More John Adams

It's hard to say which project is more difficult: reducing a life to a book, or reducing a book to a movie. This is not to say that a movie is somehow less valuable than a book, but simply that the capacity of books to capture nuance, information, and complexity usually exceeds that of a movie, in part due to the formatting and time requirements. The same goes when comparing a non-fiction book to the events or lives it attempts to recount.

In a nutshell, this is the problem that the HBO miniseries John Adams encounters. As recounted by this piece in the Post, the miniseries I recommended on this blog about a month ago does not fully include a certain aspect of John Adams' temperament and attitude that might be valuable to the viewer, and would perhaps create a more sullied, or human, view of this founding father (full disclosure: i have a somewhat tenuous connection to the author through another related individual, and i regard both of them as meticulous and insightful historians). In particular, the article cites Mr. Adams' vanity and self-obsession. I continue to believe that Paul's depiction of John Adams has been inspired, and would contest the view that this depiction does not show the weaker and vainer aspects of John Adams. To the extent that it does not do this fully enough to faithfully establish the character of John Adams, I will defer to the experts (including the author of the article).

I think it's useful and valuable to point out that there's more to John Adams, and indeed to all of the founding fathers, than could be depicted in a 7 part miniseries. But for all that, I think it's a great series with some truly wonderful performances. For those without HBO, I've been hearing that it will be released on DVD rather quickly due to its popularity, so you should not have long to wait.