Catch-22 (1970)

There was a rash of books from the American authors of the late 60's and early to mid 70's, such as "Catch 22", "Future Shock", and "The Dice Man", that all had a particular flavour of their times.

The main phrase of Joseph Heller's work was "Catch 22" - being both the title and the issue in the book and movie, centered around a situation, that was the problem, but applying the solution, meant there was no problem, so there was no way of dealing with the problem.

Kind of like being a fighter pilot, issued with substandard life rafts.. You would have to crash way out in the ocean, and the life raft would deflate, so the pilot would sink and drown, and you had to do this to prove the life rafts were defective, by returning the dead pilot and the life raft to the issuing office, before a replacement was issued, to the dead pilot.

The movie is very good, but the book, in going far further into the abstractions and details and explicit and implied nuances, means that the movie, really compliments the book.

I'd really recommend reading the book first - before watching the movie.....

The combination, works really well - like a well seasoned steak and salad...