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MASH vs MASH, TV show vs Film

SteveJRogers Nov 21 2006 06:32 PM

Was going to drop this in the APLHD thread upon seeing Robert Altman died, but since this is a new topic, here we go: Robert Altman was a great director and all, but I think he was a bit jealous about the fact that he had nothing to do with the TV show MASH or that the show became more popular than the film was. Not to knock the dead or anything, but it struck me as being weird that he always hated the TV show despite the fact that it held true to the anti-war messages of the movie, especially in later years when Alda decided to make Hawkeye into a 70's version of a metro-sexual. Saw him on the DVD of MASH and his reasons for hating the show seemed shallow IMO: The enemy was shown as "the yellow man with squinty eyes" on the show Altman showed his movie vs on-going TV program bias here. It's one thing if you have a fictional country/setting, but it would have been extremly hard to pull off a war TV show without letting the audience know who the other side is. I understand and know why Altman did it that way for a 2 hour movie, (make the viewers think it was Vietnam, not Korea) but a movie is a 2 hour (more or less of course) project with a beginning, middle, and end. A TV show that lasts seasons will leave many to wonder "Hey, where the heck are they?" and unless it's said from the outset that it's a fictional setting with fictional names (I.e. Kreoul instead of Seoul or something) its hard to pull off for more than half a season or so. The show was a propaganda piece for war This last part just shows that Altman never saw a single episode of MASH, specifically when from when Alda took a more active role in the production of the show. I'll dare anyone to make a case that MASH was pro-war in any terms. If anything it was true to the "War is Hell" nature of the movie. I mean this wasn't George Cohan or Irving Berlin rousing up the troops for 10 seasons. It was dark, gritty, insane, and sure the hell ain't something the Army would put up as a recruitment video!

KC Nov 21 2006 07:56 PM

SJR: >>>I'll dare anyone to make a case that MASH was pro-war<<< Wow, really going out on a limb here.

SteveJRogers Nov 21 2006 08:05 PM

="KC"]SJR: >>>I'll dare anyone to make a case that MASH was pro-war<<< Wow, really going out on a limb here. Easy Kase! Just trying to deconstruct Altman's logic by saying the guy never watched a single episode and held on to a silly notion based on what he thought CBS might do to his vision

KC Nov 21 2006 08:32 PM

Don't easy me ... I didn't say anything that requires you to tell me to take it easy. Please, deconstruct away, professor.

Edgy DC Nov 21 2006 09:59 PM

Hawkeye may have been a pushy progressive, but he was not a metrosexual. He was an indifferently dressed indifferently kempt moonshine boozehound. Have we overbroadened the definition of metrosexual to mean all white liberals the way the very specific definition of yuppies came to nebulously define all white collar workers?

sharpie Nov 21 2006 10:01 PM

The movie (which I saw for the first time in years recently) was grittier and far less predictable than the TV show but that is the nature of movies versus longtime series.

RealityChuck Nov 21 2006 11:02 PM

They were both excellent, but in different ways. How the movie was better: 1. Duke Forrest. 2. Frank Burns was not just incompetant, he was dangerous and nearly psychotic. 3. Painless Potter 4. "Dago Red" Mulcahy 5. No Alan Alda touchy-feely stories. 6. Generally better actors. How the TV show was better: 1. Women characters better portrayed. 2. General character change throughout. 3. More antiwar. 4. Attempts to try different methods of storytelling. 5. Hotlips wasn't an utter moron. 6. Klinger The movie, despite Altman's protests, isn't really antiwar; it's a service comedy like "Buck Privates." The main point is the same as in "House": if you're competant enough, you can get away with anything. No one made any comments about the war, and about the only thing vaguely antiwar were the fact that the hospital scenes were quite graphic. The TV show was more blatantly antiwar.

Edgy DC Dec 28 2006 03:23 PM

There are really four M*A*S*H*s: the book, the film, the Larry Gelbart/Gene Reynolds-dominated years of the show, and the Alan Alda/Mike Farrell-dominated years of the show. I think it's silly to get into describing any version of M*A*S*H* to be pro-war, but rather reflective of an existentialist worldview of "The world's going to Hell, get what you can." It evolved more toward an existentialist worldview of "The world's going to Hell, lend a helping hand."

Vic Sage Jan 02 2007 11:43 AM

Existentialists don't view the world as going to Hell.. they don't view it as going anywhere. it simply is. We, on the other hand, ARE going somewhere, eventually... back to the dust. So, if one is to find meaning and fulfillment in this one and only life, one needs to define it and find it for oneself. as for MASH, i loved the book, loved the film, liked the Gelbart series, barely tolerated the Alda series. And despite Chuck's repeated assertions on this subject, to call Altman's MASH a "service comedy" is to have missed his point entirely. While it certainly IS a "service comedy", thats not ALL it is.

Edgy DC Jan 02 2007 11:51 AM

Didn't mean to mis-represent. I was merely being poetic. I meant not to describe the general existentialist worldview, but merely the metaphorical living hell of the war setting. Other existentialist stories set in traumatic (better word than Hellish) situations: The Plague; Mother, Juggs, and Speed; and Pushing Tin.

RealityChuck Jan 02 2007 04:30 PM

="Vic Sage"]And despite Chuck's repeated assertions on this subject, to call Altman's MASH a "service comedy" is to have missed his point entirely. While it certainly IS a "service comedy", thats not ALL it is. But the movie is not an antiwar film. (Compare it to something like King of Hearts, which also used an older war to attack Vietnam). There are a couple of lines -- "He was drafted" and a lot of blood in the operating room. But no one in the movie really questioned the war; they questioned the commanders (with the implication that better commanders would have won things quicker). The climax, after all, is a football game -- stylized combat (see George Carlin). If the operating room scenes had been shot without all the blood, no one would have considered it an antiwar film at all. And it's message isn't "stop the war"; it's "let the professionals do what they need to do."