Thoughts about John Adams (the HBO production)

• Watching the first two parts of the mini-series has made me realize how much I know about the history of the War for Independence (I believe that is the accepted name for the war, as opposed to the Revolutionary War.  Could be wrong, but I think it makes more sense, but it's also a lot easier to call it the Rev.).  It's probably because every single year of school, history classes seemed to start out at the "Revolution" and end somewhere after the Civil War.  I barely remember getting to WWI, let alone WWII.  Because of that, I know a LOT more about the War for Ind. than I do about than WWI.  And I've never really sought out literature and film from that time period, as I have about both the Civil War and WWII.  So my ignorance of WWI is pretty much a product of the school system.  But I'll give the schools this:  I know my p's and q's about the War for Ind.  For instance, the first scene of John Adams occurs around the Boston Massacre, and it was evident to me exactly what it was before anyone in the series spoke it.  I even know that the dead African-American that John Adams held was named Crispus Attucks.  I mostly know all the players in the Continental Congress, because I was taught so well, and I have a freakish memory.
• I love the portrayals of these men in this production.  I was telling Sam that there's very little out there that I have watched that made the men human like this series does.  I mean, 1776 doesn't count.  Because dude, no one was breaking into song while discussing the Declaration of Independence.  It's more likely that they were tired and hot and had bald heads and wore poncy wigs that got rather askew in the heat of the moment.  In the Making Of, Giamatti (who is brilliant, by the way; I wasn't sure about his casting, but now I think it's insane.  Laura Linney was a given, of course.) says that he loves that the series puts these men in scenes without their wigs, because it's all the more interesting and real.  And it is, it really is.  It's a look at these guys as I've never seen them in a fictional production.
• It's still inconceivable to me that a group of men got together and did this.  I mean, when you watch it, I don't even know if you can get a sense of how radical it really was.  They just MADE this up as they went.  It's very hard for me to wrap my head around the way their brains came up with this stuff.  Were they geniuses?  And if they were, has there ever been this concentration of geniuses in one place at one time doing this sort of thing?  In the Making Of, someone says we were very lucky that these guys were where they were when they were, and that's gotta be true.  It's very hard to think about this, even though in the scope of things, it wasn't that long ago.  Or put it this way:  I have an easier time with the Protestant Reformation than I do with the American Revolution.  The reasons for the Reformation seem much more in line with the end results than the results of the Revolution seem in line with the reasons for it.  I'm not saying England didn't have its head up its ass about the colonies, but the Church was much, much worse.  And the Reformation, while downright bloody at times, and radical (to say the least), didn't start out that way.  I could go into a whole great lot of information about the Reformation (compared to the Revolution), as the Reformation was the topic of my senior thesis at SMC, but I won't, because you're already bored.  Needless to say, the Revolution still boggles my mind, 20 years after first learning about it.  (And way more than the French Revolution, which ended up being STUPID.)
• I really like the overall portrayals of the individual men.  They have personalities.  They're individuals.  They're not just all wooden stock portrayals of stalwart men.  In so many historical (ie textbook) versions of the Rev., the men are interchangeable, save for maybe Benjamin Franklin, who is always portrayed as kooky! and off-base! and a maverick!  But this is...this is different.  The men are more nuanced.  I like it.  Adams is grim about what has to be done.  Sam Adams can barely hide his zeal for radical action.  Jefferson is imbued with a sense of ennui.  Franklin is serious about the whole deal, but political.  George Washington is...well, worried.  Again, the portraits are nuanced, so this isn't all.  But the fact that they're not all just one way is a victory in and of itself.
• It should be interesting for the series to move over time, because Adams was a spry bugger, and lived to be 90.  Which means he dies in 1826.  So he sees a LOT after the Revolution.  His history doesn't stop when the Revolution is over.  It'll be neat.  I'm excited.  I'm sort of a history nerd, if you hadn't noticed.