The mini series is a great medium for a biography as complex as John Adams. The series aired originally on HBO and is now available on DVD. The HBO miniseries is great because it provides the quality of a big-budget film and presents a very long story in easy-to-swallow increments.
The John Adams series is very raw, very realistic, at times even graphic. IT is based on David McCullough’s Pulitzer-prize winning book of the same name. It includes stellar performances by both Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti and provides a very accessible portrait of one of the founders of our nation
Perhaps the crowning achievement of this series, and of McCllough’s book, is this accessibility. We tend to put our founding mothers and fathers on a pedastal. We forget their humanity in our need to create in them a sort of American mythology where they figure as divinely inspired beings. It is important to remember that what made these men great was their humanity, and the fact that from their humanity came the beloved tenets of our society. In this portrait, John Adams the man is inseperable from John Adams the icon. Therefore the series provides an enriched understanding of the reality of our nation’s founding.
Learn more about the series at http://www.hbo.com/films/johnadams/
Buy on DVD at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000WGWQG8
