M*A*S*H* and Me

An on-screen giant – Donald Sutherland – has just lied down. Age 88.

Watching M*A*S*H* the movie with him in a leading role, one finds ample instances of disregard for human frailty, but not for human life, more camaraderie than canon, laughter than profanity.

Post-60’s era was a time of “Je ne sais quoi”; what can you do; I now turn the attention to myself. You’re OK, I’ m Ok. Can’t sit in, teach in or dance to the tune of Hari Krishna forever. Student loan was coming due. Got to graduate, sign up for on-campus job interviews and raise a family. Carly Simon loved her refrain ” and that’s the way I have always heard it should be”… only to later put on belly fat (All in the family lazy chair) which Jane Fonda’s aerobic craze was glad to help.

But only after the malaise of Watergate and the M.I.A. mess from Vietnam were completely exorcised. McCain and band came home. Wait here, please – lines at the VA after skipping the Welcome-Home party as in the Deer Hunter.

Sutherland found himself in war-movies roles such as “The Eagle Has Landed” (Robert Duvall as a zealous German Colonel with an eye patch and a Churchill-kidnapping plan – Sutherland, a professor who infiltrated at a secluded English-coast town). His on-screen role varied from spy to surgeon ( Hawkeye Pierce), who was drafted to Korea.

Sutherland’s vulnerability ( a spy who left love letter behind) pierced through both screen and shades – not even a John Lennon’s 60’s orange-tint can hide – penetrating without self-justification (that he was of the upper class sensibility ) e.g. professor/spy (Devlin), surgeon (Hawkeye), Counsel to the President (Clark Gifford), Oil Tycoon (Fierce People).

There was nothing “ordinary” about him ( even in Redford’s directorial debut Ordinary People), dealing with family tragedy (his favorite other son was drowned in a boating accident). Self-recrimination was so severe that any ordinary thinking Dad would have to face up to it, to mob up. To his other son played by Timothy Hutton “ I will arrange for you to see someone “ that is after swim practice. A rational solution to an emotional problem.

In Fierce People, he befriended Diane Lane, his masseur, to thank her for saving his life. An oil tycoon with ill-gotten wealth, he lived out his last days in full display e.g. hot-air balloon Birthday Party. Meanwhile single mom and her coming-of-age son (played by the late Anton Yelchin), lived on-prem in close proximity hence bred intimacy e.g. the young man was in same-cut blazer at the party thus signaled to all he might someday be heir to the throne.

To dispel a downstair rumor, our dying tycoon – still as vulnerable as Hawkeye in M*A*S*H* ( when mistaken for a driver ) – dropped his pants ( you believe me now? ). By all indication, he visibly (not to the audience) wasn’t capable of sleeping with the boy’s Good-Samaritan mom even if he had wanted to.

How can someone achieve that much? By studying and play-acting multiple lives, while emptying his own. Glibly and fluidly at ease in various roles – he came across relatable but not without a darker shadow i.e. to gamely play along where the acting leads e.g. holding up a chest X-ray to the sun as one would when viewing an eclipse through a pair of 3D glasses: Gould’s set-up : ” Oh, I will need an assistant “- at the operating table in Japan and as a golf buddy while in-country.

In the opening scene he just took off in an Army jeep (stolen) ” Yes Sir”. In the end, Robert Altman closed Hawkeye’s in-country tour with ” Did he just steal our Jeep?” ” No sir, that’s the one he came in with” ( false license plate screwed on during the entire war-weary stay).

The scores of “Suicide is painless” define M*A*S*H*. On UHF channel, watching its rerun late at night, with my father – after a decade of being apart- on the couch next to me, I put self recrimination behind and myself to sleep. That sound, thwap thwap thwap, soothed my soul and stayed with me – bridging the Pacific oceans mixing pain and pleasure in the mid-80’s (Do you want to hurt me? Do you want to make me cry? oh boy, Boy George, Sweet dreams are made of this).

In Altman’s hands, comedy are made out of tragedy, a scene out of a shower where the whole medic mob turned out in anticipation of the “lynching” – in this case, a complete collapse of an Army unisex tent to unveil our soaking wet Hot Lips in full hormonal rage.

That much irreverence (well aligned with One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest) wrapped up that era’s articulated and calculated protest against: the Cambodia bombing, Kent State shooting, monk burning and high-profile assassination. From “Ask Not what your country can do for you” to – to fold or to flee (via the up State lakes to Canada)- in Hayden’s words: “it’s the isms that caused the schisms”.

Before ” that’s the way I have always heard it should be”, we found malaise, crisis of confidence, the eroding trust in institution and mis-direction of leaders who got followers into the jungle of Vietnam and the jungle of Guyana (Jim Jones).

I have been on the trail to Tustin, I been to Austin just like Neil Young’s “ been to Redwood, been to Hollywood….looking for a heart of gold, and I am getting old.”

There is nothing “ordinary” in those post-VN Cold-war decades except for tragedy in high frequency.

But occasionally, some shooting star, from Canada – to where draft-dodgers used to flee- graced us with light-hearted medic pranks (injecting morphine to the opposing team’s running back or the suicidal black pill for company dentist’s “Last Supper”) – fierce and fun – as if one could remain forever young as a permanent student in Animal House.

R.I.P. Donald Sutherland, so “ordinary” a human being yet lived life in full-range. His passing makes us wonder how many lives we could’ve had yet remain unlived.

“Did he just steal our Jeep?” ” No Sir, it’s the one he came in with”.

When living and working near death, what does one have to fear and loose!

“Suicide is painless” on A- track and on B-track, the thwap thwap thwap of medivac alert ( I really really miss you Dad, not just during our 75-85 unfortunate absence – we certainly were no ” Ordinary People” whose ending shows Sutherland hugging Timothy Hutton, saying “I love you”).

Kiefer, know how you feel