Over the weekend I finished watching John Adams, the seven-part HBO miniseries that won a ton of Emmys this year (and got nominated for several more). The big networks never show anything like this anymore; when was the last time a major network (ABC, CBS, NBC) showed even a single two-hour made-for-TV movie? Thank goodness for HBO.
If you’re an American history buff, you’ll love this. Because it’s about eight hours long, the series takes its time with John Adams’s life, lingering over his time in Paris and Amsterdam and London as well as in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Washington. The amount of period detail is wonderful — you can smell and taste the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Dirt, sweat, smallpox, scratchy colonial wigs. The Founders seem so elegant and elite to us, but we live in luxury compared to them. Imagine having to take a break from writing the Constitution to go use the outhouse. Imagine having to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe when you’ve spent your whole life in the northeastern American colonies, and being completely cut off from your family. (I read a biography of Adams last year, and that was the idea that amazed me most.)
Paul Giamatti and (especially) Laura Linney, as John and Abigail Adams, are terrific. We watch them grow old together (and sometimes apart).
During the episode where the Continental Congress debates whether or not declare independence, Matt asked me when they would start singing.
Okay, maybe I made that part up.
Anyway, this is a great series and I highly recommend it.
Might I also add that anyone interested in John Adams may find “John Adams” by David McCullough truly wonderful. And also “JOhn Adams” by Page Smith is a great read, though a bit older.
What intrigues me about so many from that era is the refined thinking that they were able to engage in, the skill at writing and penmanship, the true devotion to big ideas. And they did not know what we know, that it all sort of worked out. I think when we read or watch historical stories we should try and place our mind inside the ones we are coming to understand. They were really living it.