John Adams (2008)

I'm 73 At 23, my speech professor 'people no longer can communicate'. An extraordinary and complex film as regards persons and 'historical times'. 'Social media' (Facebook, Cell Phones, This, Linkedin, Twitter) spouts and share near meaningless, lifeless bytes 'look at me look at me' mouthing language and babbled sputters amounting to nothing of substance beneficial to humanity given the big picture. John Adams exalted in emotions making me want to punch Adams in the face. Giamatti is second to none and i often think of Phillip Seymour Hoffman when i think of PG. Morse's 'George Washington' made my toes wiggle in delight. These guys were 'made up' in the directors, actors and writers minds. Perhaps, none of these fellows were as portrayed but had many of the real guys' sentiments. As an elementary school teacher i stood in my classroom and heard loud goings-on in the class adjacent. I peaked in teacher's room and saw the history teacher dressed like the people in the history books acting out history for his students. If i had a teacher like that i'd have taken an interest in history. This show could be taken in a couple times to just get a good history lesson while being jolted by great acting. I imagine , though , the 'facts of the happenings were true which are so complex and so extraordinary to behold answering so many questions yet none, perhaps as John Adams, at the end says 'the more i read and think i know the less i know'. I think that comes with wise old age. The ending blew me away just on the level of i didn't know Adams and Jefferson died on July 4th. I don't know if Adams died saying Jefferson shall prevail but it was a great tough. I do not know if those letters in their old age took place but wonderful stuff. Back to Facebookers and social media. They are 'cookie cutter one dimensional folks so limited in the ability to 'say' anything, to paint anything worthwhile with 'words'. I have to laugh at myself when i hear how my Dad used to talk about how it was when he was a kid and how much better in many ways and 'what is the world coming to'. Well, that's how i feel and this flick only increases those feelings. Back then people could speak painting such depth and breath of life and circumstance with 1 sentence whereas social media couldn't compete if given thousands of words, or books for that matter. There's no prose in modern life not among real people or social media. All prattle to my ears. So, i don't much care anymore. I'll be glad when i'm dead and gone but probably not glad to make that age old journey. I railed at both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Mostly, i got to disliking Adams for being such a hard ass, conceited, cold, heartless, jerk who just loved to hear himself talk. He raised his voice getting all huffy and puffy with no humility putting people down saying whatever contradictory thing came to his head. Lambasting others' ideas with belligerent tones. Knocking his family way to tough and uncaring. Blustering, bragging, boastful show off know it all. But, i started to think i'm projecting. I'm angry because he reminds me of myself and what it's like to be a great and good man such that i am but have to be told by others. Before my Dad died at 97 he told me he respected me. If any of you get a chance to tell your children 'i respect you' , with sincerity, do so. I love you is so trite especially nowadays near meaningless and hardly true or believed. I love everyone, like a few and respect fewer. To be able to respect someone is so great and do know someone respects you is greater. One surely loves and likes many they don't respect or even trust but not the other way around. I can like someone or dislike them while respecting. To love - like and respect , wow. This show dives all the way to the top and bottom of the intricacies of history and humanity as is asks and gives and doesn't give us answers. But, it does show a guy, Adams (and Jefferson), so brilliant in in mind, able to articulate their dark and lighter sides, know their fallibility, their dependencies, the wisdom, their failings, there dual natures. Adams and Jefferson, often at each others throats show how honest men, men of conscience, multi dimensional people with attributes and drawbacks, non cookie cutter guys who could run rings around the likes of the William F. Buckleys putting mere words back to back in such away to build towering ideas and lay them out like a dandy dinner, a feast of idea put to orgasmic words painting emotions and concepts that rocked me to the core. And, lets not forget the women without we'd fall to pieces. Anyhow, men of conscience, honest men are always in trouble and always hated. Good for them.

just an admirable work. and useful support for understand the purpose of politic. portrait of great men. and one of the most impressive roles of Paul Giamatti. all seems be impeccable - atmosphere, traits of the lead characters, the fight to build a nation, the vulnerability and the force of the second president of United States. and its great virtue is to be more than an American story. it is a beautiful film about values and sacrifice. about solitude and about a huge team project. about honesty. and about the need to define , in clear way, principles. short, a film who must see. for compare. and for understand. near reality more than the lines of the past.

Now, after reading multiple biographies of the founding fathers and previously becoming an expert on human behavior, I'm sad at the distortions of history, biography, and human behavior perpetrated by this mini-series. This mini-series portrays John Adams as a melancholic, principled, angry man, which is entirely wrong on melancholic and angry, and only partially right on his principles, as these were distorted. It failed to show John Adams as the devoted follower of Samuel Adams and committed to the same cause as Samuel Adams from where the mini-series begins and places John Adams at the edge of all the action, instead of among Samuel Adams' fomenting puppet masters, who never appeared at the riots. This highly fictionalized portrayal highly ignores history's record of who John Adams was and the very deep religiously pious nature of both Samuel Adams and John Adams; portraying Samuel Adams as ostentatious, nobly garbed and an accumulator of wealth, when the opposite was true. John Adams was much more likely to be decked out in fine clothes than Samuel Adams, who despised pretension and ostentatious spending. Moreover, John Adams had by the beginning of this mini-series already been among Samuel Adams' secretive inner circle. Samuel Adams was known to hold unprovoked violence toward persons as reprehensible and unacceptable to his God, thus in Samuel Adams' piety, it was likely Samuel Adams who asked John Adams (the only lawyer among them) to represent the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. Moreover, the alternating angry and melancholy natures of this portrayal is not only historically in accurate, as John's actual character was more like an enthusiastic irrepressible happy little dog, rather than the universally unlikable character of this angry melancholic portrayal, which never gets a person chosen or elected for anything. From that huge error and others on this mini-series, it this portrayal is doomed to be a highly inaccurate, highly fictionalized portrayal of John Adams, which only historians will recognize, because of the broad ignorance of the masses.

This series was so good I am having difficulty finding words to do it justice. I have only faded memories of John Adams from my high school history class almost 50 years ago. The teacher spoke well of John Adams but I didn't really remember why. This series has not only reminded me but it has also provided me great detail as to how great a part John Adams played in the birth of America. This was so educational and enlightening for me. The more I learn of the men and women who created this county out of nothing the greater is my admiration for them. They made hard choices, they were willing to risk life and limb for the chance to see a dream come true. I am amazed by how well they sorted out the constitution and the bill of rights with the intent of preventing problems for those who would follow. Their wisdom and the ability to foresee conflict is incredible. We owe them a great deal of gratitude and respect.I wish this was required viewing for all high school students.