The Adams Chronicles

The Adams Chronicles / 2008 Acorn / 13 Hours / http://www.acornmedia.com /

There are very few bits of history that individuals can find interesting in this modern age of short attention spans and rapid channel-clicking. Sure, there have been documentaries about Jazz, The Civil War, and baseball, but it takes a special set of individuals – in this case, Paul Bogart and James Cellan Jones – to make a presidential history interesting. Sure, things have changed in the thirty-plus years since this mini-series (13 episodes in all) was originally released, but I feel that if aired today, The Adams Chronicles would have more than its fair share of viewers. The Adams Chronicles is thirteen hours in toto, and provides individuals with the history of the Adams family, all the way from the second president of the United States, John Adams, all the way out to the railroad millionaire Charles Francis Adams, Jr.

The quality of the film from which these episodes were taken is decent, considering the age; a clarity is still present that is hard to find from materials from this period. What is done extremely well during The Adams Chronicles is the firm placement of the actors into the period that is being described: individuals will be hard to tell that these were actors from the mid-seventies and not individuals from the 18^th, 19^th, and early 20^th centuries. The costumes and sets contribute to this feeling greatly, and lend the narrative a legitimacy that it would not otherwise have. While the vast majority of information is provided by the expansive mini-series itself, it is a bonus pamphlet – a 12-page guide – that will provide individuals the final bit of information.

The Adams Chronicles act like a great, formerly out-of-print narrative of the life and times of the Adams family. Why individuals should care about this family over scores of others in the American context is the fact that they were all so important in creating the America that we know today. Each generation of the Adams added something new to the fabric of the United States, and I believe that was why originally this series was commissioned. If you are a history buff, or just want to see the nuances of a family over the course of a number of generations, I would highly suggest that you pick up a copy of The Adams Chronicles. Give this DVD set a try and show historians and film companies alike that there is a market for this type of historical expose.

Rating: 8.5/10