Swompdonkey

Things I am Pretty Sure About

Hillary Clinton does not know how to lose . Whenzitover?

When they drag her twitching bloodied carcass across the convention floor of the Pepsi Centre in Denver and pry the crown from her stiffening fingers.



She's not going away! Mwah hah hah hah haaaah!

***

If the hallmark of a compelling TV show is that it makes you want to learn more about its central character, then HBO's John Adams was great TV.

What a history dork like me can particularly appreciate is that such great attention was paid to historical detail throughout the production without sacrificing the narrative. While being "true to history" is important in these types of dramatizations, you can't be slavishly devoted to replicating history in every detail, for one because nobody can say with 100% certainty how things really occured, and also because it would make for tedious viewing -a point made very convincingly in this article.

What also struck me is that the producers also refused to pander to the lowest common denominator by "modernizing" the dialogue or the interactions of characters. It really is striking to hear eighteenth century Americans speaking to each other in the elegant vernacular of the period. The manners are strikingly not our own. Gentlemen, even the closest of friends, seem to address each other formally, while managing to convey their emotions and humanity. When men speak publicly, their words are deliberately and carefully chosen to convey true meaning (and not to baffle and confound like the politicians of our day).

The characters in this miniseries also communicate in an English that sounds somewhat alien to the 21st century ear, and even a bit "British", although it is unmistakeably not the King's English that people are speaking, even at this early point in the evolution of America.

I already knew that Paul Giamatti was a fine actor, but this role proved that he really can carry a serious big-budget project. I thought the the cast was superb as well, with standout performances by Laura Linney as Abigail Adams, Tom Wilkinson as Ben Franklin, and an almost unrecognizable David Morse as George Washington.



Oh yeah... and the opening theme is pretty rousing too...The kind of music that promises you are about to witness something monumental.



The show more than lives up to the promise.

And incidentally, who would have thought that Tom Hanks would become one of the pre-eminent producers of quality history miniseries?

I already own The Band of Brothers boxed set, also co-produced by Playtone, and I plan on buying John Adams as well as the upcoming miniseries The Pacific, which will tell the story of Marines in the Pacific Theatre during the Second World War, and which I can only assume will be of the same high quality as Band of Brothers.