Here’s the speech from our first MASH, “Out of Sight/Out of Mind” that took us a week and at least fifty drafts. But launched our career. Hawkeye was temporarily blind, with no guarantee he’d ever see again. He dealt with it by staying very busy, even being a little manic.Finally, B.J. sits him down in Post Op and they have the following exchange:
B.J.
Listen, Hawk, why don’t you just settle down for five minutes? I know what you’re trying to do, and I know how you really feel.
HAWKEYE
No you don’t.
B.J.
You don’t want to have time to think about what might happen to you.
HAWKEYE
That’s not it. Sure, when Overman walks in tomorrow and unwraps my package, I hope to God I’ll have my sight back. But in the meantime, this crazy accident has taken on another meaning.
B.J.
How?
HAWKEYE
One part of the world closed down for me, but another part opened up. Sure, I’ve been seeing myself sitting on a corner with a tin cup selling thermometers. But things are happening that take me away from that. This morning I spent two incredible hours listening to a rainstorm. I didn’t just hear it, I was part of it. I’ll bet you never realized that the sound of rain hitting the ground makes the same noise as steaks when they barbeque, or that thunder seems to echo forever. And you can’t believe how funny it is to hear someone slip and fall in the mud. Had to be Burns. Beej, it’s full of trapdoors, but I think I’m using this thing to my advantage. I’ve never spent a more conscious day in my life.
Perfect.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Hawkeye claimed the Blind Person's Tax Credit for that year?
Dear Ken,
ReplyDeleteI remember that episode well although I strongly suspect I only saw it when it aired the first time. The speech is really wonderful. That said, I would share something with you.
A few years ago, I suffered a traumatic injury that briefly threatened my long-term mobility (compression fracture of a vertebra involving a bone fragment resting against the spinal cord). What's interesting is that while all of my friends were pondering the gruesome possibilities, they never occurred to me. I later confirmed this with another patient who broke a cervical vertabra that often leads to quadraplegia or instant death and she too said that she never thought about the less-pleasant possibilities. It's not that we consciously repressed it, it never occurred to either of us. In retrospect, I can only plead astonishment.
I love the speech, but the first part of it doesn't ring quite true.
Best regards,
Alan Tomlinson
That's interesting, Alan. I was wondering whether Ken and David bothered with a 'scientific' approach to characterisations like that, where reaction to change is supposed to follow a sequence of anger, denial, bargaining, etc. Maybe they just go with what's funny though.
ReplyDeleteThe speech is a beautiful piece of writing, Ken.
ReplyDeleteBut Alan's insights are enlightening. Thank you both for sharing.
Now back to Potter.
--SD
While I have never suffered a traumatic injury of that extent, I think that speech rang very true because it was Hawkeye Pierce: that person, in that place, under those circumstances, at that time. If you look at the character over the course of the show, I think starting over at anger and denial would have felt wrong --- every day he was going through those emotions, thanks to the war. So a traumatic event like losing his sight would jar him... somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteWeek well spent, Ken. It's a classic.
The power of writing. Since I don't have a tv, old episodes of Mash don't follow me around. I probably haven't seen a MASH episode since the series ended, but I recall Hawkeye's remarks like yesterday. Funny in a way, a man with eye in his name would have that experience.
ReplyDeleteHe might've become the next "Daredevil".
ReplyDeleteSo weird. I spent all weekend reformatting my home PC after a virus attack so I wasn't able to read this until Monday morning. But when I woke up Sunday morning, it was raining pretty hard and I was laying in bed listening to the rain and this very scene from [i]M*A*S*H[/i] was running through my head (especially the part about Hawkeye hearing someone fall in the mud). Made me smile all morning.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ken and David.
I always loved this speech, the very last line is one of those things that just sort of sticks in the mind, in a good way.
ReplyDeletethis was the second episode of MASH I ever saw in my life.
ReplyDeleteThe first one was the one previous to this, which I watched, so I would know who the characters were when I watched this one.
This was back in the days when you actually could read the entire TV Guide, and I, apparently, did.
Of course, I have the ep on tape somewhere. How odd, years later, to find a blog by the person who wrote it.
I remember the speech well (if not word for word)
Also fun hearing about the Sitcom room
PS - after seeing this ep, I actually started watching the show.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my favourite episodes of my favourite tv show, it's wonderful to read about the writing process 20 or 30 years on. I wasn't even born when MASH first ran, but BBC2 showed it (without the laughter track!) while I was growing up and it became a staple of my cultural diet, even more so since the DVD releases.
ReplyDeleteThis episode, along with Gelbart and Reynolds' 'The More I See You' (possibly my favourite 24 minutes of television ever, sorry Mr Levine!) from the previous series, mark for me key phases in the development of MASH (alongside a development of Hawkeye's character) from a more conventional sitcom (albeit an outstanding one) into something more... mature doesn't seem quite right - perhaps 'rounded', in any case making it into the cultural milestone it was.
I had an eye injury earlier this year that doctors needed two weeks to confirm I'd fully recover from, two weeks of preparing myself for the possibility of losing sight to a large degree. I thought about this monologue a lot - it certainly helped. Seeing it written down looks odd, in my head it was much longer. I guess that's a testament to its power, tv at it's very best.
"The More I See You" is my favorite episode of MASH too so don't feel bad.
ReplyDeleteKen
Ken,
ReplyDeleteThis post has haunted me for the past couple of days. I haven't had the time to focus on it until now.
I am stunned by the audacity it must have taken you and David to bring such character-perfect simplicity to your first M*A*S*H assignment. Showing off here would have been so simple and tempting.
If your Sitcom Room students learned to just imagine restraint their money was well-spent.
Sincerely,
Dave