John Adams (HBO Miniseries)

Excellent acting, wonderful costumes and sets and a great script makes this mini-series thoroughly enjoyable. Laura Linney's performance is worth it alone.

As a libertarian, I am not a fan of John Adams nor of statist hagiographer David McCullough. I read McCullough's Truman at the urging of my grandfather and found it to be boring and ridiculously aggrandizing of the state, the presidency, and Truman the man. I had no intention of watching this HBO miniseries but did so, reluctantly, at the urging of my father-in-law.

He certainly gave better advice than my granddad!

Words cannot properly express how much I enjoyed this production. It is, without a doubt, the best historical film I've ever seen. I was worried that the founders would be portrayed as saints with little serious disagreement among them, but this was not the case at all. In fact, the miniseries pretty much follows the hardcore Jeffersonian line, depicting Washington as a Hamiltonian pawn and Adams as a Big Government centralist and possibly even monarchist.

Adams is portrayed favorably, nonetheless, which it is quite likely is deserved. A man can be honorable and hold on strongly to wrongheaded ideas. Adams was an authoritarian and the miniseries does nothing to disabuse the viewer of this notion. Jefferson was for liberty, although his faults are accurately portrayed as well. For one, there is his imprudent support of the French Revolution, and on a more esoterically constitutional level, Adams is shown mocking Jefferson's contradictory support of the Louisiana Purchase -- which libertarians and paleocons perceive to be a gross abandonment of Jeffersonian principles and the first act of American Imperialism.

Where Adams and Jefferson can find agreement is in their utter contempt for proto-neocon Alexander Hamilton. He is surely this miniseries' villain, whereas Adams and Jefferson are simply men of honor with radically different ideas. This presentation largely accurately depicts the formation of the United States through the time of Adams's death, as a battle of ideas. Although the pre-constitutional period is given short shrift, so are the Revolutionary and 1812 wars -- thankfully! There is no glorification of war here, and in fact, Adams's crowning achievement is keeping the U.S. out of war with France. If only modern presidents could be so motivated.

Ideology aside, this production is beautifully rendered and emotionally engaging. The history is wrong in a few small and rather insignificant parts, but all in all, this is not only an immensely enjoyable viewing experience, but also extremely educational. This truly is something that could engage young minds in the ideas of our country's founding period, and thus, I recommend that it be viewed by high school government and/or American History classes.

After watching the mini series on HBO I became so enthralled with it, I had to order the DVD (which by the way was promptly delivered to me in 3 days). This 7 hr series is so riveting in it's depiction of our founding fathers and their struggle for our country's independence; it greatly reawakened my interest in early American history. Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney are both outstanding and deserve Emmys for their performances. Well done !!!

Sadly, as in many movies based on books, the book was better. They play with the facts. The tar and feather scene shows full frontal nudity which was completely unnecessary. Unfortunately I didn't preview this before my children watched it with the family.

The Boston Massacre is a pivotal event in American History. Too bad they didn't represent it accurately. Products of public school education will be easily misled.

The cinematography is very poor. Many of the shots are way out of frame and the camera seems to be handheld by a person with a tremor problem. I began to get seasick. I kept wanting to change the camera frame and get a steady mount for it.

I liked the acting. John and Abagail were as I imagined them to be when I read the book. The costumes and scenery made me feel as though I was observing the events first hand. This made the jittery, poorly framed scenes even more disappointing.

I originally watch the special on HBO, and I wanted to watch it again. I was very happy that you offered the mini series. I have watched it again, and passed it along to friends who have not had the pleasure of watching the original mini series. thank you for offering this special.