The Boston Public Library was the ideal location for the Boston premiere of the new HBO miniseries "John Adams." Not only were the surroundings impeccable with the painted ceilings and marble finishing, but the Boston library is also home to the John Adams Library, housing around 3,500 different books that Adams collected throughout his lifetime. The library placed a sample of these books into cases for the audience's viewing pleasure before the premiere, including letters written to Adams' wife, Abigail, while they were separated.
Adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough, the show premieres Sunday and runs for seven weeks, creating an entirely new genre of the television epic. The show is co-produced by Gary Goetzman and Tom Hanks, who both appeared at its premiere for an opening speech about the amount of work that was put into this presentation as well as hopes for the future. McCullough was also there to express his pride in the new miniseries. Another guest speaker was Tom Hooper, the relatively new British director who has recently won an Emmy for his work on the HBO movie "Elizabeth I" (2005).
Finding consistency
Goetzman said having a director stay on for an entire project as long as a miniseries was "highly unlikely," and this continuity of direction helps make "John Adams" less like a television show and more like a movie. Writer Kirk Ellis also stayed on for the entirety of "John Adams," meaning the script and the overall style will be consistent.
Concerning the experience of directing this work, Hooper said the biggest challenge he had to overcome was "the sheer scale" of the project; the film had a $100 million budget and around 200 speaking parts, as well as a set resembling Boston and Philadelphia in the late 1700s.
McCullough's opening speech was the most moving, since the majority of his family was present to witness this life achievement. McCullough said he feels as if he has come to know John and Abigail Adams "better than people in real life" because of the rich legacy of writing and history that they left behind. The general message of all those involved seemed to be that the preservation of a historical tale through film would help mankind to understand the present as well as appreciate the future.
Hooper also said he wanted to create a "classic tale of the definitive Revolutionary period," unlike the musical using similar material, "1776," a play considered trite and unrepresentative of the importance of this time period in American history. Because the show examines the era through both historical and biographical lenses, the material may seem dry and uninteresting upon first glance. The show does not have something for everyone, but it does provide more than enough for those who enjoy history.
Realizing a historical image
The show's credits open with pictures of original artifacts from the Revolutionary period, such as a flag with the slogan "Join or Die," which also happens to be the tagline for the series. The opening shot is of John Adams riding home in the snow passing a graveyard. While this is not really relevant to any part of the story, the barren image of sadness and isolation immediately pulls the viewer into a time period that is important to those who live in America and one that is largely forgotten or ignored today.
Next, the audience is introduced to Adams (played by Paul Giamatti), a well-known actor from serious movies such as "Sideways" (2004) and "Cinderella Man" (2005), and comedies such as the recent "Fred Claus" (2007). Playing such an important protagonist might have been daunting for a less experienced actor, but Giamatti pulls off the arrogant intelligence and pressing determination that drive John Adams with effortless grace. The real star, though, is Laura Linney as Abigail Adams. A three-time Oscar nominee, Linney brings Abigail back to life on screen as a smart, strong woman who advised and guided her husband through much of his political career.
Washington and Jefferson round out the cast
The supporting cast of this show is equally impressive. Stephen Dillane, coming from an impressive film résumé ranging from Leonard Woolf in "The Hours" (2002) to Merlin in "King Arthur" (2004), plays Thomas Jefferson, depicted in the premiere as an intense loyalist who wishes to use Adams for the King of England. On the other side is John's cousin Sam Adams, played by Danny Huston ("Marie Antoinette" (2006), "The Number 23" (2007)), who tries desperately to get John to join the side of the rebels. These two men are only the important historical figures seen in the first episode.
The cast for the next six episodes promises to be a stellar lineup consisting of David Morse ("Disturbia" (2007)) as George Washington, Rufus Sewell ("The Illusionist" (2006)) as Alexander Hamilton, Justin Theroux as John Hancock, the wonderful Tom Wilkinson ("Michael Clayton" (2008)) as Benjamin Franklin and the beautiful Sarah Polley as a young Abigail Adams. With such an impressive cast, the show should be worth watching all the way through simply to see what the actors do with these monumental characters.
Recreating a Dramatic Narrative
The premiere takes place before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. For the most part, the action is focused on a trial in which Adams is the only lawyer who will represent the British soldiers who fired into a crowd of rowdy Boston locals in the Boston Massacre, an event that would become one of the catalysts for the American Revolution. Despite Adams' lack of popularity among Bostonians for taking such a case, his belief in justice and truth compels him, and eventually he wins and the soldiers are acquitted. The episode ends after the Intolerable Acts are passed, and Adams sees that the laws will only help those in power. In the closing, he accepts a post as a representative for Massachusetts at the Continental Congress of 1774 and leaves Abigail and his children for Philadelphia.
The phenomenal portrayals of these historical characters by the actors, the direction is equally superb. Hooper knows how to direct a scene with a cast of hundreds without making it feel cluttered. Or he can take a scene with two people, usually Giamatti and Linney, and plunge the viewer into a delicately intimate scene. He combines stand-still shots with moving ones, wide shots with close-ups, as well as intriguing shots through a fence or shots skewed off in one direction so as not to reveal the whole scene. The costumes are incredibly accurate, showing a keen attention to detail, and the characters look real and accessible, lending again to the wish of all those involved that the series represent history accurately.
Lights, camera, history
The premiere is a bit dry, but that could be because it is an overview of what is to come, an introduction to John Adams' life before it got, well, exciting. After all, the outbreak of war can't be too far in the future. Still, in the premiere there is one outstanding scene in particular in which a Bostonian is tarred and feathered without one ounce of grotesqueness spared. One missed opportunity comes in the form of the Boston Tea Party, which is only mentioned in passing without being explicitly shown, but that could be because Adams wasn't involved in the incident.
Although the content of the show will not appeal to everyone, the classic story is worth a watch, and no matter how much American history one knows, it will definitely fill in a lot of the gaps, especially where protagonist John Adams is concerned. There are probably only a handful of people out there that know more about Adams' life than the people who put this together (especially McCullough), and even they could learn something from this epic tale of not only American history, but the history of a great man and the wife that supported him.
