By David Kronke <TV Writer

---

Sure, America's second president, John Adams, helped kick-start our country's quest for independence. But he was in Europe for most of the Revolutionary War and out of the loop for many other crucial moments.

 

He was also a cranky fellow who didn't play well with others, hardly charismatic or inspiring. So, in a way, exploring the birth of America through Adams' eyes, as HBO's new $100 million, 8 1/2-hour miniseries "John Adams" does, is a little like shooting a movie from the perspective of the hero's sidekick.

"He's an interesting guy to be telling this story through. He's sort of a political failure," says Paul Giamatti, who stars as Adams. "He's sort of misanthropic and difficult to deal with.

As we were preparing this, it was with an eye toward not deifying the guy. His humanity comes out in the marriage (to Abigail, played by Laura Linney). His relationship helps make it palatable for people."

"Adams" was co-executive produced by Tom Hanks, who has used his star status to follow his passion for history. This is his third series for HBO. ("Band of Brothers" and "From the Earth to the Moon" were the first two; a fourth, "The Pacific," about the fight against the Japanese during World War II, is on the way.)

It was after reading and falling in love with David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning best seller that Hanks wanted to bring "John Adams" to the screen.

Yet despite its pedigree, cast, costumes, CGI effects, budget and the fact that it was filmed on location in Virginia and Hungary, director Tom Hooper (an Emmy winner for "Elizabeth I") considers "Adams" a very un-Hollywood film.

"Our hero is an anti-hero. I would say he has his finest hour in the second episode (airing tonight, immediately after the first installment at 8 p.m.). It's not very convenient for our storytelling that he was in Europe when the Constitutional Convention was going on. His is a different drama.

"Paul and I talked ... about what it would be like to be a guy in the middle of all this and then come back and be marginalized. "It makes it a more interesting film because it's not about someone being heroic and perfect."

But Kirk Ellis, who adapted McCullough's book, steps up to Adams' defense.

"He has not just been slighted by history, but completely forgotten," Ellis says. "But that doesn't pan out when you research his accomplishments. He's a remarkably complex human figure, exasperating as much as inspiring. He's the most down-to-earth of the Founding Fathers - one, dare I say, I might have had a beer with."

Well, sure - his cousin was firebrand revolutionary Samuel Adams.

The miniseries begins with the Boston Massacre in 1770 and Adams' controversial legal defense of the British soldiers accused of the killings; it concludes in the years beyond his loss in a bid for a second term as president in 1800.

During the Revolutionary War, Adams was in Paris with Benjamin Franklin (played by Tom Wilkinson). Together, they sought support from the French for their military efforts. It wasn't as cushy a gig as it sounds.

"Their relationship was fraught," Giamatti says. "They were two guys with big egos, and Franklin was temperamentally the opposite of him, though he did mentor Adams for a while. But Adams was impossible. Franklin wrote to Congress, `I think he's insane; get him out of here.' It was a huge contest of egos."

"He has a checkered track record after that," Hooper adds. "As vice president, he championed the idea of American royalty, which got him excluded from the Cabinet. His presidency is a mixture of great achievements - he keeps America out of an unnecessary war with France - and embarrassments - he signs the Alien and Sedition Acts."

Rather than placing its subject on a pedestal, "John Adams" examines the ideas and ideals that shaped America's birth. One stirring scene finds Adams, Franklin and Jefferson (Stephan Dillane) hammering out the precise wording of the Declaration of Independence, underscoring the importance of the details.

"Ideas were really living things for these people," Giamatti says. "If anything, Adams was a very scholarly guy, intellectual. He was more a philosopher than anything else. He enjoyed thinking about this and writing about it, even after the Revolution."

And, as such, his story resonates today.

"This is actually a striking coincidence: While I was writing episode one, about Adams' defense of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre, there was an editorial in the Washington Times stating that any American attorney who defends any detainee in Guantanamo Bay is guilty of treason and should be put in jail," Ellis recalls. "If we had done that in 1770, not only would we have been deprived of our second president, but perhaps of independence itself."

Ellis says that the Democratic primaries have opened up the debate between words and experience.

"Do words matter? They matter very much. They mattered a great deal to Adams, Washington and Jefferson. Words were weapons. Without their words, the vote for independence might have gone in a very different direction."

Hooper observes, "The word `elite' has become a dirty word in the current America; it's used almost as a pejorative. There's a fear of intellectualism in the mainstream. But in this story, if ever there were an elite, it was this bunch of guys. They were extraordinarily bright.

"(President George W.) Bush's inarticulateness is comforting to people; it means he's an ordinary guy," he continues. "But this country was not built by Marlboro men, but by enlightened intellectuals who spent a lot of time thinking about man's place in the world."

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638 david.kronke@dailynews.com

www.insidesocal.com/tv/