Joseph Heller’s classic novel Catch 22 remains a timeless treasure in American literature and its 1970 adaptation off Buck Henry’s screenplay, directed by Mike Nichols, does justice to the book’s merit in every which way.
Set in the Mediterranean during World War II, the movie has an ensemble cast filling various roles in the military ranks deployed at the fictional US air base on Pianosa. Alan Arkin plays the protagonist Captain John Yossarian, the Air Force pilot who is tired and sick of the never-ending war and is looking to find some way to be sent home. His hopes are failed by the endless flying missions that keep piling up under the command of Colonel Cathcart (Martin Balsam). Meanwhile Yossarian and his colleagues need to keep their sanity from going on the rocks as many/most of them already think and act in absurd ways between themselves and around the base.
Just like Heller’s classic novel, Catch 22 by Mike Nichols makes you laugh and wonder at the same time over the insanity of war, its underlying cause, rationale, and dynamics in the war zone. This is some dark humor that comes as lighthearted on the screen as one could imagine. The lack of reason and abundance of pseudo-reason goes hand in hand with the corporate side of war, the character of mess officer Lt. Milo Minderbinde (Jon Voight) being the personification of this syndrome.
In line with the plot’s repetitive turns in narration – shifting from mission to mission with the same result – the transitions to and from Yossarian’s face in multiple scenes successfully convey the psychological and rhetorical effects of the character and his situation. Catch 22 by Nichols can be cited for its effective employment of transitions to let viewers see through the dilemma of a man in war and at war with his circumstance.
This is a movie you can watch as many times as you can read Heller’s novel without getting tired of appreciating its brilliance, even today when the war industry is still going as strong as it was decades ago.
