I don’t believe in this concept of “objective” history. Every interpretation is subjective in some fashion. That’s what makes history messy, and messiness makes for great drama. That said, I’ve always prided myself on being able to capture the spirit of time, place and character, even when varying from the letter.
This comment is from a 2018 interview with Kirk Ellis, the screenwriter who adapted David McCullough’s best-selling biography John Adams for the highly regarded HBO series of the same name. McCullough’s biography was published in 2001, the series debuted in 2008, Ellis made his comment a decade later, and I write this nearly eight years after that. The past quarter century in American life cannot be distilled into a great drama anytime soon. But thanks to Ellis, the director Tom Hooper, the composers Robert Lane and Joseph Vitarelli, the top-notch production crew, and the superb cast of John Adams, we have a masterpiece that captures not just the spirit of early America but also the shifting moods of our own unsettled times.
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