HBO’s magnificent screen portrait of John Adams and his fellows at a time when they were ‘winging it’—as historian David McCullough has it in HBO’s online site for the show—is simply brilliant film-making. It should be viewed in every classroom of the nation from which this reviewer ponders the deeply moving experience of having done so in his living room.
Adams was the kind of politician—he would have hated the word and the notion to which it refers—for which the most secular among us should urgently pray. He had no stomach for the thing and only wanted to return to spread his best manure-soil mix on his beloved New England farm. Principled, articulate, and stubborn, he learned in the earnest fray of the revolutionary years the art of intelligent compromise. Paul Giamatti never lets us look away from the pain it caused him to lead, nor to easily evade the burden of historical gratitude that we owe to him, to his wife and family, and to those who labored beside them in the birth pangs of a nation.
There was no plan, there was no aged wisdom, there was only the pressing task at hand. The making of sausage is never pretty. Rarely has its product mattered as much.
Laura Linney is incendiary as Adams’ pillar, his rock, his ‘best friend’ and wife Abigail. Nations have mothers, too. Abigail Adams and Laura Linney make the case for their costly legacy as few others could.
Stephen Dillane is exceptionally compelling as Thomas Jefferson, passing through his various experimental stages at a time when the shape of a people’s government depended in part on what he thought *today*.
We are fortunate that Executive Producer Tom Hanks has turned his formidable intelligence and influence to projects like Saving Private Ryan and John Adams. The man is well on his way to serving as a kind of cinematic elder statesmen, encouraging his fellow citizens to keep their finger in the dike against the surging waters of amnesia and indifference. Hanks could be doing many things or, quite comfortably, nothing. That he engages projects like this one means the world is a slightly better place today than it might have been.
‘American exceptionalism’ has quite rightly taken a lot of heat in recent years. Like most overstatements, it contains a kernel of truth. John Adams probes gorgeously, pedagogically, entertainingly at that kernel. ‘Almost, Messieurs Hanks, McCullough, Giamatti, and company, thee makest us all exceptionalists’.
God bless us every one.
Canter Bridge 
I do not think the series captured the spirit of McCullough’s book. I am sure McCullough appreciated the publicity however.
You make a good point about the undermining of American exceptionalism. You say that kernel was probed. I think the series blew that kernel into the world’s largest piece of popcorn.
Your review is well written. If you are willing to read a counter opinion about the series, here is my take:
http://fortresstakes.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/john-adams-2008/
Dear Fortress Guy,
Many thanks for your post. I have indeed read—and appreciated—your ‘counter opinion’. You’ve given the matter a lot of though and are definitely more well versed on the revolutionary period than I.
However, I’ve come away from the HBO project with a different sense about how the fathers had been depicted than you have. The depiction is indeed gritty and dark. But I found them elevated (certainly with the exception of Franklin) rather than denigrated by the portrayal.
Clearly there’s a lot of subjectivity in our different responses to the same film images and necessarily so.
Your review will now require me (hardly a burden!) to go back and watch JOHN ADAMS again to see, upon further review, whether I emerge more persuaded by your take or by my own.
Thanks again.
Thanks for your intelligent take on my take. You are right, “denigrate” was a strong word. Upon a day’s reflection I think I am going to mellow it slightly to “impugn”.
I agree with you about the subjective nature of such interpretations. A lot of it depends on our expectations going in.
I am almost sure though that you are going to notice a lot of Dutch angles on your second viewing. 😉
Now I have to look up ‘Dutch angle’.