"The Game of Life is Hard to Play/ I'm Gonna Lose it Anyway..."

The late, great Robert Altman would've celebrated his 83rd birthday Wednesday.

So many of his films are wonderful and infinitely rewarding in various ways: Nashville, The Player, Gosford Park, hell even Popeye. And as A Prairie Home Companion listener, I enjoyed his movie adaptation written by and starring Garrison Keillor. Tanner '88 is a striking political satire and worth revisiting particularly in our current election year. And McCabe & Mrs. Miller not only introduced me to a completely different kind of Western film, it helped me discover Leonard Cohen's music as well as an enigmatic actress named Julie Christie.

Two notable Onion articles are relevant for sharing today:
"Every single thing reminds Altman buff of Altman film" and the one about the 14 separate Super Bowl parties.

As superlative and influential as his eclectic career was, one Robert Altman movie is indisputably my favorite among his work. It's the same one that launched his big screen career: 1970's MASH. I've watched it countless times and enjoy it more with repeated viewings. A problematic shoot, at one point, stars Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould approached the producers and tried to get Altman fired. Gould later admitted this subterfuge to Altman, but Sutherland never did. Consequently, Donald Sutherland never acted with the legendary director again but Elliot Gould went on to star in several more Altman movies, including a revisionist The Long Goodbye, an early 70s film noir exercise that laid the groundwork for the landmark Chinatown a year later.


MASH has some of the best dialogue and editing in film history, and it also features one of my favorite tracking shots of all time. It's obvious in a subtle way, and you could miss it despite its staring you right in the face. I'll give you a hint:

Other than Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove, this kind of dark, highbrow irreverence and satire was essentially unknown in American cinema prior to 1970. It took a maverick like Altman to push it through, particularly during a hot and hotly controversial war.

If you've never heard the lyrics to "Suicide is Painless," the famous MASH theme song co-written by Altman's then 14 year-old son Mike, now's your chance. For those of you who haven't seen the film or it's been awhile, a plot recap: "Painless" Paul the dentist (aka Jawbreaker) is unable to perform sexually with one of his many female conquests, so he confides in Hawkeye that he must be gay and therefore will kill himself. Sympathetically, the open-minded doctors of the 4077th step up to help their colleague through a difficult transition:



I've always thought the television adaptation of M*A*S*H* (asterisks now included) diluted the greatness of the original novel and Altman's film (I like my black comedy strong and substantive - not borscht belt). Altman wasn't a fan of the TV adaptation, either, but maybe he said that because he wasn't getting enough in royalties from the show. The movie's theme song, featured prominently in the television's opening and closing credits, sure did, however and Mike Altman actually went on to make more money in the long run from MASH than his father ever did.

The series, while cute at best in the initial seasons and later almost embarrassingly sentimental and self-serious, doesn't have the heft and nuance of the film's rich character portrayals, particularly Hawkeye and Trapper John. Their small screen portrayals are lightweight, I believe, but, until I saw this hysterical clip, not light in the loafers.



That MASH-up, if you will, is funnier than any episode of the show ever was. Watch it again. Those edits are dazzling, and I'm not above admitting I absolutely love that Queen song. My surgical cap is off to whoever put that together.