Is this film funny because the two main characters do whatever they want and get away with it? That quickly got monotonous and didn't feel like much more than a sit-com. IMO Dr. Strangelove was a much better war satire but if you love this film please tell me if there's more substance to it than hat I picked up, because I always hear it's a classic and don't understand why.
shareWell its definitely funny in a late 60's counter culture "thumbing your nose at authority" kinda way...Some of the jokes are just slapstic such as how the doctors behave when they are at the hospital in Seoul (or Tokyo, i forget).
Its really more about the characters and the amusing way they act (or childish) put in contrast to the seriousness of war and surgery.
Perhaps it isnt a comedy as much as its a counter-culture drama with moments of humor which hadnt been seen before.
Thanks for the feedback, perhaps it's humor is simply dated.
shareI have to say that I didn't really get it either. First saw this film maybe six or seven years ago. I was familiar with the tv series and had heard all along that the movie had a much harder edge to it. But the movie also came with very high praise and critical acclaim. Listed No. 7 on American Film Institute's all time comedies....ranked in AFI's top 100 American films of all time. So the bar was set pretty high going in but when I finally saw it I could not believe my disappointment. Time and time again I kept saying to myself "THIS is the classic film that everybody raves about?"
The main characters were the most insufferably smug, condescending jerks imaginable. The film carried a very ugly, mean-spirited tone. Women were treated as non-entities to be used or demeaned at will. There was no plot to speak of. The silly football game went on way too long and probably belonged in a different movie. And the film itself was grainy, dirty and difficult to watch.
But you know what....those things would not have bothered me if the movie lived up to its reputation as one of the top comedies ever and actually made me laugh. Unfortunately it didn't. Not even once. So to me that is the biggest letdown of all. M*A*S*H just wasn't funny. This film just didn't work for me-- as satire, or black comedy, or in any regard.
I feel that M*A*S*H is largely a product of its time. In the context of 1970 and the Vietnam War it probably had a much bigger impact than when viewed today. By all accounts it was a breakthrough film. And it certainly was an audacious movie in basically giving a big middle finger to the Establishment at a time when it was not common to do so. But audacity alone does not make for a good movie, and M*A*S*H does not hold up well over time.
"I don't want any Commies in my car. No Christians, either."
[deleted]
You don't? Sexual harassment, intolerance, suicide, doping, cheating, misogyny, adultery.....hilarity!
I despise our PC-times, but this anti-PC film pushes every button. While a good film pushes a button or two in a thought-provoking way (Dr Strangelove, for example), this one pushes every single button for cheap laughs. The fact that the protagonists get away with every horrible, cruel, malicious (and zany...let's not forget zany!) prank they pull leaves an incredibly sour taste.
Frank Burns was a self-righteous jackass, and yet the protagonists seem so much more villainous. After watching a film, I shouldn't feel like I need a shower, but that's how I feel. And I don't mean a sexual harassment shower where everyone ogles me (now that's great comedy and it's a good thing there was no punishment).
Perhaps the film didn't go to far. I think we were a step away from the doctors gang raping Hot Lips followed by Trapper being declared King of the universe.
War is hell, and just like most people don't want to see how their sausage is made, they also don't want to know the atrocities of war, and that every single soldier is by definition, a trained killer.
MASH mocked many of these atrocities...
It is somewhat humorous to me that there is a current film that is somewhat similarly being attacked for "glorifying" something, that the director and star say was the exact opposite of their intent: The Wolf of Wall Street.
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?
I can appreciate your frustration with this movie, but it grows on you, and I will tell you why.
Saw this when I was first 12, and I HATED them. Agreed entirely with EVERYTHING you said.
However, alway found myself in situations where I was viewing film again. Drive-ins, friends wanting to see it, double features with film I really wanted to see.
I am close to 50 now, and have seen this film many times.
The older I got, the more I understood these two.
First off, let's discuss their worth. They are skilled surgeons, who will bendover backwards before they give up on a patient. They will do whatever it takes to save a patient. This is demonstated more than once. Examples: 1)Trapper asking for latest x-rays of general's son in Tokyo because ones he has are old. There are times when a patient is far gone and they have to butt heads to see if they can come up with an idea. They save the baby in the whorehouse.
They are in their mid to late 30's and they have to leave medical practices to fight in the war, and live by Army regulations, which they never had to do before. This isn't WWII. Now, they have to listen to the Army telling them what to do all the time, and it is for stupid things.
At first, I thought that they were too hard on Frank Burns, but would you want a surgeon like him operating on you. He seemed to live in his own world, and blamed people for his costly mistakes.
As far as Hot Lips goes, that did go too far.
This -> "They are in their mid to late 30's and they have to leave medical practices to fight in the war, and live by Army regulations, which they never had to do before. This isn't WWII. Now, they have to listen to the Army telling them what to do all the time, and it is for stupid things"
Excellent point!
I watched this for the first time ever recently at the age of 33.
I am glad I waited because I too would have hated this at a younger age.
I used to catch the show every now and again but never understood it as a kid.
My Father (Vietnam vet)loved it, and this was the only reason for my exposure to begin with.
I want to add one point, that may have been already said, or possibly just a "well duh" point that is considered given.
Doctor, are very methodically in surgery. It seemed as though they played and goofed off all the time, except in the OR. IMO the reason they played so hard outside was to escape from all the turmoil in the OR. Seeing death and destruction every day, over and over. I would be like that to. PLaying jokes, drinking heavily, experiencing life without constraint of consequence. When saddled with Mcintyro's point I listed above. These two make total sense. But at a younger viewing age, or without seeing the grittier side of war (through film, think Band of Brothers) i would not have been able to appreciate this lighter take.
Few additional comments: all the sexism is not politically correct, but acceptable at the time. It's like all those people who preach date rape on the sixteen candle board... Russian Roulette in Deer hunter... (PS. I don't think DAte rape's okay, but at the time, I don't think many saw it as that) You cannot take a movie from one generation, then view it in another and cry foul. If anything they should be applauded for capturing the true essence of that culture. I think one reason this film was so popular was, people wanted to know about war, but at that time, film showing the realistic side of war were either absent or taboo. (though it does seem they showed up right after (Deer Hunter/ Platoon)) maybe this movie paved the way....
Also.. agreed, the football scene was too long.
yeah it all seemed too easy and breezy to me. never quite understood this movie, but i love the direction.
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Basically, it's "Animal House" on a battlefield....or, since this movie predates it, "Animal House" is "M*A*S*H*" on a college campus.
shareBasically, it's "Animal House" on a battlefield....or, since this movie predates it, "Animal House" is "M*A*S*H*" on a college campus.
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And that's why Donald Sutherland is IN "Animal House."
They are certainly connected movies but MASH came out in 1970 as the Vietnam War was in its final ugly phases(and nobody thought it was going to end) while Animal House came out in the post-war "let's party" disco year of 1978.
You could cut the differences with a knife: MASH had all those gory, bloody, graphic sequences of men being put together in surgery, it had a horror movie groove that the lighter hearted Animal House had no interest in.
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I say that MASH was to 1970 as Psycho was to 1960: the movie that changed movies and took them up a level in "what could be shown, what could be seen."
MASH had: nudity, sexual intercourse, one of the first uses of the "F" word; ultra-bloody operating room gore; the smoking of joints, a direct attack on religious beliefs; and a casual acceptance of adultery(these doctors and nurses all note that they have spouses they love back home but will nonetheless have sex HERE.)
As one critic noted in 1970, "this is what the new freedom of the screen is all about."
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Its the misogyny that seems to bug everybody today, but there was plenty of misogyny in the counterculture -- rock stars had female groupies having slave sex with them all the time and antiwar leaders said they got laid a LOT. To counteract the meanness of the military(a group which, after all, kept sending young men off to die without a thought about it at all), the antiwar activists had to be MEANER.
Keep in mind that Hawkeye and Trapper John are surgeons -- men who carve into human bodies and grab ahold of guts for a living. Surgeons are, notoriously, supersmart, arrogant and rather inhuman people -- it has been said that surgery is a good profession for sociopaths who otherwise would be carving up victims as serial killers.
MASH was also revolutionary in Robert Altman's overlapping dialogue techniques. We had had overlapping dialogue in the forties with Howard Hawks' "His Girl Friday" but this 1970 version was more realistic and mumbled and shambling.
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Yes, "you had to be there" to experience the culture shock of the movie MASH.
And I would add this: fans of the movie version of MASH were pretty disgusted with the silly sitcom version that turned up on TV two years later. A laugh track. A goofy idiot Frank Burns. A guy who walked around in a dress ostensibly to seek a Section 8 discharge. No operating room gore. The substitution of sweetly pro-feminist Alan Alda(his very name became a joke among "men's men") and eventually, angelic pacifist Mike Farrell for the brutal misogynists played by Sutherland and Gould.
And yet America -- being a "nice" country at heart -- quickly took to the sweet MASH of TV and rejected the savage MASH of the movies....and I will certainly admit that with the passing years, MASH the TV show became more well-written and nuanced in ITS take on war and humanity than it seemed in its first silly TV season or two.
you cant always judge movies outside of its time and place..the neo-realistic movies right after ww2 were much more powerful at the time of their release,because the war was still ingrained in our minds..horror films like the exorcist and night of the living dead broke down barriers ,but such scenes are now seen in pg13 thrillers..the defiant ones dealt with race in a way that would now be considered cliché..
m.a.s.h was ahead of its time in its irreverence..it was almost subversive in its anti-war,dark humor.. I agree it doesn't hold up well,and if people are seeing it for the first time,they may wonder what all the fuss was about..but it was different,and it showcased some great character acting..