The "Last Supper" scene just before the suicide.
Clever yes, also is it a swipe at religion?
"It's the system, Lara. People will be different after the Revolution."
Yep. And justly so.
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MovieChat Forums > MASH (1970) Discussion > The "Last Supper" scene just before the ...
They recreated Leonardo Da Vinci's Last supper to a great detail, and after the moving group finished the similar look, there is a standing man behind the table, that reads a book and makes the cross sign. So, it is definitely a religious touch linked to the staged suicide and to the whole tragic situation of the war.
share... is it a swipe at religion?Is the Pope a catholic?🐭 share
And don't forget the following sequence, Painless res-erection.
sharehysterical too
shareNew York Times critic Roger Greenspun in his January 26, 1970 review of MASH (upon its opening to literally "launch the 70s" with a January release) wrote:
"To my knowledge, Robert Altman's MASH is the first major American movie openly to ridicule belief in God -- not phony belief. Real belief. It is also one of the few(though by no means the first) American screen comedies to openly to admit the cruelty of its humor."
The first part -- mockery of God -- is perhaps linked to the second(cruelty)...for the film almost qualifies as a "dramedy" in its emphasis on the blood, guts, death and mutilation of battle field surgery(with "fixed" soldiers often being sent back into battle when they were well enough.)
It was the shock and cruelty of MASH -- as well as (in order) its comedy and its sexual content -- that made it a hit and got it a Best Picture Oscar nomination to boot.
But back to the mockery of BELIEF in God. This is expressed toward Robert Duvall's villainous Col. Frank Burns and HIS immediate move to the Bible when patients die(sometimes due to HIS incompetence.) Hawkeye, Trapper John and the movie's "add on character," Duke(Tom Skerritt) all openly deride and insult Burns for his beliefs. The NYT critic was probably thinking all the way back to "Elmer Gantry"(1960) as an indictment of PHONY religion (Burt Lancaster won the Best Actor Oscar for playing a phony preacher man), but MASH went more directly at actual belief in God). But I'd say that the guys mocking Duvall may just be mocking HIS phony belief in God...as a means by which to evade responsibility for his fatal failures.
CONT
That said, while the attack on the Duvall character is direct and serious, the Last Supper scene is a more funny assault -- by merely RE-STAGING the painting to accompany the "mock suicide" of a temporarily impotent heterosexual who thinks he is now homosexual...the movie takes a lighter approach to its mockery. "All in good fun." "Suicide is Painless" is beautifully sung by an African-American actor in the troupe; one-liners abound. Deadpan "macho man" commentary on solidarity with their temporarily impotent brethren. Its an "all guy scene" with an available sex object female at the ready for the payoff.
50 years later, the debate about God still rages...with an internet to stoke the fires endlessly.