The genre of war films has basically been around for as long as film itself has. While I am getting a bit tired of watching all of the different variations throughout the AFI's Top 100, there are the occasional exceptions that surprise me. Robert Altman's M*A*S*H is one of these: not because I was blown away by the filmmaking, but because of the way that the film went about exploring its topic. This movie is a comedic and much more lighthearted look at soldiers during the Korean War and the medics that kept them alive. While a much grittier drama would have focused on the hardships of the battlefield, it was so interesting to see Altman's take on a different perspective of the army as he focuses on the often bored medical workers and their everyday lives. While I do think this story was much better suited for TV, it is very interesting to see how the acclaimed television show was sprouted from this lackluster film of the same variety.
Amidst the gruesome horror and life-changing events of the Korean War, there lives a base full of army surgeons and medical professionals that are responsible for caring for these wounded soldiers. Among them are Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland), John McIntyre (Elliott Gould), and Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt), medics who go about their days slacking off and making humor of the whole situation. When they get a new change of management, they are forced to deal with changing their usual habits. Adapted from Richard Hooker's novel, Ring Lardner. Jr. does a decent job of bringing this story into the cinematic world. The characters are all very well-defined, the humor is great, and the much more lighthearted take on this environment was very refreshing. It was strange at first to see these doctors and soldiers cracking jokes and making fun of each other while they were holding scalpels over a bloody patient but it quickly became commonplace. The contrast between their joking with each other and the horrible tragedies that they were witnessing created a fantastic sense of authenticity and really helped to legitimize much of this movie's setting. My biggest issue with this film, however, which is the main reason I was taken out of its experience, was the lack of plot and often laziness of its storytelling. Not much of importance actually happened in this film and it really just felt like a string of disconnected events. The humor was the main part, after all, but I just really wish that there was something much stronger connecting everything together to really make me care. I did not even end up caring much about these characters or their struggles because everything was so distant. They were all funny enough on their own to carry their scenes but overall, there did not seem to be much of a purpose behind this movie.
I believe that this is also why M*A*S*H ended up being much better suited for television. The switch of this story from the film is definitely the smartest thing that the creators could have done for lots of reasons. While the cast of this film did not end up switching over to the television show, I believe that the TV version was much more effective. This film lacked so much plot and entirely relied on its characters, which is what television does. TV is the best medium for screenwriting and developing characters over longer periods of time and the plot points throughout this film that tried to get each scene to lead into the next could have easily been breaks between episodes. Television is character-driven and this film just did not make the characters work because of that. The humor in this movie is great in its timeliness but it is still a bit inappropriate, which is why I feel so many people resonated with this film back in 1970. It would be nice to see more films take bold approaches to comedy nowadays like this movie did back then but more often than not, well-written comedy is actually safe and more appealing to everyone whereas in this film, it is a bit narrower. The performances in this movie are also great and each cast member really gives their all for their character. The full-circle gags that the script utilizes are great and the way that many of the running jokes intersect with each other is very humorous. It was also very nice to see Altman's direction and how he took a different approach to a story like this. Having made this film relatively soon after the actual war is a risky thing in itself but I believe that he did a fantastic job with avoiding anything that could be considered too taboo by focusing on a mostly unnoticed group of soldiers.
M*A*S*H is a solid war film that utilizes its minimal locations and script in excellent ways. It is obvious to see why this was adapted into TV and how much more effective it is in small episodes as opposed to this longer, narrative story. I still enjoyed this film's humor, however dated it might be, and looking at this classic movie from today's lens creates a different appreciation for the translation of stories between film and television and how it should be done.
My Rating: ★★★½
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