I’ve been re-watching HBO’s John Adams, along with the “making of” bonus material, and while it is true enough that I would be happy with just their wig budget, let alone their green screen and CGI budget, I can’t help but comment about the choices they made in their interpretation of the facts. (This is another way of saying that I very much applaud the sort of attention they paid to detail, and the money they spent telling a story that needs to be told, but truth is served by many perspectives, even those whose bank accounts are a tad shy of Tom Hank’s.)

Stately old David McCullough positively glows with approval for the accuracy of the tale, as told by HBO, and with respect to clothing, farm yards, and naval matte artistry, I have to agree, but on second-watch, I can’t help but comment on the gross disservice the makers of the film did to Sam Adams. In one scene, the Adams Cousins (John and Sam) are seen to be preparing for their first trip to the Continental Congress in 1774. Sam Arrives with a new suit of clothing and a stately coach. Danny Huston, playing the part of Sam, appears out of the coach, announcing that the clothing and the coach were a gift of the Sons of Liberty. John is seen, in this scene, to have the common man’s touch by refusing the ostentation of the fancy equipage. What the film-makers don’t reveal is that Samuel Adams ignored his family business in favor of the cause, and although he was born to relative privilege, he happily forfeited economic ease to lobby for liberty–so much so that the town of Boston felt it their duty to buy the leader a proper set of clothing for his appearance in Philadelphia. Sam was so public minded that even though he was given the potentially lucrative post of tax collection, he routinely ignored collections, and thus his own commission on the “take.” The makers of HBO’s John Adams appear to be wholly (or perhaps willfully?) ignorant of this reality, and chose to make Sam appear, at times, as a political and economic opportunist.

Later in the film, Benjamin Franklin is seen to strike the words “sacred and undeniable” from Jefferson’s first draft of the Declaration, replacing them with “self-evident.” Benjamin Franklin is made to condemn the phrase as something that “smacks of the pulpit.” No such phrase exists in Benjamin Franklin’s writing, and according to Boyd’s Declaration of Independence, 1945, p 22-3, the change may even have appeared in Jefferson’s handwriting.

John Adams was so prolific, of course, that many of his words are given to others in the story, and that is forgivable. It moves the story on in a credible way, but what is more than a little bit scandalous is that having John Adams express his private writings in a public setting makes him appear as though he had no tact at all. Adams never used the words indicated to confront John Dickinson in public–but out in the courtyard of the hall, in private, and the argument was initiated by Dickinson, not Adams.

..At this moment I was called out to the State house Yard, very much to my regret, to some one who had business with me. I took my hat and went out of the Door of Congress Hall: Mr. Dickinson observed me and darted out after me. He broke out upon me in a most abrupt and extraordinary manner. In as violent a passion as he was capable of feeling, and with an Air, Countenance and Gestures as rough and haughty as if I had been a School Boy and he the Master, he vociferated out, “What is the Reason Mr. Adams, that you New Englandmen oppose our Measures of Reconciliation. There now is Sullivan in a long Harrangue following you, in a determined Opposition to our Petition to the King. Look Ye! If you dont concur with Us, in our pacific System, I, and a Number of Us, will break off, from you in New England, and We will carry on the Opposition by ourselves in our own Way.” I own I was shocked with this Magisterial Salutation. I knew of no Pretensions Mr. Dickenson had, to dictate to me more that I had to catechize him. I was however as it happened, at that moment, in a very happy temper, and I answered him very coolly. “Mr. Dickenson, there are many Things that I can very cheerfully sacrifice to Harmony and even to Unanimity: but I am not to be threatened into an express Adoption or Approbation of Measures which my judgment reprobates. Congress must judge, and if they pronounce against me, I must submit, as if they determine against You, You ought to acquiesce. . . From The Autobiography of John Adams

To turn this encounter on its head, and then have Franklin lecture John Adams on bad behavior might be good story-telling, but it just isn’t the truth.

The makers of the film, clearly, have a reverence for their subject, but the reverence flows from humanism, not the providential spirit of God that animated the age in question. David McCullough is careful to tell us that the founders were imperfect–as indeed we all know–but they were also capable, in David’s thinking, of imagining great things. Both their weakness and their greatness flows from their status as human beings, not, as Jefferson declared, from their status as children of God. At one point in the “making of” feature, a production designer opines, “we were very lucky” to have had these men get together at the same time.

Lucky, HBO?

The word is “blessed.”