M*A*S*H (Widescreen Edition)
by Robert Altman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Tom SkerrittDirector: Robert Altman
Brand: Twentieth Century Fox
Cinematographer: Harold E. Stine
Editor: Danford B. Greene
Producer: Ingo Preminger
Producer: Leon Ericksen
Writer: Richard Hooker
Writer: Ring Lardner Jr.
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language); Korean (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of M*A*S*H (Widescreen Edition)
Movie Review: Great period piece still packs a punch
Summary: 5 Stars
In this review I compare MASH with Catch-22, and then include a little plug for another funny, anti-war movie at the end which you may not have heard about that's worth seeing too.
I'd never seen the original movie all the way through until I watched it for the first time last week, so for me this was truly a blast from the past. I was familiar with some of the funniest moments, such as the broadcast of Dr. Burns's and Hot Lips' little tete a tete, but had never actually seen it. Having watched the TV series, I was familiar with the concept, but the legendary original Altman flick that the series was based on was something I'd somehow missed.
As a previous writer here said, it's really a series of four vignettes rather than a coherent movie with a real plot, and the whole movie is an irreverent, sacreligious, and anti-authoritarian and satirical spoof from beginning to end. In other words, it's a very funny movie perhaps lacking any redeeming qualities whatsoever except for that. :-)
For me it was a bit of a shock to see all these actors 30 years younger, as I mostly knew them from their later work, such as Rene Aberjonois, who I mostly knew from Star Trek Deep Space Nine as the constable Shape Shifter. Gary Burghoff was the only member of the original cast who ended up in the TV series, and Donald Sutherland still looks the same. And I really only knew Bud Cort from his classic movie, Harold and Maude.
I made the same comment to a friend about the movie, that it's reminiscent of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, but my friend, who's much more knowledgeable about movies than I, pointed out that they're really two very different flicks both in spirit and in content. Although both are ostensibly anti-war, Catch-22 is a much more cynical and dark movie which sees little good in human behavior and society and doesn't even hold forth the hope let alone the promise of something better. In that sense it's a truly nihilistic film.
MASH is much more lighthearted and shows the characters trying to make the best of a horrible situation as they stumble through the trials and tribulations of the war with, as someone once said about Cary Grant, a sort of "goofy exasperatedness." As one of the characters said, we're all basically crazy anyway, and in MASH that's how everyone keeps their sanity.
So overall, if not a great movie, a great period piece that is still worth your time and money to rent it.
Since we're on the subject of anti-war movies, I can't resist plugging another of my favorites, since it's a great flick and is much less known than the above two. This is The King of Hearts, a French film starring a very young looking Alan Bates and Genevieve Bujold, who are known the U.S., but the other main actors mostly aren't, although some people will remember Adolpho Celli as the heavy in Goldfinger, the James Bond film.
As with MASH, the film is a darkly satiric comedy that pokes fun at the absurdity and futility of war. The main plot concerns a group of inmates from a local insane asylum who escape during the chaos and confusion into an abandoned French town, which sets the stage to ironically contrast the insanity of war brought by supposedly sane people with the harmless behavior of the supposedly insane inmates who are acting out the roles of normal town citizens. And yet it is the innocuous and inoffensive inmates who are caged and the supposedly sane people are making war.
The inmates wander into the town and assume various roles, acting like typical citizens, from the barber to the mayor. The inmates do this so convincingly that the young corporal (played by Bates) who is sent to warn them of the approaching Germans at first doesn't realize they are escaped mental patients, which becomes a metaphor for the real question in the move, which is, who is really crazier: the inmates, or the "normal" people and soldiers fighting the war?
Unfortunately, although he tries, Bates is unable to avert the confrontation between the British and German companies who march into town, and when the two contingents shoot it out (everyone is killed to the last man), the inmates realize the fun is over, that they don't belong in "sane society," and it's time for them to go back to their former home in the asylum.
As I said, I didn't know most of the cast, except for Adolpho Celi, Alan Bates, and Genevieve Bujold, but I thought all the performances were superb, especially Jean- Claude Brialy, who played the mayer, Pierre Brasseur, who played General Geranium, and the barber (unfortunately I don't recall his real name. As with the above two flicks, it's a great movie and a brilliantly witty satire and stinging indictment of the futility and absurdity of war.
Summary of M*A*S*H (Widescreen Edition)
The staff of a korean war field hospital use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war. Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 05/23/2006 Starring: Donald Sutherland Sally Kellerman Run time: 112 minutesSimilar DVD Movies
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