John Adams: Join or Die

WHEN I FIRST moved to Canada as a child, lo, these many years ago, one of the first things I remember is the shock of hating history class.

It was boring.

This came as some kind of shock.

History had been my favourite subject. But, I was used to the U.S. history, all stirring and bloody, full of cowboys and wars and fights and exploration and danger and bad, mad, glorious craziness.

Canadian history, it seemed to my child mind, was all people talking in rooms in hushed tones. And the railroad. And Mounties. Oh sure, there was that cool thing on the Plains of Abraham, but come on, man, both the Generals died. What good is that?

Apparently one day I came home and announced my feelings with disdain: "Real countries don't confederate. They revolt."

I have learned to temper those childlike opinions. Somewhat.

(By the way, there's a new bio of John A. MacDonald out. The first in fifty years. There's a new book on Lincoln out, what, every sixteen minutes?)

Still, there is a certain stir in my heart for that early period of United States history.

A few years ago, when I read JOHN ADAMS, the stirring quickened. Here was a great, neglected guy -- the first first-term President, the first President to be defeated.

The first loser.

Oh yes, we Americans are harsh. John Adams didn't get his way onto any money. He's one of the most important Founding Fathers, but we've kicked him to the curb something fierce.

Here's a guy who wrote the Massachusetts Constitution, which formed the basis of the American document. He argued first, and forcefully, that the break from Britain had to be permanent. He pushed for Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence, and he pushed for Washington to be appointed the head of the Continental Army. He secured the first major loan from the Dutch to get the country on its feet. And it was he who took up what had to be the most awkward position in colonial history: the first Ambassador from the United States of America to the Court of St. James. He was the second President, and the first man to see his son also become President.

Why did Adams get such a raw deal? Some say he was unpleasant. He fought too hard. He was inflexible. He waffled, as President, on the implications of some of the freedoms won in the Revolution.

But he called some things right. He believed that political parties were going to poison the Democratic experiment. And they did.

What Author David McCullogh had going for him was the ability to correct over 200 years of partisan hagiographies of Jefferson, most of which cast Adams in a poor light. (The two friends' bitter falling out and eventual rapprochement is one of the major themes of the miniseries.)

He also had the relationship between John and his wife, Abigail. They had a pretty astonishing relationship, a marriage that was probably a couple of centuries ahead of its time. And it's all documented, because they wrote long, passionate, beautiful and teasing letters to each other. It's probably the most enjoyable history book I ever read. Its Pulitzer Prize was richly deserved.

And now HBO and Tom Hanks have pulled out all the stops in adapting it.

JOHN ADAMS, the miniseries bows the first and second of seven parts Sunday night on HBO in the U.S./Movie Central & TMN in Canada. This is American history even a Canadian could love.

Lavish and confident in scope, the first episode does a wonderful job of both establishing Adams' character, and his deep ambivalence and slow move toward the need for a permanent break. Nothing was sure, and everything was fluid. The stalwart heroes of childish history books are nowhere to be found. George Washington (David Morse) is taciturn, and socially uncomfortable -- as he was in life. A scene with a tar and feathering isn't the "wow gosh" thing from childhood. It's nearly unbearable to watch -- this is torture, pure and simple, and the disgust it prompts in Adams reminds anyone watching that American brutality didn't start with Abu Ghirab.

I've seen the first four parts, and I have to say, like he did on Band of Brothers, Hanks, Director Tom Hooper, and Screenwriter Kirk Ellis have captured everything that was great about the book. It's an amazing feat, since so much of the book leaned on the source material of letters and such. Here, Ellis puts some of those letters in the mouths of Abigail (Laura Linney, luminous) and it works surprisingly well.

The acting, again, is top notch -- Tom Wilkinson is a delight as Horny Old Ben Franklin, and Stephen Dillane is quiet and fierce as Jefferson.

There's a key scene in Episode Four where Adams faces George III in his first meeting as Ambassador. It's as rich and poignant and evocative as you could hope for. Paul Giamatti finds the arrogance and the hurt and the doubt.

They wanted to make a republic of laws, not men. But the men who did it weren't statues and granite. The outcome was never clear, always uncertain.

This is historical drama of the highest order.

In its pains to tamp down the heroic, and focus on the human, it becomes more than a parade of history. It becomes everything a history buff and a drama buff could hope for.

HBO may be stumbling in the series department, but this is a monster show for them. Well worth the price of the subscription.

I'm buying this bastard on DVD for sure.