It’s probably apocryphal, but the story goes something like this: Warren Beatty is one of the most intelligent and influential actors of all time. It was his creative drive and willpower that drove the creation of Bonnie and Clyde, which was part of a revolution in American filmmaking. Beatty’s also a movie star who demands what movie stars demand: to star in the movie.
Along comes Robert Altman, fresh off a Palme d’Or and nominations for Best Director from the Academy, the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and the Directors Guild, with a western called McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Beatty stars, Altman directs, and when Beatty sees the movie with the sound mix in place, he gets pissed.
“The mix” is the soundtrack, which is put together from sound recoded on location, sound from Foley art, that sort of thing. Usually, if there’s a scene with a whole bunch of people, the mix will favor the dialogue from the principal characters so that you can follow the story and the stars that are driving it. In that initial mix for McCabe and Mrs. Miller, the sound from the background and the sound from the foreground were made equal. It took work to distinguish Beatty’s dialogue from the extras and ensemble surrounding him.
Altman did this because he didn’t care about stars or story. Altman cared about landscape. For Altman, the background was just as important as the foreground, and his compositions included both in equal measure. Beatty didn’t like this one bit, and went to war with Altman. He lost, McCabe and Mrs. Miller went on to become a classic, and they parted ways. But Beatty could have avoided the whole affair if he’d paid more attention to this week’s case in point: 1970’s MASH.
My family loves the TV series, MASH. Loves it. My uncle once tried to explain to me, when I was 10 or something, just exactly why MASH is the best TV show of all time. Not sure if I’d argue that, but it wasn’t until I saw the movie of MASH that I really got what the hubbub was all about.
Talking about war is hard. Robert Altman spent World War II with the army, flying over 50 bombing missions in Borneo and the Dutch East Indies. He knew war. And for MASH, a story about doctors and nurses who patch up soldiers just enough for them to be able to go back out in the field and die, the only way to approach a war story would be to embrace its madness rather than try to turn it into a classical narrative. Altman populated his movie with relatable characters that reacted the way we generally react to overwhelming horror: humor, sex, drinking and sophomoric, schoolyard cruelty.
The surgeons and soldiers in MASH aren’t perfect heroes or tragic figures; they’re normal folks swept up in something too big to fit inside their heads. So they’re funny, self-centered, horny, childish, mean and, in sudden small moments, possessed with great honor.
It is exactly because of Altman’s style that MASH lent itself to television. The fact that the world of MASH could evolve for 11 seasons is a testament to Altman’s skill at creating a rich landscape, populated with such achingly human relationships. Sometimes it’s not the movie star that’s the star: it’s the movie.
Next week: Go get yer mule.
