a good story badly told
Sep. 2nd, 2008 01:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sergebroomLast week, we started watching the critically acclaimed John Adams miniseries. And stopped after the second episode.
Do you remember 1983’s movie The Right Stuff, more specifically the scene where NASA introduces the Mercury Seven? The whole thing is a circus, with people shouting questions, camera flash lights going off again and again and again, as NASA’s official proudly and loudly introduces each astronaut. Compare that to the reality, with the official, all business, naming each astronaut, who stands up then immediately sits down. There is no sense whatsoever that these were America’s Best and that they would be our Champions in the fight against communism. There was no context, nor was there any need for it, because the context was happening all around in the year 1958. By 1983 though, the context wasn’t there anymore and it had to be conveyed to the audience, which meant rearranging the facts or… gasp!… making some up.
And that’s the problem I had with John Adams. It may have been factually fairly accurate, but so little context was given for anything. We’re told things, but they’re never really shown, or made to feel what we are shown. John Adams refers to himself as obnoxious and disliked, but I asked myself where the proof of that was. General Washington’s situation is desperate, we’re told, but I never really feel it. The musical 1776 is probably chockful of inaccuracies, but it definitely conveys the context. We definitly feel what is at stakes. When William Daniels’s John Adams refers to himself as obnoxious and disliked, I definitely believe it. Also, while Washington never appears in that movie, his presence is felt thru the dispatches that he sends Congress.
And his situation on the battlefield is bad, with the young soldier who brings the dispatches telling us… Yes, telling us, but showing it too, thru his voice…
I could have stuck with the rest of the miniseries, but its worst sin as a story is that it made the momentous birth of the Declaration of Independence into a oh-hum affair. If it was capable of failing in its handling of such an event, which came with more than a bit of History built in, I expected that it'd do even worse with the rest of Adams's life, about which I knew so little already.
Do you remember 1983’s movie The Right Stuff, more specifically the scene where NASA introduces the Mercury Seven? The whole thing is a circus, with people shouting questions, camera flash lights going off again and again and again, as NASA’s official proudly and loudly introduces each astronaut. Compare that to the reality, with the official, all business, naming each astronaut, who stands up then immediately sits down. There is no sense whatsoever that these were America’s Best and that they would be our Champions in the fight against communism. There was no context, nor was there any need for it, because the context was happening all around in the year 1958. By 1983 though, the context wasn’t there anymore and it had to be conveyed to the audience, which meant rearranging the facts or… gasp!… making some up.
And that’s the problem I had with John Adams. It may have been factually fairly accurate, but so little context was given for anything. We’re told things, but they’re never really shown, or made to feel what we are shown. John Adams refers to himself as obnoxious and disliked, but I asked myself where the proof of that was. General Washington’s situation is desperate, we’re told, but I never really feel it. The musical 1776 is probably chockful of inaccuracies, but it definitely conveys the context. We definitly feel what is at stakes. When William Daniels’s John Adams refers to himself as obnoxious and disliked, I definitely believe it. Also, while Washington never appears in that movie, his presence is felt thru the dispatches that he sends Congress.
I have been in expectation of receiving a reply on the subject of my last fifteen dispatches. Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody care?
And his situation on the battlefield is bad, with the young soldier who brings the dispatches telling us… Yes, telling us, but showing it too, thru his voice…
I seen my two best friends get shot dead on the very same day. And at Lexington it was, too. Right on the village green it was. And when they didn't come home for supper their mamas went out looking for 'em. Mrs. Lowell, she found Timothy right off. But Mrs. Pickett looked near half the night for William. Seems he crawled off the green before he died.
I could have stuck with the rest of the miniseries, but its worst sin as a story is that it made the momentous birth of the Declaration of Independence into a oh-hum affair. If it was capable of failing in its handling of such an event, which came with more than a bit of History built in, I expected that it'd do even worse with the rest of Adams's life, about which I knew so little already.
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