Rare Screenplay Movie Script of M*A*S*H, One of the Most Important Films of the 21st Century

Altman, Robert

Script

Robert Altman & Ring Lardner Jr. Original script of the film dubbed “perfect for the times [...] the cacophony of American culture brilliantly reproduced onscreen.” January 1969. Quarto. Mimeographed typescript, bradbound in printed studio wrappers. Original owner’s name on upper wrapper. Wrappers show a faint damp discoloration from the spine and a bit of creasing. A fascinating collaboration between two of the most influential American cinema artists of the 20th century, director Robert Altman and screenwriter Ring Lardner. Lardner’s Hollywood blacklisting, a result of the Red Scare of the 40s and 50s, had only recently lifted. M*A*S*H won the Palme d'Or at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival and five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay.

M*A*S*H , which stars Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, Robert Duvall, and Sally Kellerman, was an instant success despite the controversial political message. Though set in Korea, M*A*S*H was one of the only critiques of the Vietnam war to be released by a Hollywood Studio at the time. The film’s most critically acclaimed, innovative concept, the abrupt juxtaposition of comic scenes with the grim reality of war, comes straight out of Lardner’s screenplay; The effect of bloody violence, “viewed individually and at close range [...] is almost unbearable.” Altman’s distinct style of directing, in which the actor’s were encouraged to improvise for naturalistic effect, creates a fascinating interplay between the script and the completed film. The commitment to naturalism was not only artistically innovative: The frank treatment of military racism in M*A*S*H is as radical now as it was in 1970. The film premiered to rave reviews, with Pauline Kael of the New Yorker writing, "I don’t know when I’ve had such a good time at a movie. Many of the best recent American movies leave you feeling that there’s nothing to do but get stoned and die, that that’s your proper fate as an American. This movie heals a breach.” That year it won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 1996, M*A*S*H was deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Marginal paper clip marks and a few passages nealy underscored in red ink, otherwise very good. One of the most influential, innovative screenplays of the 20th century.

Item #16297

Price: $1,700.00