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mapsedgeI have changed my opinion about John Adams, the mini-series. It is a "warts and all" sort of story and while I'm not averse to seeing my country's founders at their worst, I have to have something I can like about a character if I'm to stay with it.
Up to the point of the reading of the Declaration of Independence, I was willing to put up with the dreadful camera work, inconsistent editing, and the odd Irish accent with which every citizen of the newly formed United States seems to speak. David Morse is eerily perfect as George Washington, and John Dossett's Thomas Jefferson is intriguing - both characters a joy to watch.
Our main character, however, is portrayed as a stodgy, hypocritical asshole, detached from his family, emotionally stilted, reduced to buffoonery by his failures in France and Holland and later by being pissed on as Vice President by Washington. Paul Giamatti's performance - urgent, desperate, with an inability to make eye contact with another actor, even Laura Linney who portrays his wife - doesn't help.
All of this may have happened just the way it's portrayed on screen, it may be event-for-event and word-for-word true...
It just isn't enjoyable to watch.
Watching the miniseries, one gets the impression that the editor and cinematographer crossed the parking lot from MTV to HBO, and that you have a couple of kids trying out their new computers. Inappropriate and nauseatingly shaky camera work, and odd camera angles seem reminiscent of music videos or science fiction rather than historical drama. The editor appears to have cobbled her scenes out of whatever she got handed in the dailies - her cuts jar and play havoc with one's sense of space and time and continuity errors are frequent.
I kinda think I know what the director is trying to do: the time period was uncomfortable, harsh. We, as the audience, should experience that discomfort to better feel what the characters feel. I'm grateful - very grateful - my television isn't equipped with bullets or surely the director would have taken shots at me during the battle scenes. So I could feel it, you know?
So, I'm giving up. I know how it ends - John Adams dies, I hope I'm not spoiling anything for you there - and the truly interesting parts are over. There is nothing for it now but to watch J.A. decline, which, according to this narrative, started the moment he left the Colonies for France.
I can do without.
Up to the point of the reading of the Declaration of Independence, I was willing to put up with the dreadful camera work, inconsistent editing, and the odd Irish accent with which every citizen of the newly formed United States seems to speak. David Morse is eerily perfect as George Washington, and John Dossett's Thomas Jefferson is intriguing - both characters a joy to watch.
Our main character, however, is portrayed as a stodgy, hypocritical asshole, detached from his family, emotionally stilted, reduced to buffoonery by his failures in France and Holland and later by being pissed on as Vice President by Washington. Paul Giamatti's performance - urgent, desperate, with an inability to make eye contact with another actor, even Laura Linney who portrays his wife - doesn't help.
All of this may have happened just the way it's portrayed on screen, it may be event-for-event and word-for-word true...
It just isn't enjoyable to watch.
Watching the miniseries, one gets the impression that the editor and cinematographer crossed the parking lot from MTV to HBO, and that you have a couple of kids trying out their new computers. Inappropriate and nauseatingly shaky camera work, and odd camera angles seem reminiscent of music videos or science fiction rather than historical drama. The editor appears to have cobbled her scenes out of whatever she got handed in the dailies - her cuts jar and play havoc with one's sense of space and time and continuity errors are frequent.
I kinda think I know what the director is trying to do: the time period was uncomfortable, harsh. We, as the audience, should experience that discomfort to better feel what the characters feel. I'm grateful - very grateful - my television isn't equipped with bullets or surely the director would have taken shots at me during the battle scenes. So I could feel it, you know?
So, I'm giving up. I know how it ends - John Adams dies, I hope I'm not spoiling anything for you there - and the truly interesting parts are over. There is nothing for it now but to watch J.A. decline, which, according to this narrative, started the moment he left the Colonies for France.
I can do without.
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Date: 2009-06-15 19:25 (UTC)I felt the character was better played by William Daniels in "1776". Pompous, opinionated banty rooster, rather than unappreciated turdlet with an inferiority complex and short fuse.
I stayed the course and watched the whole thing last year. I did overall like it, but as you point out, the camera work needs Dramamine.
I had never seen Jefferson portrayed as a hard-to-get-along-with dope head, but it sure made sense.
I also agree David Morse was startlingly real as Washington.
Maybe some day you might wade through it again. Some of it was good. But as stated many of the things we both found bad about it continued through the whole miniseries.
I know there are some medications that create or greatly increase motion sickness. I think people who produce TV and movies these days should be forced to take it before the camera is even out of the case :)