October 3, 2017 (XXXV:6) Robert Altman M*A*S*H (1970), 116 min.

(The online version of this handout has color images.)

Academy Awards, USA 1971 Won Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium for Ring Lardner Jr. Nominated: Best Picture; Best Director, Robert Altman; Best Film Editing, Danford B. Greene; Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Sally Kellerman

DIRECTED BY Robert Altman WRITTEN BY Richard Hooker (novel), Ring Lardner Jr. (screenplay) PRODUCED BY Leon Ericksen, Ingo Preminger MUSIC Johnny Mandel CINEMATOGRAPHY Harold E. Stine FILM EDITING Danford B. Greene

CAST Donald Sutherland…Hawkeye Pierce Elliott Gould…Trapper John McIntyre Tom Skerritt…Duke Forrest Sally Kellerman …Maj. Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ O’Houlihan Robert Duvall…Maj. Frank Burns Roger Bowen…Lt. Col. Henry Blake Rene Auberjonois…Father John Mulcahy ROBERT ALTMAN (b. February 20, 1925 in Kansas City, David Arkin…Sgt. Major Vollmer Missouri—d. November 20, 2006, age 81, in Los Angeles, Jo Ann Pflug…Lt. ‘Dish’ California) found success in Hollywood later in life. By the time Gary Burghoff…Cpl. ‘Radar’ O'Reilly he became a celebrity at 45, it seemed he had already settled into Fred Williamson…Dr. Oliver 'Spearchucker' Jones the role that suited him - the grand old man, cantankerous and Michael Murphy…'Me Lai' Marston wayward. In 1941, he attended the Wentworth military academy Indus Arthur…Lt. Leslie in Lexington, Missouri, then joined the US army air force as a B- Ken Prymus…PFC. Seidman 24 pilot. Bobby Troup…Sgt. Gorman Kim Atwood…Ho-Jon After the war, he spent some time in New York, trying his hand Timothy Brown …Cpl. Judson as an actor, a songwriter and a fiction writer; one of his stories John Schuck…Capt. 'Painless' Waldowski became the basis of Richard Fleischer's film Bodyguard (1948). Dawne Damon…Capt. Storch He also briefly set up a business tattooing dogs for identification Carl Gottlieb…'Ugly John' purposes (Harry S. Truman’s dog was tattooed by Altman.) A Tamara Wilcox-Smith…Capt. 'Knocko' long apprenticeship in cinema began when he returned to Kansas G. Wood…Brig. Gen. Hammond City and made industrial films; he made some 60 shorts, then Bud Cort…Pvt. Boone tried his hand at commercials, and in 1953 made his first venture Danny Goldman…Capt. Murrhardt into television with the series Pulse of the City. He briefly Corey Fischer…Capt. Bandini directed on the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, then spent six years in television, on series including Bonanza, The Altman—M*A*S*H—2

Millionaire and The Troubleshooters. After years working in their director. Eventually, they approached producers in an television, the rambunctious Midwesterner set out on his own as attempt to get Altman fired from the film. ‘Both Elliot and a feature film director in the late 1950s, but didn’t find his first Donald went to the producers of the film and tried to have me major success until 1970, with the antiauthoritarian war comedy fired,’ Altman said. ‘They said “This guy is ruining our careers,” M*A*S*H. Immediately afterwards, Altman initiated a pattern and they said that “He’s spending all of his time talking with all that would run throughout his career—following a successful of these extras and these bit players, and he’s not playing a lot of film with one that almost seemed calculated to deliver setbacks. attention to us.” It was kept from me. Had I known that, no Brewster McCloud (1970), mixing broad counter-culture satire question, I would have quit the picture. I couldn’t have gone on and fairytale, lost him much of the credit he’d won from knowing that there were two actors that I was dealing with that M*A*S*H. Yet the felt that way.” Gould eventually apologized to Altman, and they follow-up, McCabe and went on to make four more films together, including The Long Mrs. Miller (1970), Goodbye. According to Altman, he and Sutherland never spoke remains a masterpiece of about the dispute. the period, recasting the heroic myth of the old RICHARD HOOKER (b. Hiester Richard Hornberger Jr. on west as a somber farce of February 1, 1924 in Trenton, New Jersey—d. November 4, 1997, failure and corruption, so age 73, in Portland, Maine) is the pseudonym of H. Richard mercilessly that John Hornberger who authored the novel M*A*S*H. Hornberger had Wayne denounced it as been a U.S. Army physician who recounted his experiences corrupt. After the during the Korean War. The original manuscript was rejected by success of 1975’s thirteen different publishers. Hornberger finally enlisted help panoramic American with revision from journalist W.C. Heinz and William Morrow & satire Nashville, Altman Company, Inc accepted the book. At first, he was not all that once again delved into interested in selling the movie rights, but fellow classmates who projects that were more worked in the industry finally persuaded Hornberger. Hornberger challenging, especially wrote the sequels, M*A*S*H Goes to Maine (1972) and the astonishing, M*A*S*H Mania (1977), neither of which enjoyed the complex, Bergman- commercial success of the original. Hornberger was quoted in the influenced Three Women (1977). Thereafter, Altman was out of Boston Globe in 1977: “I thought the movie was great but the Hollywood’s good graces, though in the eighties he came television thing isn't my kind of humor. It's someone else's idea through with the inventive theater-to-film Nixon monologue of what medical humor is supposed to be.” Secret Honor and the TV miniseries political satire Tanner ’88. The double punch of The Player (1992) and the hugely RING LARDNER JR. (b. August 15, 1915 in Chicago, Illinois— influential ensemble piece Short Cuts (1993) brought him back d. October 31, 2000 in Manhattan, New York City, New York) into the spotlight, and he continued to be prolific in his output will always be known as one of the Hollywood 10, the ten film- until 2006, when his last film, A Prairie Home Companion, was makers who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American released months before his death at the age of eighty-one. His Activities Committee investigating subversion in Hollywood. movies are often large ensemble pieces containing overlapping Early in his career, Larnder Jr. became a reporter for the New dialogue, where several characters speak at once. He’s also York Daily Mirror after dropping out of Princeton. He moved known for liberal use of the zoom lens and his film’s social West and became a publicist for producer David O. Selznick, commentary. Altman, a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Force then his script doctor before finally becoming screenwriter, often during World War II, is rumored to have been radicalized by a working in collaboration. In 1943, he and Michael Kanin won the trip to Vietnam to shoot footage of the war in the 1960s. He has Oscar in 1942 for their Woman of the Year (1942) screenplay. He never talked about this episode in his life and career, however, wrote Laura (1944) for Otto Preminger and, in 1947, 20th the M*A*S*H TV series didn’t make the same anti-war point that Century Fox gave him a contract at $2,000 a week, making him he felt his film did. His son, Mike Altman, wrote the lyrics for one of the highest paid scribes in LA. Ironically, at the time of “Suicide is Painless,” the theme song for tonight’s film when he this seeming triumph, his career and life were about to unravel. was only 14 years old. (The director has joked that his son made When the HUAC asked Lardner, “Are you now or have you ever more money from the film than he did.) Altman is also the only been a member of the Communist Party of the United States?”, director to win first prize at the three major European film he responded: “I could answer the question exactly the way you festivals: he won the Palm D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for want, but if I did, I would hate myself in the morning". After the M*A*S*H (1970), the Golden Bear at the Berlin International appeals process against HUAC’s citations for contempt of Film Festival for Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's Congress played out, Lardner was sentenced to a year in prison History Lesson (1976) and Golden Lion at the Venice Film and fined. More importantly, he was blacklisted and could not Festival for Short Cuts (1993). For tonight’s film, according to find work in Hollywood except under pseudonyms. After the MetalFloss: “Altman spent a lot of time during the making of blacklist was officially broken when Preminger hired Dalton M*A*S*H cultivating his ensemble, directing background extras Trumbo, the blacklisted writers slowly returned to work under and bit players to create a kind of mural effect. It worked in the their own names. Lardner was hired by producer Martin end, but it also annoyed stars Donald Sutherland and Elliott Ransohoff to write the screenplay for The Cincinnati Kid (1965) Gould, who felt they weren’t being given enough attention by under his own name. His comeback was complete when, in 1971, Altman—M*A*S*H—3 he won his second Oscar for adapting Robert Hooker’s comic Superman (1952) with George Reeves. After that, Stine went on novel, M*A*S*H (1970). Ironically, due to director Robert to work extensively in television, notably on the popular Altman's improvisational style, little of Lardner's dialogue westerns Cheyenne and Maverick. In all, he worked on about 20 remained in the movie. Among Lardner’s other screen projects, different TV series. He continued to work in film, however, either as author or co-author, were Meet Dr. Christian (1939), directing photography for a wide variety of projects, including Courageous Dr. Christian (1940); The Cross of Lorraine (1943), The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964) with Don Knotts and Robert Tomorrow the World (1944), Cloak and Dagger (1946) and Altman’s MASH (1970). His final work was as the director of Forever Amber (1947). Among the screenplays he either wrote or photography on Ronald Neame's The Poseidon Adventure contributed to under pseudonyms were The Forbidden Street (1972), garnering Stine his first Oscar nomination for Best (1949) and Four Days Leave (1950). One of the other Cinematography. screenplays he wrote after the blacklist was The Greatest (1977), starring Muhammad Ali.

JOHNNY MANDEL (b. November 23, 1925 in New York City, New York) is almost the last of a breed: the well-rounded musician who can seemingly write for any setting or purpose. His work spans the big band era (he wrote for Woody Herman and Count Basie) and the birth of TV (he scored Your Show of Shows for two years). He penned nightclub material for Mae West, composed and arranged for Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson and Natalie Cole, and, of course, scored films. Some of his famous songs include “Emily,” “The Shadow of Your Smile” and the theme from tonight’s film. When Mandel was just a little boy his mother realized that he had a unique musical gift. “Well, when I was 5 or something, she discovered I DONALD SUTHERLAND (b. July 17, 1935 in Saint John, New had perfect pitch,” Mandel says. “She'd go play a note and I'd be Brunswick) was almost set on becoming an engineer after in the next room or something and I'd call off the note.” Mandel graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in wrote the first jazz score for a motion picture for I Want to Live engineering. However, he also graduated with a degree in drama, in 1958. In addition to scoring for studio orchestra, he integrated and he chose to pursue the latter. Sutherland’s first roles were bit small-band pieces, which utilized some of the best jazz parts and consisted of such films as Dr. Terror's House of musicians: trumpeter Art Farmer, trombonist Frank Rosolino, Horrors (1965) which starred Christopher Lee. He also appeared baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and drummer Shelly in episodes of TV shows such as The Saint and Court Martial. Manne. When Altman need a song for M*A*S*H’s opening His big break came in 1967 when he landed the small but scene at a fake funeral, he reached out to Mandel. “It should be significant role of Vernon Pinkley in the war film The Dirty the stupidest song ever written,” Mandel recalls Altman saying. Dozen, which went on to become the fifth highest grossing film “I said, ‘Well, I can do stupid.’ He says, “The song should be of the year. Leveraging that success, Sutherland landed a part in called ‘Suicide Is Painless.’ Altman took a stab at writing the the Clint Eastwood comedy Kelly’s Heroes (1970) as well as the lyrics, but it just wasn't stupid enough. The director said, “Ah, part that would catapult his career into stardom, starring as but all is not lost. I've got a 15-year-old kid who’s a gibbering “Hawkeye” Pierce in M*A*S*H. “I remember going up to the idiot. He’s got a guitar. He’ll run through this thing like a dose of theater in New York at eleven o'clock in the morning on the first salts,” Mandel recalls. Mandel went home and wrote the melody; day M*A*S*H opened,” Sutherland later recalled in an Esquire the director’s young son, Mike Altman, wrote the lyrics. Altman interview. “These were the days before advertising, and the only later said his son made more than $1 million from the song, word of mouth was from one screening in San Francisco two whereas he got just $70,000 for directing the movie. months earlier. We went to the theater early to see if it was going to sell any tickets. The line was twice around the block.” Over HAROLD E. STINE (b. September 21, 1903 in Chino, the next several decades Sutherland appeared in a steady lineup California—d. November 2, 1977, age 74, in Los Angeles, of either critical or commercial successes. The list includes Klute California began as a sound engineer, although on his two (1971), co-starring Jane Fonda (with whom Sutherland also had biggest movies he was listed as a boom operator: the Fay Wray an affair), Don't Look Now (1973), Invasion of the Body version of King Kong (1933) and Bette Davis’s Of Human Snatchers (1978), Robert Redford's Ordinary People (1980), A Bondage (1934). Dry White Season (1989) and JFK (1991). His choices included Stine seems to have vanished from the land of credits some unconventional picks too. In 1976 he teamed up with after that, until resurfacing as a cinematographer in the late- legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini for Fellini’s 1940s. He worked on special visual effects and process Casanova, in which Sutherland portrayed the title character. Two photography on Mighty Joe Young (1949) and The Thing from years later Sutherland played a pot smoking professor in the John Another World (1951). Shortly after, he entered the world of Landis comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House. In later television earning an Emmy nomination for “Best Direction of years, Sutherlands’ film choices have continued to vary, with Photography” on an episode of Cavalcade of America (1952). Backdraft (1991), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Space Next, he worked on several Superman movies, which led directly Cowboys (2000), A Time to Kill (1996), The Italian Job (2003), to his becoming a Director of Photography on the Adventures of Pride & Prejudice (2005) and The Con Artist (2010), in addition Altman—M*A*S*H—4 to a variety of TV projects like Uprising (2001) and Frankenstein noteworthy appearance in American History X (1998) and more (2004). In 2012 he played wicked President Snow in The Hunger in Showtime’s drama Ray Donovan (2013). For tonight’s film Games, a role he reprised for the franchise’s subsequent films— Altman originally wanted Gould to play Duke Forrest. It was Catching Fire (2013) and the 2014 and 2015 installments of only at Gould’s request that he played Trapper John. Reading Mockingjay. While considered one of Hollywood’s most interviews, it is clear the actor is flush with anecdotes, one-liners, esteemed actors, has been overlooked by the Oscar committee. quotes: from bumping into Orson Welles for lunch at Hollywood He’s neither won nor been nominated for the award. He has, hang-out Ma Maison to encountering Elvis, with a gold-plated however, been nominated for seven Golden Globes and won two. .45 pistol, who had the gall to call Gould “crazy” as well as His first came in 1996 for his supporting role in the HBO changing Groucho Marx's lightbulb (and the ageing comic telling television movie Citizen X, which also netted him an Emmy. In him, “That's the best acting I've ever seen you do!”). As one 2003 Sutherland won a second supporting actor Globe for his writer put it, talking with Gould is like entering into Lewis work in another HBO TV film, Path to War. Carroll's Through the Looking Glass or reading James Joyce. “You never know what to expect, where you might go.”

TOM SKERRITT (b. August 25, 1933 in Detroit, Michigan) Though he had an affinity for playing villains, actor Tom Skerritt was a familiar face to audiences as all-American authority figures - soldier, police officer, father - in prominent features and television series over several decades.

Lean, ruggedly handsome leading man and supporting actor whose "outdoor" looks have improved with age, Tom Skerritt attended Wayne State University and UCLA, and was first noticed in a UCLA production of "The Rainmaker" before making his movie debut in War Hunt (1962). However, he spent most of the next decade in television, regularly appearing in Combat! (1962), The Virginian (1962), Gunsmoke (1955) and 12 ELLIOTT GOULD (b. August 29, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York O'Clock High (1964). Skerritt's next big break was appearing in City, New York) is an American actor known for his roles in Altman's biting satire MASH (1970). Perhaps most identified M*A*S*H (1970), his Oscar-nominated performance in Bob & with the thoughtful gentleness he brought to his role as Shirley Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), and more recently, his portrayal of MacLaine's husband in The Turning Point (1977), Skerritt went old-time con artist Reuben Tishkoff in Ocean's Eleven (2001), on to score memorable film roles in Ridley Scott's sci-fi film Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). He is also Alien (1979), the blockbuster Top Gun (1986), and old friend helmed a turbulent 48-year career that saw him go from the Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It (1992) as well as the youngest box-office star since Elvis to Hollywood pariah to poster boy for a “Guess” Jeans ad campaign utilizing his mature, cultured character actor. Gould's portrayal of Trapper John weather-beaten features. Skerritt appeared on the small screen in marked the beginning of perhaps the most prolific period of his Cheers (1982), The China Lake Murders (1990) and picked up career, highlighted by such roles as Philip Marlowe in Altman's an Emmy in 1994 for his performance as Sheriff Brock in the The Long Goodbye (1973) and Robert Caulfield in Capricorn superb series Picket Fences (1992). Recently he’s been in Lucky One (1977). He was cast as the lead in the film adaptation of (2017), A Hologram for the King (2016), Wings: Sky Force Herman Raucher's novel A Glimpse of Tiger and one day walked Heroes (2014), Field of Lost Shoes (2014), Admissions (2014), off the set for reasons then unclear. At the time, he stated he Ted (2012), Redemption Road (2011) and Your Love Never Fails didn’t want to play a wild, clownish, unpredictable character. (2011) However, it later came out, that he’d come to blows with its director, lashed out at his co-star Kim Darby and was whacked SALLY KELLERMAN (b. June 2, 1937 in Long Beach, out on drugs. The production halted after only four days. A new California) arrived quite young on the late 1950s film and TV director, Peter Bogdanovich, then got involved and the project scene with a fresh and distinctively weird, misfit presence. morphed into what we know as the remake of Bringing Up Baby Initially inhibited by her height (5’10”), notic and wide slash of a (1938)—What's Up, Doc? (1972), with the wild, clownish, mouth, Kellerman proved difficult to cast at first but finally unpredictable character changing genders and played by his ex- found herself up for the lead role in Otto Preminger's film Saint wife, Barbra Streisand. Gould was considered damaged goods. Joan (1957). She lost out in the end to fellow newcomer Jean By the time Altman came calling with 1973’s The Long Seberg. Hardly compensation, 20-year-old Kellerman made her Goodbye, the actor was made to endure a humiliating psychiatric film debut that same year in the cult “C” juvenile delinquent evaluation by the studio. Gould appeared regularly on television drama Reform School Girl (1957). Directed by infamous low- and in film throughout the 1980s and the 1990s, including budget horror film Samuel Z. Arkoff, her secondary part in the cameos in The Muppet Movie (1979) and The Muppets Take film did little in the way of advancing her career. However, it did Manhattan (1984). His most well-known television role was enhance her social life. After seeing the film, Marlon Brando playing Monica and Ross Geller’s father Jack on Friends (1994). asked Kellerman out on a date. According to the actress, he Gould received critical acclaim for his portrayal of an older picked her up, and took her for a car ride that lasted 2 minutes. mobster in Warren Beatty's Bugsy (1991), and make a Apparently the formidable actor had confused Kellerman’s Altman—M*A*S*H—5

“loose” characters with the actress herself. She also was in an Horton Foote, a link that would prove critical to his career, as it acting class with Jack Nicholson who was continually asking the was Foote who recommended Duvall to play the mentally actress what she thought of his “devil eyebrows”. The growth of disabled “Boo Radley” in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). This Kellerman and Hot Lips is not that different. Looking back on was his first major role after his 1956 debut in Somebody Up her M*A*S*H role that is seen in hindsight as somewhat painful There Likes Me (1956), starring Paul Newman. He was also and sexist: “Well, there was a lot of chauvinism there, sure. I memorable as the heavy who is shot by John Wayne at the loved Bob [Altman] but he was a real male chauvinist, probably climax of True Grit (1969) and starring in tonight’s film. He the worst. I’m kidding. Sort of kidding. But I think that appeared as the eponymous lead in George Lucas' directorial (humiliation) really saved Hot Lips. She grew up after that. She'd debut, THX 1138 (1971). Yet, it was Francis Ford Coppola, been so uptight, so rigid, no sense of humor—and after all that casting Duvall in The Godfather (1972), who provided him with went down, she started having a really good time, a real life.” his career breakthrough. He received the first of his six Academy For her role Kellerman received her first Oscar nomination for Award nominations for the role. Thereafter, Duvall had steady Best Supporting Actress. Becoming good friends with Altman work in featured roles in such films as The Godfather: Part II during the movie shoot, Kellerman went on to work with the (1974), The Killer Elite (1975), Network (1976), The Seven-Per- director Brewster McCloud (1970), however Altman offered her Cent Solution (1976) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). He was a singing part in Nashville (1975), which she later regretted considered for the role of Police Chief Martin Brody in the turning down. The part went to Karen Black. More impressive horror film Jaws (1975), which went to Roy Scheider. However, work came with the movies A Little Romance (1979), Foxes it was Duvall’s turn as “Lt. Col. Kilgore” in another Coppola (1980), Serial (1980), That's Life! (1986), and Back to School picture, Apocalypse Now (1979), that solidified his A-list (1986). Later in life Kellerman went back to her musical pursuit, reputation. He got his second Academy Award nomination for lending her husky voice to jazz albums. In 2013, she released her the role, and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records autobiography Read My Lips: Stories of a Hollywood Life. For as the most versatile actor in the world. Duvall created one of the the scene in which the officers ambush “Hot Lips” so they can most memorable characters ever assayed on film, and gave the see her naked in the shower, Altman had to deploy a few world the memorable phrase, “I love the smell of napalm in the distractions. Kellerman had never appeared nude onscreen morning!” Subsequently, Duvall proved one of the few before, and in early takes of the scene she was dropping to the established character actors to move from supporting to leading ground before the point of the moment was even made clear. roles, with his Oscar-nominated turns in The Great Santini Altman had to think of distractions to get her to pause before (1979) and Tender Mercies (1983), the latter of which won him falling to the ground. “When I looked up, there was Gary the Academy Award for Best Actor. Now at the summit of his Burghoff stark naked standing in front of me,” Kellerman said. career, Duvall seemed to be afflicted with the fabled “Oscar “The next take, [Altman] had Tamara Horrocks, she was the curse”. He could not find work equal to his talents, either due to more amply endowed nurse, without her shirt on…I attribute my his post-Oscar salary demands or a lack of perception in the Academy Award nomination to the people who made my mouth industry that he truly was leading man material. He did not hang open when I hit the deck.” appear in The Godfather: Part III (1990), as the studio would not give in to his demands for a salary commensurate with that of Al Pacino, who was receiving $5 million to reprise Michael Corleone. His greatest achievement in his immediate post-Oscar period was his grizzled Texas Ranger Gus McCrae in the TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989), for which he received an Emmy nomination. Duvall also has directed pictures, including the documentary We're Not the Jet Set (1977), Angelo My Love (1983) and Assassination Tango (2002). As a writer-director, Duvall gave himself one of his most memorable roles, that of the preacher on the run from the law in The Apostle (1997), a brilliant performance for which he received his third Best Actor nomination and fifth Oscar nomination overall. The film brought Duvall back to the front ranks of great actors, and was followed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for A Civil Action (1998). ROBERT DUVALL (b. January 5, 1931 in San Diego, California) Some of his more recent work includes Widows (2017, post- majored in drama at Principia College served a two-year hitch in production), In Dubious Battle (2016), Wild Horses (2015), Jack the army after graduating in 1953. He began attending The Reacher (2012), Seven Days in Utopia (2011), Crazy Heart Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre In New York (2009), Get Low (2009), The Road (2009), Four Christmases City on the G.I. Bill in 1955, studying under Sanford Meisner (2008), Lucky You (2007) and Thank You for Smoking (2005). along with Dustin Hoffman, with whom Duvall shared an apartment. Both were close to another struggling young actor RENÉ AUBERJONOIS (b. June 1, 1940 in New York City, New named Gene Hackman. Among the three, Hoffman and Duvall York) was born into an already artistic family, which included were known for their ways with the women, and Duvall and his grandfather, a well-known Swiss painter, and his father Hackman were known for their short fuses, which led to Fernand, a writer. At an early age, Auberjonois was surrounded numerous bar fights. They often bonded over elaborate practical by musicians, composers and actors. Among his neighbors were jokes. Meisner cast Duvall in the play The Midnight Caller by Helen Hayes, Burgess Meredith and John Houseman, who would Altman—M*A*S*H—6 later become an important mentor. Houseman gave Auberjonois “Once I stopped playing football … I didn’t want to sell cars. I his first theater job at the age of 16, as an apprentice at a theater didn’t want to be an insurance salesman like most of the players in Stratford, Connecticut. Auberjonois would later teach at coming out, you know? You weren’t making enough money back Juilliard under Houseman. Auberjonois attended Carnegie- in the day to support yourself on a football salary. One night I’m Mellon University and upon embarking on his professional watching television, and I see Diahann Carroll had a show called career, he tried changing his surname very early on to “Aubert” Julia. First black actress to have her own television series. I because casting directors were unable to pronounce noticed that each week, the guest star role was a new boyfriend. “Auberjonois”. When he discovered that his new name caused And I said … ‘I’m better looking than those guys. I’m going to just as much trouble, he decided to keep the real one. In 1969, he Hollywood to become Diahann Carroll’s boyfriend on the Julia won a role in his first Broadway musical, Coco (with Katharine show.’ And that’s what I did.” His rugged, athletic physique Hepburn), for which he won a Tony Award. Since then, made him a natural for energetic roles and he quickly established Auberjonois has acted in a variety of theater productions, films himself as a street wise, tough guy in films including That Man and television presentations, including a rather famous stint as Bolt (1973), Black Caesar (1973), and Mean Johnny Barrows Clayton Endicott III on the comedy series Benson (1979), not to (1976). Got the nickname Hammer while playing football mention seven years on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) as because he was known to hit hard where he’d “put the hammer Odo. He also had recurring roles on Boston Legal (2004-2008), on you.” Perpetually wears his Super Bowl I ring, never taking it Archer (2010-2013), and Madame Secretary (2016). He also off. Always the entrepreneur, Williamson peddled malt liquor turned down the role of John Bosley in Charlie's Angels (2000), decades before LeBron James took his first sip of Gatorade. He which went to Bill Murray. manned the Monday Night Football booth (for one preseason, at least) almost 10 years before O.J. Simpson made his way to JO ANN PFLUG (b. May 2, 1940 in Atlanta, Georgia) is most NBC. He also posed (mostly) nude in October 73 issue of known for her roles in M*A*S*H (1970), Match Game 73 (1973) Playgirl Magazine. He also owns a production company which and The Night Strangler (1973). She was married to Love he started as a result of the roles being offered to African- Connection host Chuck Woolery. Of tonight’s film she has said, American actors. “I got into producing and directing for the “After M*A*S*H (1970), I was sought to do nudity. All nude simple reason they want to kill the black guy in the first five roles. And I turned down a lot of pictures because of the nudity. I minutes of the film—and have Arnold Schwarzenegger avenge would not do nudity because of my upbringing. I'm not going to his death. That’s not what I got into the business for.” More wait 30 years from now and have my children saying, ‘oh, there's recently, indie director Robert Rodriguez cast him in his bloody mommy on the screen, nude.’” Because its sexual content, she action film From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), he appeared in the turned down the Valerie Perrine role in the film Slaughterhouse- 2004 reboot of Starsky & Hutch and has a recurring role in Kevin Five (1972). For different reasons, she also turned down the Hart’s Real Husbands of Hollywood. He holds black belts in the Bonnie Franklin mom role in the TV sitcom One Day at a Time following martial arts: Kenpo, Shotokan Karate, and Tae-Kwon- (1975). She has mostly left acting entirely and now tours with her Do. own motivational seminars. MICHAEL MURPHY (b. May 5, 1938 in Los Angeles, California) served a stint in the Marine Corps before getting his teaching credential. From 1962 to 1964, he taught high school English and drama in Los Angeles. His most notable appearance might be as Yale, the the self-tortured adulterer, in Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979). The two had acted together earlier in Martin Ritt's The Front (1976) and had become good friends. Surprisingly, despite the excellent performance Murphy gave in the film, Allen hasn't used him again. Murphy's career as a first- rate supporting player has continued for four decades, with major parts in An Unmarried Woman (1978), which he calls "the first of the whining yuppies," The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), and Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986). He also has worked with such significant directors as Elia Kazan in The Arrangement (1969), Tim Burton in Batman Returns (1992), and Paul Thomas Anderson in Magnolia (1999). Murphy recently co-starred in John Sayles’ Silver City (2004). Murphy is perhaps best known for his long collaboration with director Robert Altman that stretches back to the beginning of his career. “I was right out of FRED “THE HAMMER” WILLIAMSON (b. March 5, 1938 in the University of Arizona,” Murphy reminisced during a 2004 Gary, Indiana) is a former Oakland Raiders/Kansas City Chiefs interview, “and a friend said, ‘Go to Bob. He’s using young guys football star who rose to prominence as one of the first African- for this Army thing.’” Altman was directing the World War II American male action stars of the “Blaxploitation” genre of the television series Combat! (1962), and cast him in the show early 1970s. Burly, yet handsome 6’ 3” Williamson first came to without an audition. “Bob took me under his wing. He told me, attention in the TV series Julia (1968) playing love interest, ‘You're never going to be a movie star. But you'll do some Steve Bruce. He explains his transition from football to acting: interesting things.’ Murphy has worked for Altman on: Altman—M*A*S*H—7

Countdown (1967), That Cold Day in the Park (1969), MASH Cort, whose father died of MS aged 50, just after shooting ended. (1970), Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller This, though, was what finally brought Cort and co-star Ruth (1971), Nashville (1975), and Kansas City (1996). Murphy has Gordon close. The morning after his father died, she called him also appeared in Altman's TV adaptation of Herman Wouk's play and said: “Oh, honey, let me tell you about the day my father The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial (1988) and in two cable-TV died.” Suddenly the two actors were the characters they had mini-series for him: Tanner '88 (1988) and Tanner on Tanner played. After the film, Cort was typecast and was offered only (2004). Paul Thomas Anderson cast him in Magnolia (1999) weirdo parts. He turned them all down, including Billy Bibbit in because he admired the actor's work. Anderson's casting choice One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (he wanted the lead instead). of Murphy was also an homage to Altman. Murphy is the only When they later cast Jack Nicholson as McMurphy, he begged prominent male actor in Hollywood besides Tommy Lee Jones to for the Bibbit role, but Brad Dourif had already been cast. He has have appeared in both a live-action DC movie, Batman Returns played the same character (Winslow P. Schott, Jr. / Toyman) in (1992), and a live-action Marvel movie, X-Men: The Last Stand three different series: Superman (1996), Static Shock (2000) and (2006). Justice League (2001). Always something of a cult celebrity, younger directors who were fans of his early work started to cast JOHN SCHUCK (b. Conrad John Schuck February 4, 1940 in Cort. He starred in Kevin Smith’s Dogma (1999) and Wes Boston, Massachusetts) is the son of a former English Professor Anderson cast him in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2005). who held positions at Princeton University and University of Cort aslo co-founded the LA Classic Theatre Works with, among Buffalo. Schuck started out in regional theatre, including the others, Richard Dreyfuss and Rene Auberjonois. He is also Cleveland Playhouse, Baltimore Center Stage, and American extremely well-connected. Bud lived as a house guest for many Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. It was at the SF ACT years with his dear friend Groucho Marx and he is the godfather where Schuck was discovered by director Altman, who featured of Ringo Starr’s dog. him as Painless, the dentist in tonight’s film. Altman continued to use Schuck in Brewster McCloud (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and most assuredly in Thieves Like Us (1974), arguably his best film role. On television, Schuck won a regular part as a sergeant on McMillan & Wife (1971) opposite Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James for six seasons. However, most of his work seemed mired in playing dim, simple-minded characters such as the robot on the silly short-lived comedy Holmes and Yo-Yo (1976) and as Herman Munster on The Munsters Today (1987). More recently he has become known for his work in the Star Trek series including Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991); Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Maquis: Part 2 (1994); Star Trek: Voyager: Albert Lindauer in World Film Directors VII. Ed. John Muse (2000); and Star Trek: Enterprise: Affliction (2005) and Wideman. The H.W. Wilson Co. NY 1988 Star Trek: Enterprise: Divergence (2005). He also holds the dubious honor of being the first actor ever to use the f-word in a “When my grandfather opened a jewelry store in Kansas City, major motion picture for tonight’s film. According to Altman, he dropped one N from Altmann because they told him the sign during second-unit shooting for the football game that comes would be cheaper.” His father, a successful life insurance broker, near the end of the film, Schuck was told to say something was an inveterate gambler. “I learned a lot about losing from “really nasty” to his opponent. Schuck came up with “All right, him,” Altman told Aljean Harmetz. “That losing is an identity, bub, your f*cking head is coming right off,” and it made it into that you can be a good loser and a bad winner; that none of it– the film’s final cut. gambling, money, winning or losing–has any real value; . . .that it’s simply a way of killing time, like crossword puzzles.” The BUD CORT (b. Walter Edward Cox on March 29, 1948 in New director’s own proclivity for gambling is well-known. Rochelle, New York) is most well-known for playing the death- A lapsed Roman Catholic now, Altman was educated in obsessed, wide-eyed Harold in Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude Jesuit schools before joining the army at eighteen. During World (1971). Altman gave him a bit part in M*A*S*H* and then, in War II he flew about 50 bombing missions over Borneo and the 1970, the lead in whimsical comedy Brewster McCloud. A Dutch East Indies. friend gave him the Harold and Maude screenplay and, after He and a friend, Jim Rickard, set up as press agents for reading it, he related to the macabre kid in search of a a time and then invented a tattooing machine and a system for connection. Cort says he was an emotional child, and his father, identifying dogs. Before they went broke, they had tattooed who had been in the first platoon to arrive at Dachau, had always President Truman’s dog in Washington. been “very cold” to him. “Altman offered me McCabe & Mrs. Altman says that he first got into film because “I failed Miller (1971) and I had to turn it down to do Ashby’s film.” at everything else. I think I was originally attracted by the glamor When Ashby’s film came out it met with scathing reviews, and the adulation, and I thought I would be able to date Gloria bombed, and vanished from mainstream cinemas within a week. De Haven.” With a friend named George W. George, he wrote “You couldn't drag people in,” producer Charles Mulvehill and sold to RKO the script for Richard Fleischer’s The remembers. “The idea of a 20-year-old boy with an 80-year-old Bodyguard (1948) and buoyed by this success, moved to New woman just made people want to vomit.” It was a bad time for York , where he attempted to make a living writing stories and Altman—M*A*S*H—8 screenplays. After an unproductive trip to the West Coast, he alcoholism, rivalrous jealousies, and petty politics. With just a returned to Kansas City to work on industrial films for the Calvin few days of shooting left, Jack Warner asked to see the footage Company, where as set decorator, cameraman, producer, writer, Altman had assembled. He was appalled by its length and the director, and film editor he learned to make movies himself. He overlapping dialogue, and fired the director.... also produced a series of short technical films for International Ingo Preminger of 20th Century-Fox offered Altman a Harvester, and at some point during this period made a second script for an armed services comedy, adapted by Ring Lardner Jr. unsuccessful attempt to break into Hollywood. From a novel by “Richard Hooker,” a battlefield surgeon. More In the summer of 1955, Altman decided to make a than a dozen directors had turned this project down, but the 45- commercial film on his own. He found a local backer who was year-old Altman took it on and proceeded with the filming in willing to put up $63,000 for a film such an unorthodox manner that at one point the about juvenile delinquency, wrote the alarmed male leads–Donald Sutherland and Elliott script in five days, cast it, picked the Gould–tried to get him taken off the job. location, drove the generator truck, got M*A*S*H (1970), set during the Korean the people together and took no money War but with obvious references to Vietnam, for himself....The film was completed in follows the exploits of Hawkeye Pierce 1955 and two years later released (Sutherland) and Trapper John (Gould), two through United Artists, which had wisecracking young surgeons assigned to a Mobile acquired it for $150,000....The Army Surgical Hospital unit not far from the front Delinquents grossed nearly $1 million. lines. They work round the clock to salvage the With this promising debut in wounded who are flown in by helicopter from the feature film production, plus some sixty- front, and resort to liquor, sex, and a series of five industrial films and documentaries ingenious and subversive pranks to keep from to his credit, Altman was hired by cracking under the strain. Their natural enemies are Warner Brothers to coproduce (with not the North Koreans but a pair of humorless George W. George) and direct The inflexibles in their own camp—Major Frank Burns James Dean Story (1957), the studio’s (Robert Duvall), an incompetent surgeon with a attempt to cash in on the burgeoning direct line to the Almighty, and Major Margaret cult surrounding the dead star. Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), a highly competent The film failed at the box nurse from a gung-ho regular Army background. In office, but Alfred Hitchcock saw it and hired Altman to direct the brutal practical joke at the film’s center, the heroes bug the episodes for his CBS-TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. bed the two Majors are using and broadcast their lovemaking Altman completed two half-hour programs–“The Young One” over the PA system, sending Burns round the bend (and out of (1957) and “Together” (1958)–before being fired, and then went the war) and branding Houlihan with the name “Hot-Lips.” on to develop a very successful television career in Los Angeles, It is quickly apparent in M*A*S*H that we are dealing working primarily as a director, but also as a writer and producer. with the innocuous highjinks and patriotic resolution of the Over the next six years, he directed about twenty different shows standard service comedy—both the humor and the vision of war for such series as Bonanza, Bus Stop, Combat, The Whirlybirds, are too raw and too real. Altman creates a sense of battle fatigue and the Kraft Suspense Theatre. He learned to work quickly and by filling the wide Panavision screen with people and objects efficiently with limited budgets and tight shooting schedules, but drained of any bright colors, except for the spurting blood in the he chaffed at the restrictive conventions of commercial operating room. To this visual denseness is added a busy broadcasting. Since it was impossible to vary the treatment of the soundtrack, filled with overlapping dialogue, music, and PA hero in a series like Combat, Altman would sometimes announcements, often in broad contrast to what is happening on concentrate on secondary characters instead, building them up screen. The structure is episodic and the film rather tails off over several episodes and then allowing their deaths to be toward the end, but for most of its length it sustains an casually reported in a later installment. He also began to astonishing level of energy and invention. introduce “adult,” political, and antiwar material into his shows, Pauline Kael called M*A*S*H “the best American war and to experiment with overlapping dialogue. He was regularly comedy since sound came in,” and most critics concurred. Not all fired, but the industry was so desperate for experienced directors at once, however. Some were sickened by the gruesome realism that he had no trouble getting further assignments. By 1963 he of the surgery scenes that “stitch down” the picture, or put off by was making $125,000 a year. At that point, mindful of “those the apparent sexism and cruelty of some of the humor. “Hot-Lips hundreds of creative people who have just died in television,” is a good deal more vulnerable than the men who torment her,” Altman formed his own TV and film production company, which Vincent Canby wrote, “but the odd and disturbing suspicions that would be known as Lion’s Gate Films, in partnership with Ray M*A*S*H’s good guys are essentially bastards are dropped Wagner. They had difficulty attracting backers, and Altman did (unfortunately, I feel) in favor of conventional sentiment.” little but run up gambling debts for the next few years.... Richard Schickel, however, thought that the film’s heroes might In a final break with television, Altman accepted an best be understood “as Robin Hoods of rationalism, robbing from offer from Warner Brothers in 19666 to direct a low-budget the rich stockpiles of madness controlled by the people who space-flight film, Countdown (1968). James Caan, Michael make (and manage) wars and doling it out in inoculating life- Murphy, and Robert Duvall, astronauts preparing for the moon saving doses to the little guys caught up in the mess.” shot, seem to be permanently grounded by marital problems, Altman—M*A*S*H—9

The film won the Golden Palm at Cannes and was Nashville signifies is that we don’t listen to words any more. The nominated for six Academy Awards, receiving one (for best words of a country song are as predictable as the words of a screenplay). It earned $30 million for Twentieth Century-Fox in politician’s speech.” There are plenty of both in Nashville; the its first year alone, and went on to become one of the all-time similarities between show business and politics are at the heart of top-grossing pictures and, in a softened, sweeter form, the basis the film’s disenchanted view of contemporary life. of a very successful television series. For directing the picture Asked to develop a script that would deal with the Altman received a flat fee of $75,000. His son Michael, who country music scene (and end with a death), Joan Tewkesbury wrote the lyrics for the film’s theme song at the age of fourteen, had provided an “open” screenplay, leaving situations for Altman is still collecting royalties. to fill out, then for the actors to fill out, and lastly for the With the success of M*A*S*H, Altman was recognized audience, as the twenty-fifth character, to interpret. (“I try to as a major talent. He received many offers to do big-budget allow each individual to actually see and experience a different studio productions, but opted instead to experiment with a small film,” the director once said.) A fair amount of the dialogue was production at his own Lion’s developed in rehearsal, and most Gate Films. Brewster McCloud of the original songs were (1970) is about an alienated written by the performers young man who wants to fly.... themselves, with the help of The film was a failure at the music director Richard Baskin. box office, with critical Despite the size of the cast and reactions mixed... It has since the improvisational aspects of become a cult item and has the project, the location work been described by Altman as proceeded smoothly, in the his own favorite: I wouldn’t say relaxed atmosphere of a it’s my best film. . . “It’s my favorite because I took more summer-camp. A favored-nations contract clause among the stars chances then. It was my boldest work, by far my most had them each receive the same amount of money. Nashville was ambitious.” shot for about $2 million in less than 45 days. His next project harked back to his Bonanza days. For a Altman described the experience as almost like making long time Altman had “wanted to take a very standard Western a documentary. “What we did was sort of set up events and then story with a classic line and do it real, or what I felt was real, and just press the button and photograph them.” As he usually does, destroy all the myths of heroism.” With the ideas from an he shot the scenes basically in sequence, from first to last; he Edmund Naughton novel and a script based on it by Brian ended up with 300,000 feet of film (about twice the amount McKay, he set to work on McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971). normally needed for a feature). For a brief time he entertained the Altman has always preferred a loose, freewheeling method of notion of making two movies instead of one, but then began to filmmaking in which actors are encourages to flesh out their roles edit the footage down to a single feature, cutting progressively through improvisation. During rehearsal, and to contribute shorter versions, from 8 to 6 to 3 ½ hours in length. dialogue and even plot points to the scenario.... Before the final version was assembled, Pauline Kael California Split is the first film of Altman’s to credit saw and ecstatically reviewed for The New Yorker a three-hour “Lion’s Gate 8-Track Sound,” though the director had used rough cut. She called it “an orgy without excess” for movie- multiple tracks and overlapping voices in many of his earlier lovers. “It’s a pure emotional high and you don’t come down pictures. With the 8-track system, Altman could record sound when the picture is over.” She urged Paramount Pictures to live from microphones planted on set or on location, eliminating release this version, but Altman himself determined the final a lot of cumbersome equipment as well as the necessity of length–159 minutes. postdubbing. He could also mix and unmix the sound at will. Some reviewers called Nashville the movie of the This advanced technology was exploited to the full in his next seventies that all others would be measured against. Others saw it film, Nashville (1975), to create a virtual sound collage; in as an unfocused, inaccurate mess, without even the consolation addition to the eight tracks for dialogue, sixteen more were used of genuine Nashville stars. for musical numbers and background. The subject of Three Women (1977) reputedly came to Nashville is Altman’s triumph, the high point of his film Altman in a dream that he had when his wife was faced with career. Innovative techniques are used with dazzling success to surgery–a movie-like dream complete with title, scenery, and relate the stories of twenty-four major characters who are actresses Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek already cast. involved in a Nashville music festival and political rally. The Altman insists, “I love Quintet–it’s exactly the movie I film interweaves its characters in a complex, discursive manner, wanted to make, and it turned out exactly the way I wanted it to without special emphasis on any single story, cutting from turn out.” Pauline Kael said, “Altman has reached the point of character to character as the viewer gradually discerns the wearing his failures like medals. He’s creating a mystique of connections–family, business, romantic–between these people. heroism out of emptied theaters.” Altman has explained that each character can be broken down to While a visiting professor at the University of an archetype. “We carefully picked those archetypes to represent Michigan, Altman financed and filmed Secret Honor (1984) in a a cross-section of the whole culture, heightened by the country residence hall with student assistants. music scene and extreme nationalism or regionalism of a city like As Robin Wood points out, the relationship of a film Nashville”–a city with an image of great wealth and instant like McCabe and Mrs. Miller or The Long Goodbye to its genre popular success, like Hollywood forty years ago.”Another thing is “more complex and constructive” than simple satire; Raymond Altman—M*A*S*H—10

Durgnat has argued that in films like these the director adversary to be cunningly exploited on the way to almost “systematically reopened the questions and off-key possibilities European ambiguity. which genres may tend to close.” Altman’s principal weapon …As a postscript on Altman, one should add that he, against the neat artifices of conventional storytelling has always more than any other director, should never be counted out as an been the busy confusion of real life, which he has suggested in important force in American film culture. If his work is his films by a profusion of sounds and images, by huge casts or sometimes uneven, the fact that he continues to work on projects crazy characters, multiple plots or no plots at all; and which he which are political, ideological, and personal–refusing to has invited into his filmmaking by his reliance on improvisation. compromise his own artistic vision–is a sign that he remains, It does not particularly worry him that audiences may miss even in his seventies, the United States’ single most ambitious something on screen or on the soundtrack; it would worry him if auteur. they didn’t, for he believes that viewers ought to be able to look at a movie several times and still find something new. from Video Hound’s WAR MOVIES Classic Conflict on Film. In an essay in Richard Roud’s Cinema: A Critical Mike Mayo. Visible Ink. Detroit 1999 Dictionary (1980), Wood credits Altman with making “artistic The long-running television series is so deeply sense out of the dominant technical devices of modern cinema, imbedded in the public imagination that the true nature of Robert the telephoto and zoom lenses,” devices that tend to create a Altman’s anarchic film has been largely forgotten. Younger sense of “dreamlike uncertainty, of instability and loss of control. viewers who have not seen it and expect a longer version of the . . . Altman’s films reveal a consistent, recurring pattern to which sitcom are going to be shocked, because in these more politically these stylistic strategies are peculiarly appropriate. The sensitive times, M*A*S*H could not be made. What studio protagonist, initially confident of his ability to cope with what he executive would give the green light to a film with a black undertakes, gradually discovers that his control is an illusion; he character named “Spearchucker.” a priest named “Dago Red,” has involved himself in a process of which his understanding is and a dentist who attempts suicide because he thinks he’s far from complete and which will probably end in his own becoming “a fairy”? destruction.” Wood thinks that Altman himself “often seems only Seen with some historical context, Altman’s scathing partly in control of the effects he creates”–the result perhaps, of a anti-establishment comedy is far from perfect, but the best gambler’s approach to filmmaking. It is generally agreed that his moments are riotously funny (for all the wrong reasons) and the films constitute an uneven body of work, and most have not been film expresses the rebellious mood of America in 1970 with commercially successful. Pauline Kael described his method as absolute accuracy. It manages to do so without ever commenting “exploratory”–“an intuitive, quixotic, essentially impractical directly on the war. Though the setting is Korea, it’s really approach to moviemaking.” Vietnam. The only time Altman and writer Ring Lardner come In 1976 Bruce Williamson described Altman as close to making an overt political statement is in their funniest “convivial, erratic, difficult, generous, funny, vulnerable and one-liner. When by-the-book Maj. Margaret Houlihan (Sally incredibly, sometimes bitingly, perceptive about people. In Kellerman) says of Dr. Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland), “I physical appearance, he has been compared to Santa Claus, wonder how a degenerated person like that could have reached a Mephistopheles and a benevolent Captain Bligh, and he fits all position of responsibility in the Army Medical Crops.” three descriptions.” “He was drafted,” is the deadpan answer. In 1970, the line brought down the house. War itself is not really a subject. The only gunshot in the film is used to end the climactic football game. The nameless broken bodies that are flown to the hospital are the only evidence of the conflict. Altman shows war’s destructiveness in those graphic wounds and the bloody operating rooms. Those moments had never been presented so realistically on screen. Audiences were horrified, and so any further comment would have been irrelevant. Altman’s real targets are closer to home–organized religion and the military, both seen by the filmmakers as close- minded institutions, inimical to genuine human values. They’re personified in the characters of Maj. Houlihan and Maj. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), both far removed from their TV incarnations. As interpreted by Duvall, Burns is a more serious and Charles Derry in The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia. sinister figure. He is such a forceful character that he would upset Ed. Andrew Sarris. Visible Ink, 1998. the shaky comic balance of the film if he didn’t make such an . . .The older Robert Altman, perhaps that decade’s early exit. “Hotlips” Houlihan is more troubling. She is [70s] most consistent chronicler of human behavior, could be transformed, presumably by the embarrassment of the shower characterized as the artistic rebel most committed to an scene, from a competent if narrow-minded nurse into a brainless unswerving personal vision. If the generation of whiz kids tends cheerleader. The change may be due to over-enthusiastic to admire the American cinema as well as its structures of improvisation on Sally Kellerman’s part during the football production, Altman tends to regard the American cinema sequence. critically and to view the production establishment more as an Altman—M*A*S*H—11

The protagonists are stronger characters, too. In the for the battered visuals, explosive humor and ‘fuck ‘em’ attitude operating room, they’re accomplished professionals. Outside, of M*A*S*H, which shocked the industry above all for being they’re lecherous, sophomoric pranksters with a wide mean made not by a bearded ‘movie brat’ but a seasoned player of streak. Altman’s direction is completely in tune with the doctors’ forty-five years of age/ knockabout attitude. He uses filters to give a rougher texture to Throughout the 1970s, now so often lauded as that great the already rough surfaces of the MASH unit; long lenses that decade when American cinema had brains, sensitivity and an allow him to keep the camera at a distance to encourage adult attitude, Altman seemed unstoppable, exploding myths and ensemble improvisation; dialogue extended from one scene genres and creating the all-encompassing ensemble film par extended into the next; semilinear narrative. And within that excellence in Nashville. These were films that revealed a truer often chaotic structure, the big scenes are masterful—the American history, suggested life did not have happy endings and unforgettable microphone under the bed, the extended “suicide” defied all expectations. Even while working with the major sequence, complete with the Last Supper tableau, the use of the studios, Altman held to his independence and went his own way public address system as a cracked Greek chorus, even the no matter what.... nonsensical football game. Putting aside the sheer volume of his work, it is If, in hindsight, M*A*S*H seems harsher than it once Altman’s turning upside down of movie conventions—the did; it’s still funny and original, and its anger is not misplaced. constant throwing out of the rule book—that has made him such a commanding presence. Surviving the constraints of little time and money in delivering hours and hours of generic television series clearly showed him exactly what needed to be done, just so that he could later undo it. Once liberated from the standard demands of master shot and close-ups to be handed over to an unseen editor, Altman began to let himself roam free, drifting around the scene like a bloodhound following a scent, zooming almost casually on to significant details or simply making surprise connections. By putting separate microphones on his actors, he found that not only could the camera be distant from the action, removing the performer’s need to be aware of its position, but that he could also mix the sound to catch one conversation while filtering out another. All this contributed to Altman’s determination to convey the fleeting nature of life as we experience it, with all the frustration of its lack of precision and the pleasure of happy accidents.... Although Altman has rarely talked about the inheritance from Altman on Altman. Ed. David Thompson. Faber & of cinema with the passion, say, of Martin Scorsese, two Faber, London, 2006 directors to whom he has often paid tribute are Federico Fellini Whenever Robert Altman is asked about his philosophy and Ingmar Bergman. And something of the polar extremes on film-making, his answer is usually along these lines: found in the work of these esteemed European auteurs is “It’s the doing that’s the important thing. I equate film- reflected in Altman’s own swing between the broad canvas of making with sandcastles. You get a bunch of mates together and multi-character, multi-narrative extravaganzas (M*A*S*H*, go down to the beach and build a great sandcastle. You sit back Nashville, Gosford Park) and intimate, troubled, metaphysical and have a beer, the tide comes in, and in twenty minutes it’s just dramas, especially those focused on female experience (Images, smooth sand. That structure you made is in everyone’s 3 Women).... memories, and that’s it. You all start walking home, and Above all, for him film really is a collaborative process, someone says ‘Are you going to come back next Saturday and even if his embracing of the talent of others has led to some build another one?’ And another guy says, ‘Well, OK, but I’ll do artistic partners moving enthusiastically in and uncomfortably moats this time, not turrets!’ But that, for me, is the real joy of it out of his charmed circle. Famously, he has never been an easy all, that it’s just fun, and nothing else.” director for screenwriters, who have found their carefully honed Altman’s sandcastle analogy—which has provided the texts freely adapted and regarded as simply a blueprint to name of his production company and office—has remained Altman’s very personal sense of construction work. consistent throughout his career, one of the most extensive and adventurous to be found in the history of American cinema. He from David Thompson interview didn’t begin as a studio tea boy or a precocious student but Bergman gave me the confidence to focus on a person’s face and learned his craft by what would now be called corporate films in allow a character to have dignity. Fellini told me that anything’s a wholly commercial world that explained the rules and possible. And I know I’ve taken shots from Kurosawa’s film and techniques of a sport or the need for better road safety. From this, used them in mine.... he graduated to television; not to the brow-beating, socially The openness and variety of your films have often brought a conscious live drama that spawned Sidney Lumet and John comparison with the cinema of Jean Renoir. Is that something Frankenheimer but, rather, to inside the factory, churning out you recognize? popular series based around simple concepts, likeable character actors and solid genre situations. Little of this prepared the world Altman—M*A*S*H—12

I very much like his work, but I don’t know much about how any they should speak English. It was hard to find actors who could directors actually work, because I’ve never worked in any other do that..... position...And I’ve never seen another director working.... While you were waiting for your break into features, you made You’ve always preferred live sound, even if it’s imperfect and not some comic short films, three of which you’ve occasionally always clear, to recording dialogue after the shooting. allowed people to see: The Kathryn Reed Story, a birthday I was shooting at some big studio, Universal I think. I finished present for your wife; The Party, with Robert Fortier as a hapless with an actor at lunch time, said, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Goodbye’ and guest at a very 1960s party, one of a projected series of juke-box all that, then went to lunch. And during lunch I saw him walking movies called ColorSonics; and Pot au feu, a parody of a TV across the lot, and I said, ‘What are you doing here? I thought cookery programme explaining the recipe for a perfect you’d been dismissed.’ And he said, marijuana joint. ‘Oh, I had to go do looping.’ I said, I did those just for myself. They were ‘What do you mean? He said, ‘Well, unfinanced, just bringing together a as soon as we finished shooting, I few friends, borrowing a camera, and had to go loop all of my scenes.’ I so on. But because of one of those found out that when an actor had films I got hired to do M*A*S*H: Ingo finished working, if there had been Preminger looked at Pot au feu and any outside stuff, they were loved it, so it served its purpose. automatically sent to looping. The You’ve always had a very liberal director was never present, and attitude towards smoking pot. they’d loop the actor that day so they To me it’s no different to having a didn’t have to pay to bring him back. drink at the end of the evening, except I said ‘Who was the director?’ And that’s legal. Marijuana should be, he said, ‘I don’t know, some engineer.’ I said, ‘How can you do because it’s never killed anybody. It’s been my drug of choice. I that without me there?’ He said, ‘They don’t care how it’s said, find it relaxing, but I don’t think it really does anything for you they just want it said.’ So I raised hell and said to the actor, on a creative level. I never drank when I was working, it never ‘Don’t you say one word of this stuff unless I’m in that room.’ affected my work, and the same is true of grass....I don’t hide it But that’s the way they did it. They weren’t concerned, because or make an issue of it. In a generation or two, those things are this was a manufacturing plant, and once the project left me, usually no longer an issue. there wasn’t anybody who cared. Has that rebellious image worked against you? I still despise looping, or post-synching, though we have It’s not really served me well at all. My career has been hurt by to do it occasionally, and though I tell actors I don’t do it, we it, but then so has everyone’s the further away from the norm always have to change a word here or there, ‘north’ to ‘south’ or they get. some such. I also don’t care if the audience hears everything, and What interested you in doing M*A*S*H? that’s pretty hard to get across—that it’s not important that they To me the fun of all of these movies I’ve made has been taking hear every word or that they know what that person is saying. I your mates and creating something like a stock company. The think that films became too closely connected with theatre, and first people I think of for a film are people I’ve worked with theatre is about words and a way of presenting them to an before, usually most recently. And rarely have I had a film where audience in an unrealistic situation. If everybody projected like somebody hands me a script and then I go and do exactly that that at somebody’s house, you’d leave the party. script—even the ones that seem to happen that way, like I find that people always talk at the same time. In most M*A*S*H. I had worked for five years on a project called The conversations, by the time you get the first five words of your Chicken and the Hawk, a World War I flying film, and the whole sentence out, the person you’re talking to knows what it’s going idea of making a farcical film with all these characters, filling the to be, has already formulated an answer and is starting that screen with people, started there. But I had no credentials at that answer. time, and it was too expensive. When I was given the script for I was always trying to get away with this thing of actors M*A*S*H, I thought it was dreadful, and on the face of it, I felt it talking at the same time. Lore has it that I started the fashion for wasn’t going to work. There were no peripheral characters; it overlapping dialogue, which simply isn’t true at all. For my was just about five people and a bunch of extras. But I thought, ‘I money, Howard Hawks did....We were always trying to beat the can make this picture by doing the same thing that I was going to censors, whether they were our own producers or whether, in do in The Chicken and the Hawk and fill it with all this life.’ fact, they were a real censor or a sponsor censor. It was always a I went up to San Francisco, where there was a lot of case of trying to get beyond the limits they imposed. Theatre of the Absurd going on and you could see twenty-five The one series you really had some artistic control over was people interacting on stage. I hired about twenty actors for Combat, which still stands up as one of the most realistic M*A*S*H, many of whom had never been in a movie before. But depictions of war in a television series. to get them into the film, there had to be a corresponding name I produced the series: I had control over scripts, casting and like Charlie in the script, otherwise the studio wouldn’t hire everything, I wrote a few and directed every other episode for the them. So I went through the script and gave names to all these first year. I went into it saying, “OK, this is World War II, we’ve characters I wanted and put one or two lines in for each of them. all seen this stuff before’, and I started from the position that all Then, when it came to casting parts, the studio said, ‘OK, we’ve the Germans should speak German, unless there’s a real reason got to hire somebody for this role.’ And I said, ‘Well, he’s got to be in every scene.’ I’d done this in television before, when I Altman—M*A*S*H—13 would give six people one line each in order to have extras whom Sally Kellerman was very nervous about that. I don’t think she’d I could talk to. And that’s how that philosophy started, and how I been naked in a movie before. I said to her, ‘Just go in and take was able to get into the system of the studios. When I began your shower, and when the curtain flies up, protect yourself at all making movies, I was in no position to attract star names, and I times. It’s no big deal.’ I thought it was her modesty, that she think that also got me headed toward this sort of ensemble work didn’t want to be seen naked for the usual reasons, but afterwards that I like a lot. she said she didn’t care about showing her body, it was just she When you began shooting on 14 April 1969 on the Fox backlot in felt her hips were too big. So it was her vanity, not her modesty. the Santa Monica mountains, what were the studio’s The first take, Sally hit the ground so fast that we couldn’t tell expectations? what she was doing. So when we did the second take, Gary It was a cheap picture that Fox thought would just play in drive- Burghoff, who played Radar, and I stood on either side of the ins, and they didn’t care too much about it. Fox had two other camera with our pants down, so when the tent went down she war movies going on: Patton: Lust saw the two of us standing there for Glory and Tora! Tora! Tora!, naked. That’s why she froze before both big-budget pictures. I knew falling, and how we got the shot we that and decided that the way to wanted. She’s a great actress, and I keep out of trouble was to stay out think the whole scene is one of the of their sightline—and the best way high points of the film. to do that was not to go over What do you have to say about the budget or over schedule. The treatment of women in the film? They picture was budgeted at $3.5 certainly seem at the mercy of the million, and I think I brought it in jokes and whims and sexual needs of half a million under budget, which the men. was a lot. But I said right off the I remember once, in front of five bat to all my artists, ‘Don’t raise our heads, and don’t draw thousand students, I was accused of being a misogynist. They attention to ourselves. Let’s not go into the commissary to eat, were asking how could I treat women in this way? I said, ‘I don’t let’s not talk about the picture, because they’re diverted. We can treat women that way. I’m showing you the way I observed sneak this one through...’ women were treated, and still are treated, in the army.’ The same What finally made you think you could work with Lardner’s was true for gays and blacks. Of course, the film’s humour level script? was very crude and loaded with sexist jokes, but our attitude was The original book was terrible, racist and filled with jokes for the that nothing was as obscene as the destruction of the young men sake of jokes. But Ring Lardner has added in operations, and I sent in to fight a war that was only a political situation, a terror thought if I could make them vivid and real, these terrible jokes set up by the right wing of America.... would work because that’s how those guys kept sane. Nobody The operating scenes still seem very graphic. was fighting any idealistic war. Those were what really interested me, and I wanted them to be Lardner didn’t like the movie. He said I’d destroyed his absolutely real and outrageous, with blood everywhere, and yet script and that I’d double-crossed him, and he was very upset have everybody carrying on as if they were mechanics repairing about it. But when he won the Academy Award, he didn’t say an automobile. The actual scenes were medically accurate. We anything about me. He had also told me he thought I was going put a real surgeon, our technical advisor, in there, and all the to win the directing award for sure, and so there was no point in actors knew what operations they were doing. We went to a lot me saying anything either... of trouble to get the colour of the blood right. Although the film is supposed to be taking place in the 1950s, it The grimy, unflattering camerawork on M*A*S*H was feels much more contemporary than that, from the haircuts on. immediately distinctive. Was that hard to achieve? I had hidden the fact that it was set in the Korean War, but the The first cinematographer I hired was just shooting a different studio forced me to put the legend in front saying, ‘And then film to me. I knew there was something wrong because I hired there was...Korea.’ Although the book and script were set in him over the objections of the studio, and they were telling him Korea, to me it was Vietnam. I wanted to mix it up and have he had to be sure and do this and this and this, and I couldn’t people thinking of it as a contemporary story—that is, 1969, figure out why he wasn’t shooting what I wanted the way I 1970. All the political attitudes in the film were about Nixon and wanted it. Finally, I fired him and I got Hal Stine, then an old the Vietnam War. guy of about sixty-five years old, whom I’d worked with at Did the behaviour of the men in service reflect any of your own Warner Brothers on The Roaring 20's. I brought him out of wartime experiences? retirement, and he did a great job—he was used to working fast. Mainly the silliness that went on. We were on an island with an M*A*S*H already has your trademark use of slow zooms. Australian hospital, and that was great, as there were nurses and I did that a lot as soon as the zoom lens appeared. It was a tool, we would steal jeeps, smuggle whiskey in and have parties. and I got a lot of criticism for it. ‘Oh, you should never move that Planes were commandeered for flying beer from Australia...all camera, those zooms are false and they change the whole that stuff was the routine of the day. perspective.’ I said, ‘I know what they do, but this is the way I’m The scene of Hot Lips’ humiliation in the shower has a flavour of telling this story.’ And I did a lot of that, a lot of arbitrary moves that. with the zoom lens. Now everybody’s doing it. How did you get the rough-hewn look of the film? Altman—M*A*S*H—14

Except for the football game, we put number three fog filters on loudspeakers, and we used them like chapter headings, taking the camera, always trying to destroy the colour image, making it stuff from an official army manual from 1951. All the films dirty rather than crisp and bright. When we did Combat we were mentioned were old Fox titles. One announcement came from a shooting in black and white, and it memo from the head of the was easier to evoke those kind of editorial department at the things. Colour was a different issue. studio. We’d had photographs But when it comes to these choices, up on the wall in the editing you say these things in interviews to room, and a memo had come justify what you’ve done, and from around: ‘Take down all that point on, that’s what I think. So pictures of naked girls!’ there’s probably 60 percent truth and Wasn’t this the first time the 40 percent fiction in it! I still do the word ‘fuck’ was heard in a same thing today. I say to myself, mainstream picture? ‘Why have I done that? Oh, I It was the first time it was ever know...’ used outside of an X-rated So these choices were always instinctive? picture. It was the actor John Schuck who decided to say it I don’t know if anything in film can be completely instinctual for during the football game, and he did it as a joke. It certainly me, as I’ve done so much. Every one of these things I do, wasn’t written and I didn’t tell him to do it. But in the dailies, whatever they are, these little techniques or idiosyncrasies, have there it was. The reason it was eventually allowed in an R-rated been done for some reason. Nobody’s the inventor of anything. picture was that it wasn’t used in a sexual context; it was just How much of your distinctive visual style then is in the pre- profanity. planning with cinematographers? Your son shares a credit for the title song, ‘Suicide is Painless’. My head is full of smoke and fog—I don’t see anything, I just We needed a song, and I came up with this title. My son, know that if you blow it away, we’ll see it. I don’t know how I’m Michael, who was thirteen or so then, was writing songs, so I going to shoot a film at first. I’ll talk about things with a suggested he did it, because I didn’t think it would be any more cinematographer, but we never resolve anything. We’re still than a song to accompany the faux funeral. Michael wrote the talking right up until the time we have to shoot. Suddenly, then, lyrics and Johnny Mandel reworked it, and we liked it so much the visual style of the film is set. But the minute you make a rule, we used it as the title music. It could have become a hit then, as it you break it. And if you don’t break it, you’re a fool. did later with the TV series, but none of the record companies My marriages with cinematographers normally last wanted to promote a lyric about suicide.... about three pictures, because if you work with the same people What were your objections to the television series? you begin to know what each other is going to do. There comes a Every Sunday night an Asian war was in our living rooms, and natural time to go and seek out other partners—at least on a no matter what platitudes they came out with, still the bad guys weekend... were the dark-skinned, narrow-eyed people. I just thought it was Everyone remembers the PA announcements of M*A*S*H as a obscene at the time, when we were still in Vietnam. It was the high point. opposite message to what we felt we were making in the film. The film was too jumpy: I needed a form of punctuation. We I remember at my mother’s funeral, this friend of her were already into the editing, and I remember coming up with the told me, ‘Oh, Mr. Altman, your mother was so proud of you. We idea one day just as I was turning into my driveway. Danny see that M*A*S*H every week!’ Greene, my editor, went out and made a lot of shots of

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2017 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXXV

October 10 Alan J. Pakula All The President’s Men 1976 October 17: Andrei Tarkovsky Nostalghia 1983 October 24: Wim Wenders Wings of Desire 1987 October 31: Mike Nichols Postcards from the Edge 1990 November 7: Tran Anh Hung The Scent of Green Papayas 1993 November 14: Hayeo Miyazaki The Wind Rises 2013 November 21: Andrey Zvyagintsev Leviathan 2014 November 28: Pedro Almodóvar Julieta 2016 December 5: Billy Wilder Some Like it Hot 1959

CONTACTS:...email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.