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Surfpossum
A nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered User regular
A nonentitytrying to preserve the anonymity he so richly deserves.Registered User regular
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqAdlkJDt7k1776 is my favorite movie, and it was shown to us in one of my high school history classes; our teacher was gone on vacation, and we had the band teacher subbing in. He had slipped while doing laundry and was confined to a wheelchair and on a lot of pain medication, and therefore we were going to watch a movie! I immediately fell in love with it while nearly everyone else in the class groaned their way through it, and not too long after I found a DVD copy at a Blockbuster which I was able to purchase for the price of three American dollars. I have since inflicted it several times upon friends and coworkers.
But it’s a great movie! The dialogue sparkles with a sort of crystalline wit, the characters are full of life, and the entire thing seems to have been filmed with a sort of storybook haze hanging over all of it. It’s got humor, drama, action, romance, sex, you name it. The songs are catchy and nearly all of them are excellent.
Importantly, it also manages to cover or at least include quite a few different aspects of the Declaration of Independence and the various struggles associated with it. Social, economic, military, ideological hurdles and considerations, all coming together in a glorious mess in Independence Hall, a setting which the film rarely leaves. It may not be wholly historically accurate, but I feel like it captures a lot about an event that is still pretty idealized and idolized.
Anyway, it’s good, and for the same low price of three [e: now four] American dollars, you too can watch it on YouTube!
Featuring!
Whoring and drinking!
https://youtu.be/watch?v=9owHQ96Nms4&t=208s(3m28s)
Ben Franklin doing kicks and singing about sexual combustibility!
(4m30s)
Political controversy!
According to the Los Angeles Times, "The song 'Cool, Cool, Considerate Men' depicts Revolutionary War–era conservatives as power-hungry wheedlers focused on maintaining wealth." According to Jack L. Warner, the film's producer and a friend of U.S. President Richard Nixon, Nixon requested to have the song removed from the film. Nixon apparently saw the song as an insult to the conservatives of his time, as it suggested that the conservatives were the ones who were hindering American Independence as they danced a minuet singing the song that included the stanza,
[...]
Warner's attempt to comply with Nixon's demands had initially been rebuffed by director Hunt during production, only for the song to be removed in post-production while Hunt was on vacation. Warner also wanted the original negative of the song shredded, but the film's editor kept it in storage unaltered. Trailers were already released in theaters with the "Considerate Men" number as its centerpiece; Warner had those trailers pulled and re-edited. Hunt later mentioned in a 2015 interview that Warner, on his deathbed, told a friend that he regretted editing the scene, believing that he had ruined the structure of the film as a result of those edits. It was only decades later that the song was restored to the film.
When the Broadway musical was about to be presented to Nixon at the White House in 1970, before the film was made, his staff pressed the producers to cut the song then; their request was denied.
Historical inaccuracies!
According to The Columbia Companion to American History on Film, historical "Inaccuracies pervade 1776, though few are very troubling." Because Congress was held in secrecy and there are no contemporary records on the debate over the Declaration of Independence, the authors of the play created the narrative based on later accounts and educated guesses, inventing scenes and dialogue as needed for storytelling purposes. Some of the dialogue was taken from words written, often years or even decades later, by the actual people involved, and rearranged for dramatic effect.
The film particularly distorts and omits the views of the mid-Atlantic Quaker population, represented by Dickinson. Although in the film Dickinson is portrayed as loyalist, and John Adams is seen making the points of objection about the tax abuses of George III of the United Kingdom, including regressive taxes and "taxation without representation", and all to fund wars and the King's lifestyle, not to benefit the people, it was Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania that had originally made these points. A supposed physical fight between Dickinson and Adams is portrayed, in which Dickinson calls Adams a "lawyer" as an epithet, which makes little sense since Dickinson was a lawyer himself.
Also, despite the film's heavy focus on John Adams, John Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, only Martha Jefferson and Abigail Adams and their marriages are depicted, despite Dickinson's wife, Mary Norris Dickinson, being the only one of these spouses actually present in Philadelphia during the convention. (Franklin's common law wife, Deborah Read, had died a year or so earlier.) Although the film initially uses actual correspondence between Abigail Adams and John Adams as a basis for dialogue, it romanticizes her views in later scenes. The film also fictionalizes the Martha Jefferson relationship in particular, depicting her as coming to the convention, when she had actually just suffered a miscarriage and was also dealing with complications of gestational diabetes and was an invalid in Virginia. The omission of Mary Norris and Dickinson's marriage to her is also particularly distorting as Quaker marriages such as that of Dickinson and Norris were more egalitarian than those of some of the other founding cultures (including the patriarchal Puritan-style Adams marriage, to which Abigail Adams objects in her letters quoted in the film) and were by definition not bound to gender stereotypes.
Another departure from history is that the separation from Great Britain was accomplished in two steps: the actual vote for independence came on July 2 with the approval of Lee's resolution of independence. The wording of the Declaration of Independence—the statement to the world as to the reasons necessitating the split—was then debated for three days before being approved on July 4. The vote for independence did not hinge on some passages being removed from the Declaration, as implied in the film (and the play), since Congress had already voted in favor of independence before debating the Declaration. For the sake of drama, the play's authors combined the two events. In addition, some historians believe that the Declaration was not signed on July 4, as shown in 1776, but was instead signed on August 2, 1776. Others point out that the final, official copy of the document was signed by the delegates not on a single date, but over several weeks and months, commencing in July but not being completed until as late as September. The authors of 1776 had the delegates sign the Declaration on July 4 for dramatic reasons.
The Liberty Bell in 1776 is shown being rung as the delegates were signing the Declaration on July 4; however, this was also for dramatic effect. Independence Hall's wooden steeple was structurally unstable, and the Liberty Bell was silent, having been lowered into the upper chamber of the brick tower. A smaller bell, used to toll the hours, may have rung on July 8, for the public reading of the Declaration.
Many characters in 1776 differ from their historical counterparts. Central to the drama is the depiction of John Adams as "obnoxious and disliked." According to biographer David McCullough, however, Adams was one of the most respected members of Congress in 1776. Adams's often-quoted description of himself in Congress as "obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular" is from a letter written 46 years later in 1822, after his unpopular presidency had likely colored his view of the past. According to McCullough, no delegate described Adams as obnoxious in 1776. Historian Garry Wills earlier made a similar argument, writing that "historians relay John Adams's memories without sufficient skepticism", and that it was Dickinson, not Adams, who was advocating an unpopular position in 1776.
For practical and dramatic purposes, the work does not depict all of the more than 50 members of Congress who were present at the time. This version of John Adams is, in part, a composite character, combining the real Adams with his cousin Samuel Adams, who was in Congress at the time but is not depicted in the play. Although the play depicts Delaware's Caesar Rodney as an elderly man near death from skin cancer (which would eventually kill him), he was just 47 years old at the time and continued to be very active in the Revolution after signing the Declaration. He was not absent from the voting because of health; however, the play is accurate in having him arrive "in the nick of time," having ridden 80 miles the night before (an event depicted on Delaware's 1999 State Quarter) unaided, instead of with the help of another delegate. Further, Richard Henry Lee announces that he is returning to Virginia to serve as governor. He was never governor; his cousin Henry Lee (who is anachronistically called "General 'Lighthorse' Harry Lee," a rank and nickname earned later) did eventually become governor (and the father of Confederate general Robert E. Lee). John Adams was also depicted as disliking Richard Henry Lee, but according to McCullough, Adams expressed nothing but "respect and admiration for the tall, masterly Virginian." He did dislike Benjamin Franklin, contrary to what was portrayed.
Martha Jefferson never traveled to Philadelphia to be with her husband; she was extremely ill during the summer of 1776, having just endured a miscarriage. The play's authors invented the scene "to show something of the young Jefferson's life without destroying the unity of setting." James Wilson was not the indecisive milquetoast depicted in the play and the film. The real Wilson, who was not yet a judge in 1776, had been cautious about supporting independence at an earlier date, but he supported the resolution of independence when it came up for a vote. Pennsylvania's deciding swing vote was actually cast by John Morton, who is not depicted in the musical.
The quote attributed to Edmund Burke by Dr. Lyman Hall in a key scene with Adams is a paraphrase of a real quote by Burke.
The song "Cool Considerate Men" is anachronistic; the terms "right" and "left" in politics were not in use until the French Revolution of 1789. John Dickinson, who is portrayed as an antagonist here, was motivated mainly by his Quaker roots and his respect for the British Constitution, having lived in England for 3 years in the 1750s. He was no wealthier than some members of the pro-Independence faction, and freed his slaves in 1777. Thomas Jefferson wrote that "his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution".
The film also misses the objection some had to the Declaration's stated basis in "rights of Man" based in "natural law" derived from a supernatural being. The Quaker-based population in the mid-Atlantic, represented by Dickinson, objected to this conception. Dickinson's objection to the Declaration had to do with this, as well as the fact he and his base preferred civil disobedience to war as the means, and a view that the colonies were too immature and the egalitarian mid-Atlantic culture would be overruled by the slavery of the South and the patriarchal Puritan attitudes of New England, represented by John Adams, in the foundation of the new country. The film also omits the fact that Dickinson, after refusing to sign the Declaration, set about drafting the Articles of Confederation, which he based on "rights of Person" with no reference to anything but law created by human beings and the only reference to "men" being in the context of mustering armies. This basis was then used when the Articles were converted to the Constitution but by then completely omitting the word "man" and only using the word "Person."
The musical also deviates from history in its portrayal of attitudes about slavery. In 1776, after a dramatic debate over slavery, the southern delegates walk out in protest of the Declaration's denunciation of the slave trade, and only support independence when that language was removed from the Declaration. The walkout is fictional, as the debate over the wording of the declaration took place after the vote for independence on July 2, and apparently most delegates, northern and southern, supported the deletion of the clause.
The musical depicts Edward Rutledge as the leader of the opposition to an anti-slavery clause in Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration. However, while we do know that, according to Jefferson, the clause was opposed by South Carolina and Georgia, plus unspecified "northern brethren", that is all that is known about opposition to the clause. Rutledge was a delegate from South Carolina, but there is no historical evidence that he played any part—much less a leadership role—in the opposition to the clause. The musical does acknowledge the complexity of the colonial attitudes toward slavery in the dramatic song "Molasses, to Rum, to Slaves", sung by the Rutledge character, which illustrates the hypocrisy in northern condemnations of slavery since northerners profited from the triangle trade.
Thomas Jefferson is depicted in the musical as saying that he has resolved to free his slaves, something he did not do, except for a few slaves freed after his death 50 years later. The musical also depicts Franklin as claiming that he is the founder of the first abolitionist organization in the New World; the real Franklin did not become an abolitionist until after the American Revolution, becoming president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1785. It was actually Dickinson who freed his slaves in 1776, conditionally at first, and fully by 1787 when the Constitution was ratified.
In both the play and the film, John Adams sarcastically predicts that Benjamin Franklin will receive from posterity too great a share of credit for the Revolution. "Franklin smote the ground and out sprang—George Washington. Fully grown, and on his horse. Franklin then electrified them with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them—Franklin, Washington, and the horse—conducted the entire Revolution all by themselves." Adams did make a similar comment about Franklin in April 1790, just after Franklin's death, although the mention of the horse was a humorous twist added by the authors of the musical.
James Wilson is portrayed as subordinating himself to Dickinson's opposition to independence, only changing his vote so that he would not be remembered unfavorably. In fact, Wilson was considered one of the leading thinkers behind the American cause, consistently supporting and arguing for independence, although he would not cast his vote until his district had been caucused.
The formula John Adams gives Abigail for making saltpeter — "By treating sodium nitrate with potassium chloride, of course!" — refers to various chemicals by their modern names, instead of the names used in the 1770s. A more historically accurate version might be "treating soda niter with potash." More accurate still would have been a detailed description of the process, involving ingredients such as manure or bat guano, would probably have been too long, and repulsive to audiences.
Rave reviews!
Vincent Canby of The New York Times observed, "The music is resolutely unmemorable. The lyrics sound as if they'd been written by someone high on root beer, and the book is familiar history—compressed here, stretched there—that has been gagged up and paced to Broadway's not inspiring standards. Yet Peter H. Hunt's screen version of 1776 ... insists on being so entertaining and, at times, even moving, that you might as well stop resisting it. This reaction, I suspect, represents a clear triumph of emotional associations over material ... [It] is far from being a landmark of musical cinema, but it is the first film in my memory that comes close to treating seriously a magnificent chapter in the American history."[29]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave 1776 two stars and declared, "This is an insult to the real men who were Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and the rest ... The performances trapped inside these roles, as you might expect, are fairly dreadful. There are good actors in the movie (especially William Daniels as Adams and Donald Madden as John Dickinson), but they're forced to strut and posture so much that you wonder if they ever scratched or spit or anything ... I can hardly bear to remember the songs, much less discuss them. Perhaps I shouldn't. It is just too damn bad this movie didn't take advantage of its right to the pursuit of happiness."
Surfpossum on
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Posts
It's a ball :-)
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
im dying squirtle
I don't get it.
White feminism is a hell of a thing
*Salutes*
It looks like a magazine that comes out.... now and then, and is always about weed.
Not feminism. Marketing.
This is not going to stop me from smoking it
(this is apparently untrue, some varieties apparently have more than five lobes!)
I have very fond memories of it. I even still have the cast T-shirt! I played Secretary Thomson, who gets a lot of speaking lines and even a solo.
he's kind of a big deal
never?
Back down the tin mine with him then
Sorry! Should be fixed now.
Talented and successful children are costly, shoulda gotten yourself a burnout slacker, we're cheap.
I've got a worn butter knife
I can't use shields, so as soon as I find another butter knife I'll have doubled my DPS
I can't afford any of my class abilities
The pink weed is like the blue meth
There's a tournament on in montreal this weekend, we have a bunch of teams coming from Eastern Canada to play.
And I wasn't quick enough to get out of being lumbered with putting together the scedule for the day.
Grand. fine. It's no big deal. And after trying to keep everyone happy, taking into account the field restrictions and keep in mind that some players that will be playing on two different teams in two different codes so being careful not to give some people something rediculious like five games in a row, it's all done.
Except, all the restrictions about the fields that were relayed to me were wrong, and now I have to start over.
Sports - not even once, and certainly not in an organizing capacity.
Celeste [Switch] - She'll be wrestling with inner demons when she comes...
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age [Switch] - Sit down and watch our game play itself
An Ombudsman should be the kind of person who deals with exactly this sort of thing
"should"
Instead of dance classes, let’s all meditate.
I am far too cynical to assume that anyone here has my best interests as anything approaching a high priority. I just need to know where to poke gently before I start aggressively burning bridges in an attempt to get what I want.
that wouldn't be a bad place to start
Thanks! I appreciate it. It's good to have some direction when aimlessly angry.
....oof
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin