Comments on: John Adams (2008) TV Mini-Series Review

By: Gordon

Gordon — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:31:50 +0000

Arpee, thank you for the helpful warning about the floating camera. I was looking forward to renting the DVD, but now I won’t waste my money. I agree too many films are shot with an annoyingly wobbly camera (and ditto on NYPD Blue — I hear it was a good show but I found it unwatchable).

By: Arpee

Arpee — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:11:29 +0000

I was eagerly waiting for this show, but I gave up 5 minutes into episode 3. The floating camera work that cannot settle in on close shots drove me nuts!! With all the endless list of producers, certainly SOMEONE would have noticed the sloppy camera work. I understand and accept jerky camera moves during a chase scene or other overt action, but when two people are having a quiet conversation over dinner, I don’t understand why the camera has to continually float around as if looking for the correct frame. This floating camera is the reason I never watched “NYPD Blue,” “CSI Miami” and many other shows over the years. These camera operators should be fired. But I am sure they are instructed to do the
irritating “float.”

By: Jodie

Jodie — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:00:29 +0000

Patrick, sure they could have included all those details but then the series would have been called “The Revolutionary War: Some Guy Named John Adams Was There” instead of just John Adams. I think it gave a sense of the man, both the second president and, more important to someone like me, the family man trying to work and provide for his loved ones and the life they led together. It gave a sense of personal accomplishment that felt real. It showed his motivations, his failures and things that so many would never have known about the lives that he touched.

I also completely agree that their inclusion about issues like their oppositions to slavery and women’s suffrage were well done. The only thing they steered clear of, which would have been pretty crucial, was the fact that they were Unitarians. If you read some of the letters between Jefferson and Adams after they reconciled it is wildly obvious, actually.

Thanks for the comments.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 17:25:37 +0000

While I agree it was a decent series, I think it also dropped the ball on history. While trying to focus more on John Adams the man and his family, it purposely skipped over the major historical events, following the line of thought that these events have been extensively covered by countless forms of media, and thus not worth mentioning.

To the contrary, by skipping over huge portions of the Revolutionary War, the debates in the Contintal Congress, etc- they fail to show the impact these things had on the Adams. The series feels full of holes, as it intended to leave out great chunks of what the creators felt to be fluff- the actual events.

While beautifully shot, with brilliant performances, costuming, scenery, etc etc- the series loses great steam by not showing every piece of the puzzle, thus not completing the entire picture.

On a side note, I also felt the series took a very poignant stand on civil rights and womens sufferage. The creators made a very drastic stand to show how addimantly against these things Adams & his wife were, but also took note to make others seem cruel, instead of ambivalent to the issues. I’m not sure it’s quite accurate to make a series on the basis to depict the humility of a “slighty above average man,” while showing a very jaded point-of-view in regards to major social issues. However, if the point of the series was to show the issues through the eyes of John Adams alone, then perhaps it holds true.

*Shrug* There goes my steam- thoughts?