John Adams

I’d been excited when I first heard that Tom Hanks’ production company was back in the game with HBO, and putting out a new mini-series based on the life of John Adams. Not only do I consider “From the Earth to the Moon” and “Band of Brothers” to be two of the best things to ever hit television, but when I found out the Paul Giamatti, one of my favorite actors, was cast in the lead of this new Playtone project, I was sold. I was excited, but I’m also pretty busy…so I managed to miss it when it came on. It came back on my radar a few days ago, though, and I remembered that I was going to check and see if it was on On Demand for viewing. Turns out it was, but was only going to be available through 5/19. So I figured I should take the chance to jump on it now instead of clogging up my Netlix list later, and the added time constraint motivated me to try it out.

The series itself was extraordinary, and any award Giamatti DOESN’T receive for this will be a great injustice. I can’t remember the last time I saw such a brilliantly layered performance. And Laura Linney, as Abigail Adams, deserves much of the same praise. I hadn’t thought much about her in years, until I recently rediscovered her in “The Savages”, and she’s became a remarkable actress. Maybe she always was, and I had just never noticed. Also, seeing one of my favorite actors of all time, David Morse, showing up, to my surprise, as George Washington was an incredible treat. The first two or three episodes had me completely mesmerized. The rest affected me similarly, but it’s at this point where I’m not sure how strongly I can gauge how other people will feel about sitting through seven episodes of it, as it is anything but action-packed. Lots of talking, lots of character stuff, but the point of this thing was, after all, to focus on the life of Adams, not American history in general. I found that I wanted to see more focus on the big events, that often just seemed to be happening in the background, but again, this was Adams’ story. I loved all of it, myself, but you’ll have to make up your own mind on whether so much character exposition is your thing. It definitely was mine.

But more than the series and its quality, I think I’m even more floored on the subject matter itself making it to television. Watching that first episode had a very emotional affect on me – because it reminded me how little of this very important part of our national history ever makes it into our media in this day and age. When I was a kid, I remember watching Walt Disney Presents, and I learned a lot of American history from it. There were movies on Paul Revere, the Boston Tea party, all the pieces of the birth of the U.S.. It was an important part of my personal education. Mr. Disney apparently felt that was important for kids, and I thank him for it. And it occurred to me, watching John Adams, that most of today’s younger generation has no idea that there’s any American history that pre-dates World War II. There are no movies, TV shows or other material that talk about Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin, the Declaration of Independence, none of it. It would seem it’s become taboo. The real truth is probably less insidious – it just ain’t sexy.

At a time in our history when our nation is so divided, I think it of monumental importance that we remember, and focus on, what we all have in common – our shared experience, our common identity as Americans. I honestly think there as so few people out there, people beneath my age group, that really understand where this country came from, and what such an extraordinary group of men went through to give us this nation, and the free government, that we take for granted today. I still believe (as unpopular as this opinion has become) that we’re the greatest nation on Earth, and that we have so much to be grateful for…despite all our whining and hand-wringing and editorializing. Patriotism is not a dirty word. It is, though, a seemingly FORGOTTEN word. People have attached things to it that make it unsavory. But it is a virtue. I believe this. I believe that we can acknowledge our problems with a mindset of our ability to overcome them, if we look back at our history and see all the obstacles we’ve overcome to get this far. That we have come so far should be a matter of both pride and humility (the two can exist together), and a motivator to take what we have and raise it to even greater levels. We have cause to celebrate the great American experiment, and to embrace it, and make it relevant for our times. And it is, now, more than ever. We need to remember that.

I applaud Mr. Hanks for daring to remind us of this, to dust off the languishing tales of our beginnings and bring them back into focus. Like it or not, our stories (television and movies) have become our educators, and the means through which the masses learn about their world. I can’t imagine this was an easy sell to HBO (where it seems every series they makes needs to have the word “sexy” attached to it somewhere), but they took a chance on it, and I’m grateful to them for this, too. I can only hope this is the beginnings of a resurgence of interest in early U.S. history, and that today’s viewers will be able to experience these stories the way I did, and have the same fascination and pride in our founding fathers that I grew up with. Time will tell.