MovieChat Forums > MASH (1970) Discussion > Too strong an anti-war message?

Too strong an anti-war message?


An anti-war film, if done well, is far from a bad movie, but only if done well.

If the story (assuming there actually is one) is basically just "war is bad" repeated every ten seconds, it's not going to be a blockbuster.

A good anti-war movie is more than talk. It shows war for what it really is.

While war is never a good thing, it is sometimes the only option, and in fact a fact of life that will never go away, although we can and should try and prevent war as much possible.


Incidentally, this movie was made the way it was when Robert Altman, a WWII veteran, went to Vietnam for some reason and was appalled at what he saw.

It is at this point necessary to put his military service in perspective.

Robert Altman enlisted in the USAAF in 1943 at the age of 18, becoming a bomber co-pilot of a B-24 Liberator and eventually flying in more than fifty missions in the Pacific over Borneo and the Dutch East Indies.

Now I do not want to belittle his service at all, but he was air force, not infantry, so the only part of the war he saw was from the sky, in an area known for fierce guerrilla fighting, but from the air and bombing targets he might not have even seen, so it was not inconceivable that his only exposure to fighting on the ground and what infantry went through was when he visited Vietnam.

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[deleted]

I'm not really saying the movie did any of that, I'm just wondering about its anti war message.

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[deleted]

I am well aware that bomber crews had the highest mortality rates, and doing bombing runs over one of the fiercest theatres of the war certainly didn't help, I'm just wondering how his movie making would be affected by his military service.

For example, Mel Brooks was at the Battle of the Bulge and part of his duties was to deactivate landmines. He made comedies, and the closest to a serious war film he ever made was a comedy remake of the film To Be or Not To Be, while still being faithful to the original.

And for another example, Russ Meyer was a combat cameraman, filming everything after D-Day, arriving July 19, comprising the majority of newsreel footage (virtually all of the newsreels seen in Patton after D-Day was shot by Meyer), and he made campy, nudist and exploitation (practically inventing 'sexploitation').

So I think that a director's military service has an effect on the movies he makes.



As for questioning if a movie's anti-war message is too strong, if it's too strong, it can take away from the movie as a whole. I'm not accusing the movie or anything, I'm just wondering, although I don't think it's too strong.

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You know what, I was thinking of the series, not the movie. Sorry.

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[deleted]

I say the anti-war message should have been stronger in the case of Korea and Viet Nam we put our two cents into a local civil war that was none of our business.

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You always hear about this film being a "anti war".

Having seen it many times over the years, I don't see it that way.

I think it more accurate to say that its "anti-authority" more than "anti-war".

There's a big difference, IMHO.

The movie concerns (mostly) the antics of two misfit surgeons who constantly challenge authority. The films final act deals with a football game. That's a long way from "anti-war".

AE36

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The football scene likens the game to war (players being carried away on stretchers, a game of land acquisition, etc.). The anti-authority current runs strong throughout the film, but that doesn't make an anti-war message mutually exclusive.

I don't know how a movie's message can be "too" anti-war, though... The atrocities seem to speak for themselves.

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