Posted on 02/24/2008 11:48:31 AM PST by dickmc
When Hollywood's movie-makers and docu-dramatists get their hands on American history, accuracy, reality and truth often are tortured beyond recognition. But starting at 8 p.m. Sunday, March 16, HBO Films will be delivering the seven-part, nine-hour mini-series "John Adams." ... it is by all accounts a high-quality, historically accurate and meticulously faithful adaptation of super-historian David McCullough's blockbuster 2001 book of the same name. I talked to McCullough about the making of the HBO series Tuesday by phone from his home in West Tisbury, Mass.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Mr. Feeny. One of the best shows ever on TV: St. Elsewhere although this generation only remembers Boy Meets World. William Daniels has always been one of our best actors.
My kids watched it but I did not know about the H.S. name. Very cool!
thomas jefferson still lives...
“1776” would have been a better story. Nevertheless, now I will have to add HBO to my f’n cable bill. Lived without it for my 30 years as a cable consumer, but I don’t want to miss this.
Thanks!
If that were the case, McCullogh wouldn't be supporting it. He was so impressed by Adams while researching the bio that he became the leading voice for an Adams memorial in DC.
The book is excellent. I've read a lot of Founding Fathers histories and bios in the last few years, and most of them have been excellent. But McCullogh's Adams is my favorite by far.
The book quotes generously from letters between Adams and Jefferson, which might surpass even the Federalist as insight into the philosophical debates among the Founders.
The book also quotes from a lot of letters between John and Abigail. Those are the most romantic letters I've ever read between two soulmates -- they make the Brownings' love letters read like a MySpace chat. But way past that, they reveal John's innermost thoughts, shared with his most trusted advisor, who was more than smart enough for the task.
Abigail was also something of a political spy. Men in that era were not the least bit about cautious about discussing their political intrigues in her presence, just assuming that the little lady couldn't possibly understand it. What she heard, she passed on to John.
He doesn't. It's a work of biography, not theology. And I don't recll a single mention of Voldemort.
I love that movie. I make a habit of watching it every July 4, and as much as I can, I try to draw in folks (most of the people I know) who haven't seen it.
Adams definitely had a lot of insecurities. He fel that his role in the revolution would be wholly eclipsed by Washington, Franklin and Jefferson, and for the most part in the teaching of American history he's been right.
A crisp Jackson says that there won't be more than five minutes, and I'm giving a generous over-under there.
Once "Six Feet Under" and "The Sopranos" went off the air, I was ready to dump HBO and use that money to subscribe to Netflix. Looks like they've hooked me for another month.
Geesh, now he’s a “unitarian”, too? As well as a “deist”?
Great musical. Great portrayals in that movie version.
Sorry, but to me William Daniels is THE John Adams. Although I’ve seen some other good 1s.
Oh wonderful. Does this mean again we have to have only the “Director’s (ego) cut”, instead of the way it was experienced on the big screen (”theatrical release”)?
I am so sick of movies being released on DVD/video “extended” the way the director wanted it, instead of the way I experienced it when in the theater. “Superman” is an annoying example of putting in poor filming right in the middle of a great movie as it was, and you can’t even skip over just that add-in, because the “skip” includes valid parts as well.
Oh it get's more improbable. July 4, 1831 James Monroe died. And on July 4, 1872 Calvin Coolidge was born.
Just saw the first two cahpters and I thought it was superb. All I can say is WOW!
Me, too!
What a great and timely reminder this is that liberty is a great cause at a great cost.
I thought these two chapters were extraordinarily well done.
If you were to examine him in English and French poetry, I know not where you would find anybody his superior... He has translated Virgil's Aeneid... the whole of Sallust and Tacitus' Agricola... a great part of Horace, some of Ovid, and some of Caesar's Commentaries... besides Tully's [Cicero's] Orations...Letter from John Adams to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, former tutor to John Quincy Adams, pp. 324-325In Greek his progress has not been equal; yet has he studied morsels of Aristotle's Politics, in Plutarch's Lives, and Lucian's Dialogues, The Choice of Hercules in Xenophon, and lately he has gone through several books in Homer's Iliad.
In mathematics I hope he will pass muster. In the course of the last year... I have spent my evenings with him. We went with some accuracy through the geometry of the Preceptor, the eight books of Simpson's Euclid in Latin,.. We went through plane geometry... algebra, and the decimal fractions, arithmetical and geometrical proportions... I then attempted a sublime flight and endeavored to give him some idea of the differential method of calculations...[and] Sir Isaac Newton; but alas, it is thirty years since I thought of mathematics.
-PJ
My only quibble was that the South Carolinians sounded too much like the New Englanders.
-PJ
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