MikePadgett.com

MASH

— A confusing mish-mash of dialogue sharply delivered by a wisecracking ensemble.”

• Director: Robert Altman
• United States, 1970
• 

Altman proved with MASH that a messy film could still be a successful one. Production was problematic, 80% of the dialogue was improvised and analogies to the situation in Vietnam were considered highly unfavourable by the studio.

From the hubris of organic filmmaking that later became Altman’s trademark emerged a funny, humanistic story about the sometime bizarre coping strategies of a group of medical surgeons in the Korean War.

Many of the Altman quirks are there, including the zooming, the overlapping conversations and the ensemble casting, and the film feels unusually raw as if it’s been edited without much of a plan. We know sometimes that the recipe doesn’t quite come together (Dr T and the Women) but in MASH the concoction is successful without precedent.