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Ye Olde Cliffe-Hanger

Posted by CrazyJoeDavola on April 20th, 2008 under Uncategorized

In these times FRAUGHT with Peril and CONFUSION, it is imperative for a Free and Principled people to consider with all SOBRIETY the following troubling circumstances which were RAISED by the penultimate episode of the tele-visual gazette of John Adams:

  • Will President Adams finally find peace and happiness amidst family at his farm, Peacefield?
  • Can any creature in Heaven or on Earth stand in the way of Alexander Hamilton’s thirst for power and fab military regalia?
  • Will President Adams be able to repair his long friendship with Thomas Jefferson, or will Jefferson’s commitment to his role as the first Emo-American prevent reconciliation between the two?
  • No one talks about Ben Franklin on the show anymore. Is he, like, dead?

Ha ha, kidding. We can rest assured that all those fancy buttons and ribbons Hamilton was obsessing over in “Unnecessary War” won’t stop a lead salad courtesy of Aaron Burr. But – SPOILER ALERT! – HBO has leaked the final scene of John Adams to yours truly, and I’ve included it below. It will intrigue some, infuriate others, but you can bet everyone will be talking about at the water cooler tomorrow!


As for the series, I’m trying to figure out why, given such a stellar cast, tremendous production values and impeccable source material, I haven’t really enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. I feel like a traitor to my country, and given the fact President Adams just signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in Episode 6, I could be in deep shit right now.

It’s not the actors, especially leads Paul Giamatti as the titular subject and the great Laura Linney as his wife Abigail. Both have done fine work at bringing the humanity of these famed figures to the surface. I’ve especially enjoyed Giamatti’s performance. Adams was never one of America’s most beloved Founding Fathers – his prickliness and relatively mundane lifestyle prevented him from enjoying the approbations given to Franklin, Jefferson and George Washington. Giamatti has done a great job of showing Adams’ virtues and humor without sanding over the edges that made our second president such a difficult person to like. Indeed, he’s shown why it was so important for our fledgling country to have a New England hard-ass riding herd on our flightier and more furious forebears.

The rest of the cast has been similarly good, though I grew borderline annoyed with the pounds of ham that Tom Wilkinson hurled around as Ben Franklin. I know Ben was a pretty colorful character and prone to the theatrical, but I’m fairly certain his every waking minute wasn’t filled winking and uttering aphorisms and banging elderly French duchesses. Of course, I can’t totally blame Wilkinson if the writers saw his Franklin as one of their few opportunities to goose the proceedings. The scenes in which he tried to play referee between the acerbic Adams and the gloomy Jefferson in Paris were some of the best of the series.

(Incidentally, the series has done a great job in showing how vicious politicians have always been with each other down through the ages. Don’t let anyone tell you that our current atmosphere is somehow uniquely poisonous. Our rhetoric may be more crass, but Hillary/Obama has nothing on Hamilton/Adams.)

The sets and costumes have been fantastic, and the production crew has done a tremendous job of showing the vast differences between the sumptuous palaces and gentry of Europe and the squalid eastern seaboard of the young United States. The makeup department has done a good job overall of showing the various characters age, to say nothing of that department’s work on the French aristocracy (shudder).

Narratively, there’s been a few problems in making the transition from David McCullough’s terrific book to the screen. Now, perhaps it’s a (mal)function of my MTV-generation brain, but it’s been almost impossible to keep up with a number of players throughout the series, outside of obvious bigwigs like Adams, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Hamilton. Short of putting their names, He Hate Me-style, across jacket backs, I’m not sure what they could have done. Especially in the first few episodes, the flood of bewigged Benjamins and Sams and Johns and Thomases was pretty overwhelming.

Similarly, showing the passage of time has been problematic. Years will pass unmentioned within episodes, and characters vitally important to the story in a previous episode are long gone by the following, usually with no mention of any further deeds or manner of expiration on their part. As with the huge cast of characters, I’m not sure how you’d be able to account for any confusion here without either totally dumbing down the show, or – at the other extreme – making each episode three hours long. Still, an occasional indication of year and place at the bottom of the screen would have been helpful.

I think HBO would have been better served going with another great McCullough book, 1776. It would have been much more simple to trace the passage of a single year, and there would have been ample opportunity to show both the progress of politics and statesmanship as well as stage a bunch of kick-ass battle scenes.

And they wouldn’t have had to resort to the one element of John Adams that ended up irritating the hell out of me: The gratuitous employment of skewed camera angles at every possible juncture. Now, I understand that straight shots of people sitting around and discussing matters of politics, philosophy and law doesn’t exactly make for thrilling visuals. And I also get that skewed angles can be employed to convey inner turmoil. Some of that is to be allowed and commended. But I found myself at numerous times craning my neck trying to compensate for the incessantly tilted camera. For God’s sake, this isn’t early Sam Raimi. STOP IT!


The Signing of the Declaration of Independence. HBO-style.

So, to sum up: Great acting, great design, great subject matter, bewildering handling of character and time, and that unnecessarily warped camerawork. In all, an example of the whole being less than the sum of its parts. Very much worth watching; just not quite up to the standards set by the previous HBO/Play-Tone collaboration, Band of Brothers.

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14 Responses

  1. srr50 said:

    April 20th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    HBO is finding itself in a tough spot — a premium channel without any real premium original programming. They had first shot at Showtime’s “Dexter” and AMC’s “Mad Men” and passed.

    “John From Cincinnati” had a WTF? quality to it, and of course they butchered the wrap up of “Deadwood”

    They spent $25 million filming 6 episodes a 10-part series, “12 Miles of Bad Road,” which supposedly was about a wealthy Dallas Real Estate family that was so bad they just wrote it off.

    Like you, I expected more out of “John Adams.” It’s worth watching, much like a highly regarded novel that you are supposed to read.

    You feel better for watching, but you’re not that entertained.

  2. EyesOfTX said:

    April 20th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    CJD, I agree with you about 1776 – I hope the producers of this show will give it a similar treatment.

    I have enjoyed the series more than you have, apparently, though I agree with some of your criticisms of it. Giammati and Linney have put in two of the extraordinary performances in the history of television in this series, and Americans who have watched it have had their eyes opened to the amazing character of the country’s second president. I wonder how many citizens of this country knew, for example, that Adams was the lawyer who defended the British soldiers who perpetrated the Boston Massacre? Not just defended them, did so with such brilliance that they were acquitted by a jury made up of friends and acquaintances of the victims?

    srr50: fully agree about HBO’s terrible original programming choices in recent years. “John from Cincinnati” was a poorly-done show with a disastrously stupid premise. “Deadwood” was the last original series they did that had any value at all until “John Adams”.

  3. Parlin Hall said:

    April 20th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

    Someone said that seeing Giammati in this role was like watching Shrek.

    It was a risk casting against type (comic, schlemiel), though I like his work a lot. I’ll have to rent this. Thanks for the review, CJD.

  4. Greg Davis Rides the Short(pass) Bus said:

    April 20th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    I love the series.

    One thing that I have always wondered…the characterization of Jefferson and Franklin, how accurate is that? Did Jefferson truly have a “tortured artist” side to him? I love history but don’t claim to delve very deeply into it, this is something that has been bugging me entirely too much.

    I agreed with the Franklin comments.

    The casting of Rufus Sewell was brilliant for Alexander Hamilton. Nearly every role that Sewell has been in (with the exception of Dark City)…I have loathed him. He plays a person easy to despise very well. Hating on Sewell and hating on a big government loving cocksucker goes so well, hand in hand.

    The federal reserve can lick my balls, btw. I really want to see Burr kill him. And possibly a child pee on him.

  5. doog said:

    April 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

    Can I do a write up on Barking Carnival about Rock of Love 2? I totally picked Amber from the second episode.

  6. ChrisApplewhite said:

    April 20th, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    NO POLITICS AT ALL

  7. Horn In Exile said:

    April 21st, 2008 at 5:37 am

    There it is. GDRSB has unveiled himself as an unreformed states’ rights sympathizer who swallowed McCullough’s demonization of Hamilton like a basking whale.

    If you really wanted to hurl your judgement at historical figures, start with a main course of Jefferson and you shant have room for dessert.

  8. Greg Davis Rides the Short(pass) Bus said:

    April 21st, 2008 at 9:00 am

    While I thoroughly enjoyed it, I did not blindly swallow how Hamilton was vilified. My libertarian sympathies make me a bit prone to glorifying Jefferson and ostracizing Hamilton. I’ve had this strong sense of distaste for him for a great deal of time.

    That’s not to say both weren’t without their merits, or their deficiencies. Jefferson’s belief the constitution should be changed/redrafted every 20 years (or something similar to that), his belief that the yeoman farmer was the wave of the American future, and not industry, the whole slave issue, are a bit bothersome.

    Yet that’s nothing in comparison with how I feel about Hamilton. Without getting on about the federal reserve/national banks (look at the value of the dollar since the founding of the federal reserve in 1916), and any other form of “we need a STRONGER NATIONAL GOVERNMENT RAWWRRRR”, Hamilton will always be one of the two most despised people in American history, right behind the antichrist of them Presidents, Woodrow Wilson. Not to say McCarthy wasn’t a nut either, just less impacting on our enduring history.

  9. Horn In Exile said:

    April 21st, 2008 at 10:55 am

    Congrats on getting Internet access at your remote desert compound. If you run into Wesley Snipes before he goes to the big house, say hello for me.

    I would say that Hamilton and Wilson were more “impacting on our enduring history” simply because they were idealists who also had the ability to get things done. In fact, once somebody gets something done, they no longer fit the technical qualifications for “libertarian” – an idealist safely removed from any realistic opportunity to be impactful.

  10. EyesOfTX said:

    April 21st, 2008 at 11:54 am

    I couldn’t help noticing that HBO did take full, copious advantage of the book’s only opportunity to show a breast. I’m sure the producers were disappointed when, while reading the book, they discovered she decided against having the second one removed.

  11. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    April 21st, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    Further thoughts from a Stanford history professor.

  12. Greg Davis Rides the Short(pass) Bus said:

    April 21st, 2008 at 8:15 pm

    Horn in Exile–

    Did Jefferson not get things done? I said I have Libertarian sympathies, not that I am a full blown nutjob like a ton of fellow Ron Paul supporters. I have actually taken a deal of interest to put down, and condemn the actions and ideals of many of them. Belief in self governance is not such a bad thing…when used actively in our own lives, but changed at a slow pace. I have never had qualms with public education (well, atleast not that it exists), or roads being built. I may have quite a bit more of a problem with the welfare state, and give to charity because I believe that is how it should be done.

    I am more concerned with the idea of freedom, not discerning between economic and personal, than I am with many of the follies other libertarians are quite adamant about. I have much distaste for Hamilton because of his fondness for repression and dominance, much like Wilson’s near fascist presidency.

    Hating on the national bank is quite easy, when looked at how the value of the dollar struggles dramatically every time a national bank has been instituted. Am I saying that “the gold standard” is the way to go? I will respond that I am not smart enough to find a system that accommodates everything in a reasonable fashion, and neither system really does.

    There are many affirmative actions libertarians would be fond of, ending the war on drugs (in a fashion that is not too hasty) would be one.

    I can discuss this all day. You are not wrong to be initially offset by most libertarians, who would be completely happy if the world was made up of 500000 tiny communities. I would not fall into that category. I am a realist in many ways, but still enjoy fighting for my right for freedom, and the right of the individual.

  13. Woody Bombay said:

    April 21st, 2008 at 9:44 pm

    I was hoping we’d get to see Sally Heming’s breasts as Jefferson banged her. (Early on, not when they were old in the TJ death scene.)

    If I was in the tenth grade and they made us watch “John Adams” in history class I would have been delighted. But ssr50 nailed it: I felt obligated to watch this more than I think I really wanted to. I watched every minute, though, because you gotta be there for “Jefferson survives …” at the end. Before the last episode I said to the wife, “OK, let’s watch everyone die.”

    Now, if Ian McShane had played Adams and gone all Al Swearengen on us, that would have been something to see.

  14. caradoc said:

    April 24th, 2008 at 8:16 am

    “In Treatment” had some good acting and got off to a good start. Then it wandered around for six weeks and ended without much getting resolved.

    The thing I enjoyed most about “John Adams” was watching their teeth rot.

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