M*A*S*H: Film vs. Series

[DerekG]

I heard Robert Altman (director of M*A*S*H) blasting the televison series in a supplement on the DVD I rented. He was complaining that the show wasn't really anti-war.

Did he ever watch the real show, or did he confuse it with Hogan's Heroes?!?

The film was not so much anti-war as it was anti-establishment. Apart from the beautiful elegy, "Suicide is Painless," and the bloody operating scenes, the film is really about the surgeons' mean-spirited battles against the bureaucracy (represented by Frank Burns and Hot Lips). Some of the sub-plots are hilarious, but the film is very uneven--the conversion of Hot Lips is ludicrous and the football game slows the film to a halt.

The series is superior to its predecessor in most respects. While it originally tried to assimilate the dark comedy and Dionysian spirit of the film, it really ended up transcending it. As much as I loved Henry Blake and Trapper, their replacements--Potter and B.J.--dispelled the frivolity of the series and transformed M*A*S*H into television's first dramedy. Yeah, it could get preachy at times, but by the last show, none of the characters left Korea the same way they had entered it. Hawkeye was left psychologically devasted, Hot Lips was a more tolerant person, B.J. wasn't the optimist he had been, Charles wasn't nearly as cavalier.

While the film has aged terribly, the series stands as the most humanistic, anti-war treatise in our popular culture--perhaps equal to "All Quiet On The Western Front."

Which do you prefer?

[kalian]

1. The series....

its was extremely anti-war and in particular very anti-Vietnam war.

[Bertha Venation]

2. not an equal comparison

I don't know how to expand on that.

I liked the movie, and I liked the TV series. AFAIC the only things they had in common were the title, the premise, and the character names (not even the characters were the same from film to movie).

I found both to be about equally anti-war.

[beawr]

3. The Film

[Bertha Venation]

4. welcome to DU

:hi:

[beawr]

14. Thank You

Glad to be here.......

[Exultant Democracy]

5. The film is a rare gem

then again so was the series. This feels like Sophies choice.

[Kenneth ken]

6. they're not comparable

I prefer the film, simply because I don't like Alan Alda.

How can you possibly try to compare a film which was made in less than one year, and had a running time of ~ two hours to a television series which was made (and changed thematic direction numerous times) over the course of however many seasons, and had a running time of however many hours (minus commercials)?

Might as well compare a limerick to the collected works of Mark Twain.

[Archae]

7. The film and TV had one thing the same.

Radar.

And to me, the show "jumped the shark" when Radar went home.

[Paladin]

8. Couldn't Disagree More

I think the movie was and is an absolute classic. I guess you had to have been there in the theater in Austin TX with me when the chaplin stated the immortal line "He was drafted" and to have experienced the five-minute standing ovation that resulted. Too light on the anti-war message? I don't think so. I found the TV series to be tedious, preachy, unsubtle, and above all, a massive ego trip for Alan "Mr. Sensitive" Alda. The movie wins, by a landslide.....

[LWolf]

9. Both.

"Suicide is Painless..." the listener's perspective on this song really depends on whether they saw the movie, doesn't it?

[ochazuke]

10. Series for me, please

Can't we have a few follow-up TV movies where a couple of the old cast meet up somehow. No big re-union needed. That might even be the germ of a script. B.J. can't get a re-union together because... well, let the scriptwriters figure it out.

Word of caution: After M*A*S*H

[starroute]

11. I hated the film even at the time

I thought it was gratuitously nasty. It had no affection for any of its characters. The way it treated Hot Lips was misogynistic to the point of being embarrassing, and the way it treated Frank Burns was outright vicious. I had trouble sitting all the way through it, and I left the theater with a bad taste in my mouth.

The tv series, being a series, was naturally uneven. It had its lame episodes and its gems. But its best serious moments were wrenching and its best comic moments were laugh-out-loud funny, without any of the nastiness of the film.

[hlthe2b]

12. I agree with you Derek G..... I've heard Altman say that before

and, frankly, I just think it is sour grapes with respect to the series' success.

I like both the film and the tv series, but find them to be quite different. The only thing they really have in common, beyond the character names, is the fact that both film/series draw on similar material and basic theme. Personally, I favor the tv show, because the characters had a chance to be far more developed. Plus, it was really two series in one: the first with Trapper John, Major Burns, and Colonel Blake, while the second took on a very different tone/feel with Colonel Potter and Major Winchester. I really liked the way the series evolved over the years with the different casts of characters, but with Hawkeye, Father Mulcahey, Klinger, and Major Hoolihan providing the continuity.

But, yes, the series had tremedous opportunities to send an antiwar message, and I think it did, in a very intelligent way. I hear all the time from people who liked the show early on, but now find Hawkeye to be too preachy. That same preachiness was one of the key means of getting some very serious messages across IMO.

[mobuto]

15. I disagree

the movie I think did a lot better job of making some very profound political points, and it was able to do so in 116 minutes, with a much more sophisticated approach than outright preaching. The television show is simply tiresome.

[mobuto]

13. The film, by far

the series lacks subtlety, non-sitcom humor, warmth, profundity.

Whereas the movie was a dark and biting satire of America in war - essentially a film version of Catch-22 - the television series was simply an unhappy marriage of slapstick and shallow preaching.

I'm with Altman all the way.