film. The ridiculousness of playing a game in the middle of a war, in a field hospital is offset by the hilarious way the game uses exaggerated actions to instill humor. In the end I just laughed out loud, not caring about the ridiculousness of it all.
M*A*S*H is a truly funny gem of a movie that at the same time is innovative and profound. The beauty of satire is its ability to laugh at some of the more horrifying aspects of life. War makes for a great subject of Satire and black comedy, and M*A*S*H is one of the best black comedy war satires of them all.
1001 Movies before you die 