John Adams (RL, TV)

[thistlechaser]

Ever have a topic you want to write about, but keep putting it off because you don't feel like you can do it justice? That's the situation I've been in all weekend.

For the last month, HBO has been spamming its new miniseries John Adams. Some weekends it would show all the eps in a row, and so I'd just roll my eyes and change the channel. John Adams. Early American history. Could you find a more boring subject than that? (To me, history was nothing more than memorizing dates, names, and battles. It was second only to math as my least favorite subject in school.)

On Saturday I was just flipping around the channels and happened onto HBO. The face on the screen was so amazingly interesting, full of character, within a second or two I was hooked. I wanted to know more. Then the music hit me: such beautiful, moving music. So I turned it off.

On Demand had the whole series (I had noticed it, and rolled my eyes again, while looking for something else), so I went there and started from the beginning instead of letting myself get caught up in the middle.

Someone posted the theme song on YouTube. Unfortunately it's not as high of quality as it could be, but it should give you an idea of the music. (Around 1:03 is when it gets so good my stomach does funny things. I'm not usually a music person, but even after hearing the theme so many times it bring tears to my eyes.)

Best music I've ever heard on TV, but that's just such a tiny part of the show. The costumes/settings are jaw-dropping amazing. I had never even taken a second look at costumes from that period before, but I found myself admiring them in scene after scene. And the settings! So many things I don't usually pay any attention to were so rich and worthy of pausing the show to study.

As caught me in my first glimpse of the series, the actors' faces are just so full of character. I don't mean they play their characters well, more like you look at them and want to know more, want to study them, search the lines and features to try to figure out what the heck is holding your attention so firmly. (And related to this, the actors look so much like who they are! I recognized Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson all before ever hearing their names.)

And all those elements are just background things. The story is just outright fascinating. How come history wasn't like this in school? History isn't boring! Not when it's like this, anyway. And, oddly, even though this is a show for entertainment, it reminded me of stuff: How hard we fought to get where we are, and how important the president is and how that position should be something to be proud of (which made me even more sad and disgusted about Bush), and sadly how we apparently screwed over the people who helped us. I need to look it up to confirm this, but in the show it went: The 13 colonies went to France for help to get independent. France helped. A few years later France came to America for help fighting England. America basically went "lol talk to the hand, we're too busy with our own stuff to help.". That was both depressing and embarrassing. (And it also leads to another point: Why has the US forgotten how much France helped us? :/ )

So if you have any way of seeing this, you really should. It is about history, but it's anything but boring. The actors, characters, music, and most of all the story are all so good! HBO's slogan is "It's not TV, it's HBO" and in this case that totally fits. John Adams is unlike anything I've ever seen on TV, and I can't wait to start from the beginning and watch the whole thing again.

Edit: Here's a 20 minutes "making of" video for another taste.

Comments

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

Huh. Sounds neat. I should be getting the entire series on DVD soon enough, if HBO is pushing it that much. (some studios pass free DVD's out like candy...used to work there oh, 10 years ago, and I'm still on their list)I will check it out!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yay, I hope you can get it! And after you commented I edited in a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRX7o0DZc34 A 20 minute "making of" video, if you want to see more about it. :)

[hamburger.livejournal.com]

AND they gave us the Statue of Liberty!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha ha, very true!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it coming out on DVD so we can rent it. And I'm a serious history buff to begin with.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

It seems like most history teachers in public schools do their best to make history as boring as possible. As you're finding, it's really, really not.

[turlos.livejournal.com]

It has been an awful long time since I was in school, but History was always one of my favorite subjects back then. If you treat history class as a piece of literature, it can be quite enjoyable. Other than those that read fantasy literature, much of today's fictional literature is based off of previous events that occured in history. Even alot of fantasy writing is based off of events in history (Tolkien for instance drew direct parallels to European culture and events in his writings).

I think as was said already, if you were in a class with a teacher that simply wanted you to memorize names, places and dates then that was a diservice to you growing up. If you had a history teacher that wanted you to relive the history, then you likely found it far more enjoyable.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I very, very rarely buy DVDs, but this one I will. I want to see whatever extras come with it, and I just want to own it so I can watch it whenever I want.

I'm tempted to dust off BT to see if I can download it from somewhere, though as long as it's offered on On Demand I guess I don't have to.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Very much so. I was a good kid in school, I loved learning, so it must have taken a great effort to make an interesting subject boring.

I can't fully blame the teachers though. If you have a class of 30 kids and 29 don't care about learning and 20 of those want to act up/make trouble, how much energy would you have to make stuff interesting?

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I think as was said already, if you were in a class with a teacher that simply wanted you to memorize names, places and dates then that was a diservice to you growing up. If you had a history teacher that wanted you to relive the history, then you likely found it far more enjoyable.

I wish I had had the good kind of teacher, I feel like my dislike of history has really made me miss out. It's been way, way too many years since I was last in school, I could have used all this time to read more and learn more about this stuff!

Well, at least I learned better now. :)

Surely you knew this would grab my attention...

[barahir-ffxi.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think of a way to say this that doesn't sound condescending... so I'm just going to say it this way: I'm so happy for you!!! In one fell swoop you have discovered an appreciation for Music, History, and rekindled a spark of patriotism. How awesome...

[quistie.livejournal.com]

I must had amazing history teachers, then. My U.S. history teachers were widely regarded as two of the best teachers in the entire school...by high school students, no less.

They were so good, they almost fooled me into majoring in history in college.

Honestly, I don't think you need to *make* history interesting. History is always interesting. Except for the boring economic parts.

[quistie.livejournal.com]

To be fair, France helped us because they lost to the British in the French and Indian War, thereby losing much of its hold in the New World. It was never the case about liberating the colonies from an evil tyrant. (Oddly enough, I find that rather refreshing.) And after the war, America then was a distant nothing that barely had its act together, while France was still a major power. Offering "help" to France would have been a nice thing to do, I suppose, but I doubt it would have come to much.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

If, in my anecdotal evidence, there weren't so many teachers in other subjects that managed to make those interesting, I might be sympathetic to that. But since a lot of other teachers manage it and a hatred of history is so ubiquitous, I think there's something up. I don't know why history tends to attract boring personalities, but that seems to be the case. One of my high school teachers was excellent and the other was okay, and that made a difference for me, but it shouldn't take until high school to even have a chance at having a good teacher.

[firebyrd.livejournal.com]

That could have made such a huge difference. The first time I had my excellent high school teacher (I purposefully took another class from her later on), she didn't even use a textbook. She was awesome. I still want to beat on a desk as emphasis when talking about Spain and how it's Catholic like she always did.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Huh, that's interesting! Thanks for the info. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't think you need to *make* history interesting. History is always interesting. Except for the boring economic parts.

Ha, true. Unfortunately you can make it boring though.