AFInity

MASH

By Kim Hollis

April 15, 2010

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We're a list society. From Casey Kasem and the American Top 40 to 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die to BOP's very own Best Horror Films (one of our most popular features ever), people love to talk about lists. They love to debate the merits of the "winners" and bemoan the exclusions, and start the whole process again when a new list captures pop culture fancy.

Perhaps one of the best-known, most widely discussed lists is the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies. A non-profit organization known for its efforts at film restoration and screen education, the AFI list of the 100 best American movies was chosen by 1,500 leaders in the movie industry and announced in its first version in 1998. Since then, the 100 Years... 100 Movies list has proven to be so popular that the AFI came forth with a 10th anniversary edition in 2007, along with other series such as 100 Heroes and Villains, 100 Musicals, 100 Laughs and 100 Thrills.

In addition to talking about which films are deserving of being on the list and bitterly shaking our fists because a beloved film was left out, we also love to brag about the number of movies we've seen. As I was looking over the 100 Years... 100 Movies list recently, I realized that I've seen 47 - less than half. As a lover of film and writer/editor for a movie site, this seemed like a wrong that needed to remedied. And so an idea was born. I would watch all 100 movies on the 2007 10th Anniversary list - some of them for the first time in as much as 20 or more years - and ponder their relevance, worthiness and influence on today's film industry. With luck, I'll even discover a few new favorites along the way.


#54 : MASH

I guess I should make it clear from the outset of this column that I was a fan of the television series M*A*S*H. My parents were watching it when I was too young to understand the show, but as I grew along with the series (and it entered syndication in subsequent years), I became very attached to the characters who populated the 4077th. Hawkeye, Trapper John, Major Burns, Radar, Hotlips, Klinger, Henry Blake, Colonel Potter, Father Mulcahey and Charles Winchester III were all as familiar to me as a pair of comfy sneakers. The character Henry Blake hailed from my own hometown (as did the man who played him, McLean Stevenson) and to this day I'm pretty knowledgeable about the other characters' backgrounds as well. The show was funny while still maintaining a sense of gravitas about its subject matter, and even though Hawkeye and Trapper/BJ (depending upon the season) were goofs whose antics were a little over-the-top, they were also top-notch physicians and generally good men.




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Thus, it was with mixed emotions that I finally watched Robert Altman's MASH, the film that inspired the series. Truth is, I really like Altman a significant amount (I go against the norm by calling Popeye a particular favorite), but had never seen MASH. Part of the reason is accessibility, part of the reason goes back to motivation. I was never particularly compelled to see people besides Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers, Stevenson, Loretta Swit and Larry Linville in the key roles, despite the fact that they were originated elsewhere.


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