Interestingly, the movie was one of, if not the the first Hollywood production to use the word “fuck”. John Schuck ad-libbed the line “All right bud, your fucking head is coming right off” in the football game, and Altman left it in.
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I’m not replying to anyone in particular, but MASH (the TV show) easily ranks on my top five television shows ever.
During that early period of the 2000’s when (almost) every old TV show was being released on DVD, MASH was the first TV show I collected. This was before HDTV really took over and I’ll say, when watching the episodes on a standard-def Sony Trinitron, it’s as if they were brand new.
Yes, there is much to criticize of the TV show decades after it aired, but it always remains one of my warm blankets.
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I like how Potter greets everyone by name, except for Winchester.
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My favorite moment was a very small one- It’s towards the end of the Christmas episode where Winchester donates candy to the orphans, and finds out that they had sold it on the black market. He confronts him and learns that it bought enough cabbage to keep them fed for a month, and his gift had been more about himself than the people he was allegedly helping.
Klinger hears the whole thing and brings him supper while he’s sulking in the tent, and subtly lets him know that he knows what happened.
And all he says is “Thank you, Max”, but it’s delivered with SUCH amazing emotion and gravitas. I don’t think I’ve ever heard quite so much depth packed into three words as David Ogden Stiers managed to deliver in that moment. I honestly think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen committed to film.
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I had forgotten already, but when I started rewatching it last year, I was struck by how solid the cinematography was. For something produced as a weekly sitcom for viewing on televisions of the seventies, the production quality is impressive.
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Not Klinger: Max.
But that might have been the writers instead of him. Still…perfect.
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Yes I grew up on MASH too and became cynical. Having worked on audio grabs of women and men that served in WW2 from New Zealand I lost much cynicism for MASH (Film and television) and having those conversations with veterans lost it all.
My English grandfather ‘ran away’ to join his older brother when he was 14 to be in the cavalry in the 1st world war… He pretty much moved his family here to Australia because of PTSD as we now know it after the family lived in England during the 2ndWW.
Have friends that were on the ground in Vietnam and Afghanistan, wars that have no currency in Australians… except for our government.
This clip from MASH bought tears to my eyes because of the trauma that is passed on and remembered.
Yes, the only nod to anything but a white patriarchal representation is the weird Arabic cross dresser Klinger but if you have the conversation with the people on the ground then perhaps folk will get a wider idea of humanity.
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That’s criminal.
M.A.S.H.'s finale was not only record breaking and heartbreaking but goddamn amazing.
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And Klinger responds with “Merry Christmas, Charles.” It’s such a subtle detail, but where they’ve only ever called one another by last name or rank, it just SO PERFECTLY highlights that one brief moment of pure human decency. There is so much that is just unsaid, but still so eloquently conveyed in six words of dialogue…
As I said, possibly my favorite moment of film ever.
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If you’ve only watched the episodes airing on TV now, you’ve missed some really great stuff, especially the Honeycut/Burns years. They had to cut out a lot to fit within the time frame and get all the commercials in. If you’re watching them on Hulu, you’ll get the whole thing, but if watching on MeTV or another oldies network, you’re only getting 1/2 the show.
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Well, from what I understand the original film is closer to the book, and boy in the film were those guys assholes. The only really decent thing I remember them doing is cutting through the red tape and BS in order to get the surgery done for the abandoned mixed race child.
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