Nobody, but nobody, used the zoom quite like the great Altman.

Never just swooshing showily in and out using a basic camera technique, Altman masterfully elevated the simplest of wide-tele procedures to an art form. His camera goes in with a purpose, either intimate, to capture offhand gesture or throwaway expression, or incisive, unflinchingly diving into the unpleasant or repugnant.

And the zoom lets off as magnificently, opening up -- almost always to an unexpected degree, Altman revealing far more than we expect -- to surprise us with the subject's visual context. Incredible stuff.

Of course, that's not the first thing you notice about his hilarious M*A*S*H, stuffed to the gills with military mayhem, illegally acquired martinis and a stellar ensemble cast -- Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Elliot Gould -- that made a legend out of Richard Hooker's relatively ordinary novel, a book Altman personally loathed.

Long before the smash hit television show, Altman created the ultimate anti-war statement with this film, a film so clearly opposed to war that, while set in the Korean War, he removed all such references from the script so that audiences would confuse it for the Vietnam War. M*A*S*H is a celebration of irreverence, seeped in male camaraderie and tentpole tomfoolery.

The key ingredient, of course, is satire, satire so bitter it seems almost nihilistic. Thank God the funnies are as incredible as they are.

Here, then, is one of the film's finest scenes, well-illustrating the script's constant dichotomy. The unit's dentist Waldowski, convinced of latent homosexual tendencies, wants to commit suicide. Hawkeye and his gang of never-serious martini-drinkers -- the film's irresistible anti-heroes -- hand him a 'a black capsule' and a ludicrously Last Supper themed send-off.

Known as the Painless Pole, the dentist lies solemnly into a coffin, never knowing how effectively the boys will 'cure' him. Don't miss -- alongside one of the finest songs originally composed for a film -- Sutherland's Hawkeye casually breaking bread, the dentist's expressions, the occasional breaking-into smirks, and the final present given to the 'dying man.'

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