Revolution 250 Podcast
Revolution 250 Podcast
Remembering the American Revolution at 250
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We are now deep into the Semiquincentennial commemoration of the events that led to American Independence. 2025 represents a watershed year as we commemorate the Battles of Lexington & Concord, Chelsea Creek and Bunker Hill. Just in time to help us remember these events, and why we are commemorating the 250th, Professor Abby Chandler of UMass Lowell, has launched a new journal, Remembering the American Revolution at 250. Professor Chandler joins us to talk about this new project, along with Professor Marianne Holdzkom, author of its first article, "Based on a True Story; Remembering the Revolution through Film."
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Hello, everyone.
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Welcome to the Revolution
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Two-Fifty podcast.
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I'm Bob Allison.
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I chair the Rev Two-Fifty Advisory Group.
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We are a consortium of
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seventy-five organizations
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in Massachusetts planning
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commemorations of
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beginnings of american
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independence our guests
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today are abby chandler
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abby's been on the podcast
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before she's also a member
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of the massachusetts
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two-fifth commission she is
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the editor of h nets
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remembering the revolution
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of two-fifty collection
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which is what we'll be
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talking about today
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associate professor of
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history at the university
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of massachusetts at lowell
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thanks abby for coming back and
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and Marianne Holdscombe,
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who is an associate
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professor of history at
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Kennesaw State University in Georgia.
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Her big book is Remembering John Adams,
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the Second President in History, Memory,
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and Popular Culture,
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now working on a book about historical...
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Did he freeze memory at historical sites,
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focusing on the based on a
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true based on a true story,
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remembering the American
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Revolution through film.
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So thank you both for coming on.
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Abby,
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why don't you tell us a bit about the
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H net project of
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remembering the American
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Revolution at two fifty?
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So this is a project that
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started to come about
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around two years ago.
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H Early America is one of
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the more active of the
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various HNet networks.
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And I'm one of the two
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review editors there.
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along with Patrick Luck.
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And then Darcy Fryer is our
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collective all-round expert
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at everything else.
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And we were approached by a
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member of the H-Net board
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to suggest that since we
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were coming up on the two
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hundred fiftieth
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anniversary of the
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Declaration of Independence
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and the start of the American Revolution,
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that we think about
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creating a journal that
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would be published
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on the HNet platform.
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And so those are our origins.
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And we started out by
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talking about what we
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wanted to look at with this journal.
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And we eventually came up
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with five different categories
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global revolution,
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looking at the revolution as a global war,
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texts of revolution,
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looking at the documents
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that came out of this period,
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how people have interpreted
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them over time, revolution or not,
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looking at loyalists in all their forms.
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Remembering Revolution,
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looking at how we have
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remembered the Revolution
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over the last two hundred
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and fifty years.
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And finally, Revolution for a New Century.
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Where is teaching the
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American Revolution going
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in the next couple of years?
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And we certainly we've had
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conversations with some of
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the scholars we're working with.
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If you don't quite perfectly
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fit into one category, that is just fine.
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We do have some papers that
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draw from a couple of the categories.
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But we thought by having those categories,
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it was a way of thinking
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about all of the different
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ways in which we are
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remembering the revolution
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and how we might go about doing that.
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So there's certainly a lot there.
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And how long do you project
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that this series will be
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going or that this journal
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will be running?
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Until the three hundredth, maybe?
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So our plan is to definitely
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go on publishing at least
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through twenty twenty six.
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After that,
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we have not made any definite decisions.
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So we will see where we are
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in twenty twenty six.
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It's one of the exciting
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things that happened with
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the bicentennial is a lot
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of new scholarship came out.
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So this seems like a good
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way to showcase what's
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coming out now about the
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revolution in these different ways.
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That's also what we were thinking.
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And because we're publishing on H-Net,
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it is an open access journal.
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You do not have to have a subscription.
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You do not have to have access to JSTOR.
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So we wanted the articles to
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be open to everyone.
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But also in looking to...
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scholars,
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we have spent as much time
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talking to people working in museums.
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We're also talking to people
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who are teaching at the K
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through twelve level.
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And our goal, again,
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was as much as anything to
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create a document of who is
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doing right now.
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Right, right.
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We're talking with Abby Chandler,
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who is the editor of H&S'
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Remembering the Revolution,
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a two-fifty collection,
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and Marian Holtzcum,
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who has written the first
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article in it based on a true story,
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Remembering the American
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Revolution Through Film.
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It's a great article, Marian,
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because it does talk about
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one of the issues we've
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been kicking around.
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There aren't any really good
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movies about the revolution,
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and you've found some
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movies you talk about in some detail.
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I want to ask us for
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choosing what you would
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talk about in the article.
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Well,
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it was a little difficult to decide
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on the films.
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I wanted to start early and
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found this nineteen forties film,
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The Howards of Virginia,
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that I had seen years ago
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and remembered the cameo
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appearance appearance by Jefferson.
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And I thought, well, you know,
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this this is an interesting
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place to start.
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The whole idea of the paper
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came about because I did
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have a professor who once said,
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why aren't there any good
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movies about the American Revolution?
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And I wasn't sure at that
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point that I agreed with him about that.
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But yeah,
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the numbers are pretty slim when
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it comes to really good
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films about the revolution.
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And Abby was a great help in
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directing me toward Mary
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Silliman's War because I
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had not been familiar with that.
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I guess I went through
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school before that film was
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something that was used in the classroom.
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So it was nice to include
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that one as well.
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Yes.
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It's an interesting film.
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And you make the point that
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good history doesn't
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necessarily translate into good film.
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Right.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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I think, yeah,
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the problem with the American Revolution,
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one of them is that you don't have film.
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You don't have photographs.
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And so you're trying to recreate a world.
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What I've discovered in
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listening to the making of
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fill in the blank film is
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that they're always very
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proud about the costume details,
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the prop details and showing off that,
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you know,
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these were the actual buttons of
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a British on a British soldier.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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Right.
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But history doesn't always
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become a part of that.
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So the, the, the artifacts are great.
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And I think it's partly
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because the history is so big.
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Yes.
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And the mythology has become
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so entrenched that it's
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hard to tell a good story sometimes.
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But then we don't even do
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well with the mythology.
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I'm thinking about films
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like Spartacus and others
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about ancient Rome, ancient Greece,
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which are both exciting films.
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I don't know how good they are.
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I'm not a historian of
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ancient Greece or Rome.
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But it's interesting.
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And you do talk about one film, Revolution,
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with Al Pacino that
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apparently made him stop
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acting for a while.
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It was such a bad film.
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Yes.
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Abby, have you seen Revolution?
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I have seen Revolution.
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I saw it when I was in college.
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And I was a history major,
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was interested in the
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colonial period then as well.
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I definitely remember it
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caught a sense of the
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grittiness of the period,
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but I have to admit my
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primary memory of it is a
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scene in which the heroine
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of the film is calling after the hero,
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you, only you.
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And my best friend and I
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were rather fond of
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reenacting that scene.
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That is your primary memory
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coming out of a film.
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You're not doing a whole lot
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with the revolution.
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Yeah,
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my first sense of it when I saw the
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film was that I was
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watching something through a dream.
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And I got very disconcerted by that.
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But yeah,
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I think that was intentional
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because the grittiness is
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definitely there.
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Mm-hmm.
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But Al Pacino constantly saying,
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this isn't my fight.
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This isn't my fight.
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This isn't my fight.
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And the reviewer who said
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even the characters don't
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know what's going on.
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I mean, it really, really got slammed.
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And I would be interested to
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know other people's take on the movie.
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I didn't care for it.
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But there may be people out
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there who really saw
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something in it that worked for them.
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yes jonathan jonathan tells
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us information jonathan was
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an extra oh I'm sorry I
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missed part of that
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I'm sorry.
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My audio connection was going in and out.
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I'm just going to take a second to switch.
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Since we're not live, we can do this.
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Okay.
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My apologies.
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I can edit this out post-production.
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Thank you.
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OK.
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Yeah, I do have to say,
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Bob and I have had this
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conversation before.
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And I just watched April
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Morning for the first time
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in a long time.
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And I had forgotten.
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Yeah, that wasn't a terribly good one.
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No, no.
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I mean, as a coming of age story,
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it works pretty well,
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but it's pretty predictable too.
00:11:18.044 --> 00:11:19.306
So I worked for a while for
00:11:19.346 --> 00:11:20.385
the American Antiquarian
00:11:20.426 --> 00:11:21.346
Society in Worcester.
00:11:21.606 --> 00:11:25.687
And I was always struck by
00:11:26.889 --> 00:11:28.328
Esther Forbes' work on
00:11:29.549 --> 00:11:32.410
Johnny Tremaine and how
00:11:32.431 --> 00:11:34.152
that still really holds in
00:11:34.192 --> 00:11:35.351
the public imagination.
00:11:35.792 --> 00:11:36.113
Yes.
00:11:36.133 --> 00:11:36.932
Hey, Bob.
00:11:38.514 --> 00:11:38.634
Hello.
00:11:38.653 --> 00:11:42.296
I'm going to take your computer image out.
00:11:43.096 --> 00:11:45.017
Thank you.
00:11:45.037 --> 00:11:45.557
Let's see.
00:11:45.576 --> 00:11:46.677
There we go.
00:11:46.697 --> 00:11:47.017
All right.
00:11:47.076 --> 00:11:50.958
And I will let you continue on.
00:11:51.058 --> 00:11:51.239
Okay.
00:11:51.298 --> 00:11:51.658
Very good.
00:11:51.698 --> 00:11:55.419
Thank you.
00:11:55.559 --> 00:11:57.221
Okay.
00:11:57.240 --> 00:11:57.780
My apologies.
00:12:00.642 --> 00:12:02.962
So we've talked about the revolution.
00:12:02.982 --> 00:12:04.144
We've talked about the Patriot.
00:12:04.183 --> 00:12:05.224
Where do we pick up then?
00:12:06.578 --> 00:12:07.418
unless we wanted to have
00:12:07.499 --> 00:12:12.201
more to say about each of those.
00:12:12.260 --> 00:12:15.001
Yeah, just a word about The Patriot.
00:12:15.282 --> 00:12:16.702
The Patriot is one of those
00:12:16.783 --> 00:12:18.082
where they're very proud
00:12:18.163 --> 00:12:20.303
about getting the props right,
00:12:20.344 --> 00:12:21.283
the costumes right.
00:12:24.184 --> 00:12:25.885
The history is a little problematic.
00:12:26.225 --> 00:12:28.886
And it's a film that it's
00:12:28.927 --> 00:12:29.966
enjoyable to watch.
00:12:30.326 --> 00:12:32.307
It's a nice action adventure film.
00:12:32.628 --> 00:12:33.509
It gets your attention.
00:12:35.884 --> 00:12:37.264
but some of the history is
00:12:37.325 --> 00:12:38.885
pretty disturbing in that one.
00:12:39.785 --> 00:12:41.546
And I had a student once
00:12:42.105 --> 00:12:43.346
talking about the Patriot
00:12:43.385 --> 00:12:44.767
and he called it Braveheart
00:12:44.826 --> 00:12:45.626
in the colonies.
00:12:47.067 --> 00:12:48.647
As if Mel Gibson just makes
00:12:48.687 --> 00:12:50.207
the same movie over and over again,
00:12:50.248 --> 00:12:52.307
he just moves around geographically.
00:12:53.707 --> 00:12:55.708
So I'm not sure that's completely fair,
00:12:55.788 --> 00:12:58.208
but there are some
00:12:58.389 --> 00:13:01.309
interesting problems with that film.
00:13:01.330 --> 00:13:01.509
Yes, yeah.
00:13:03.274 --> 00:13:05.975
You also talk about a film, Sweet Liberty,
00:13:05.995 --> 00:13:07.057
which is about the making
00:13:07.096 --> 00:13:08.256
of historical films.
00:13:08.898 --> 00:13:09.778
You have this historian
00:13:09.817 --> 00:13:10.938
played by Alan Alda,
00:13:10.958 --> 00:13:12.139
and he's written a novel,
00:13:12.179 --> 00:13:13.681
and then it's being turned into a film,
00:13:14.140 --> 00:13:17.322
which becomes really a whole story about,
00:13:18.063 --> 00:13:19.164
and screw historical
00:13:19.245 --> 00:13:20.225
accuracy is one of the
00:13:20.264 --> 00:13:23.206
taglines in the film.
00:13:24.087 --> 00:13:24.668
Right, right.
00:13:26.690 --> 00:13:28.191
I debated whether to include
00:13:28.211 --> 00:13:29.431
that film because it's not
00:13:29.611 --> 00:13:31.613
actually about the American Revolution,
00:13:34.312 --> 00:13:37.333
it tapped into a lot of the
00:13:37.433 --> 00:13:39.114
issues that historians have
00:13:39.715 --> 00:13:41.956
with the making of films like this.
00:13:42.855 --> 00:13:46.057
And it wasn't as popular as
00:13:46.097 --> 00:13:48.019
some of Alan Alda's other films,
00:13:48.198 --> 00:13:52.480
but I think that that tagline,
00:13:52.520 --> 00:13:56.081
as you said, screw historical accuracy,
00:13:56.442 --> 00:13:59.124
is key to what's going on in that movie.
00:13:59.648 --> 00:14:01.809
and watching Alan Alda's
00:14:01.850 --> 00:14:02.830
character just become
00:14:02.870 --> 00:14:04.371
increasingly frustrated and
00:14:04.392 --> 00:14:05.692
the many different ways he
00:14:05.753 --> 00:14:08.254
tries to get the history
00:14:08.333 --> 00:14:09.715
right until finally he just
00:14:09.774 --> 00:14:13.597
rebels himself and takes
00:14:13.618 --> 00:14:15.960
the reenactors along with
00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.462
him is just a beautiful way
00:14:20.482 --> 00:14:23.264
to demonstrate that when
00:14:23.304 --> 00:14:26.888
historians watch films about history,
00:14:28.277 --> 00:14:30.139
we become frustrated when
00:14:30.318 --> 00:14:31.580
the story gets twisted,
00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:33.240
when the drama that was
00:14:33.321 --> 00:14:37.585
already there becomes overblown,
00:14:38.605 --> 00:14:41.688
or it becomes a vehicle for
00:14:41.729 --> 00:14:43.450
something else, for some agenda.
00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:44.451
Right, right.
00:14:45.491 --> 00:14:46.533
Now, Marianne, I have to ask,
00:14:46.552 --> 00:14:48.014
since you are the authority
00:14:48.153 --> 00:14:49.195
on John Adams and the
00:14:49.235 --> 00:14:50.456
memory of John Adams,
00:14:50.515 --> 00:14:51.417
what thoughts you have
00:14:51.456 --> 00:14:52.998
about the John Adams series
00:14:53.038 --> 00:14:54.419
based on David McCullough's book?
00:14:56.801 --> 00:14:57.421
On the surface,
00:14:58.282 --> 00:15:00.423
I like the miniseries very much.
00:15:01.263 --> 00:15:03.744
I thought Paul Giamatti was
00:15:03.903 --> 00:15:05.465
very good at capturing John
00:15:05.565 --> 00:15:07.285
Adams over a series of years.
00:15:10.287 --> 00:15:12.508
I wrote an entire chapter on
00:15:12.908 --> 00:15:13.808
this miniseries,
00:15:14.609 --> 00:15:16.509
as well as the McCullough biography.
00:15:17.629 --> 00:15:21.331
And one of the takeaways in
00:15:21.751 --> 00:15:25.453
really diving deep into that miniseries
00:15:26.562 --> 00:15:28.043
was sort of the
00:15:28.224 --> 00:15:30.186
one-dimensional John Adams
00:15:30.225 --> 00:15:32.628
that we see coming from home.
00:15:33.548 --> 00:15:35.429
He was clearly working from a script.
00:15:37.671 --> 00:15:40.553
But John Adams could be a
00:15:40.594 --> 00:15:41.673
very warm person.
00:15:42.235 --> 00:15:43.436
He loved deeply.
00:15:43.535 --> 00:15:44.716
He loved his friends.
00:15:45.576 --> 00:15:47.399
He had an incredible sense
00:15:47.418 --> 00:15:48.779
of humor that comes out in
00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:50.860
his diary and his correspondence.
00:15:51.761 --> 00:15:53.123
And all of that was missing.
00:15:53.654 --> 00:15:55.096
from the character.
00:15:55.115 --> 00:15:56.697
And I was interested to find
00:15:56.797 --> 00:15:57.778
out when I visited the
00:15:57.837 --> 00:15:58.899
Adams National Historical
00:15:58.938 --> 00:16:01.681
Park in Quincy that the
00:16:01.721 --> 00:16:03.481
interpreters there agreed with me.
00:16:04.243 --> 00:16:05.124
They said they were very
00:16:05.163 --> 00:16:07.264
disappointed that that part
00:16:07.304 --> 00:16:08.566
of John Adams did not
00:16:09.025 --> 00:16:10.628
emerge in the miniseries.
00:16:11.447 --> 00:16:12.889
So it's beautifully done.
00:16:14.389 --> 00:16:15.991
I praise Paul Giamatti and
00:16:16.032 --> 00:16:18.472
Laura Linney both for the
00:16:18.513 --> 00:16:19.354
work that they did.
00:16:20.966 --> 00:16:23.308
but they were only given so much.
00:16:23.370 --> 00:16:25.110
And even things that
00:16:25.150 --> 00:16:26.893
McCullough covered don't
00:16:26.932 --> 00:16:29.576
show up in the script.
00:16:29.635 --> 00:16:31.337
And I understand they were limited.
00:16:31.357 --> 00:16:32.899
It couldn't be a twenty part series,
00:16:32.940 --> 00:16:33.700
although I would have been
00:16:33.759 --> 00:16:34.441
okay with that.
00:16:35.381 --> 00:16:38.184
We all would have been, yeah.
00:16:38.566 --> 00:16:40.126
But still that one dimensional.
00:16:40.187 --> 00:16:42.409
And it's sort of a trope that has
00:16:43.706 --> 00:16:45.208
has gone through, there's a pattern,
00:16:45.349 --> 00:16:47.311
the what I call obnoxious
00:16:47.370 --> 00:16:48.472
and disliked trope that
00:16:48.513 --> 00:16:49.394
comes from seventeen
00:16:49.453 --> 00:16:51.456
seventy six sort of works
00:16:51.495 --> 00:16:52.256
through all of the
00:16:52.537 --> 00:16:54.340
depictions we've had of John Adams.
00:16:55.520 --> 00:16:56.962
And I would love to see a
00:16:57.023 --> 00:16:58.323
more three dimensional,
00:16:58.865 --> 00:17:00.726
four dimensional look at
00:17:00.787 --> 00:17:03.250
just to find all of his personality.
00:17:04.082 --> 00:17:04.342
Right.
00:17:04.362 --> 00:17:05.323
I think that's one of the
00:17:05.363 --> 00:17:07.644
things that McCullough does
00:17:07.763 --> 00:17:09.244
capture a lot of that.
00:17:09.285 --> 00:17:09.505
You know,
00:17:09.525 --> 00:17:10.605
he started off to write a book
00:17:10.625 --> 00:17:12.125
about Jefferson, then he said,
00:17:12.145 --> 00:17:13.487
I'll add Adams,
00:17:13.527 --> 00:17:14.827
and then found out Adams
00:17:14.847 --> 00:17:15.968
was a lot more interesting.
00:17:17.308 --> 00:17:17.608
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:17.628 --> 00:17:17.949
As he is.
00:17:18.048 --> 00:17:19.450
And if you notice reading the book,
00:17:19.789 --> 00:17:20.911
virtually every paragraph
00:17:20.971 --> 00:17:22.692
ends in John Adams's voice.
00:17:22.991 --> 00:17:23.352
Yes.
00:17:23.531 --> 00:17:27.713
And his way of writing and speaking and,
00:17:28.153 --> 00:17:29.075
yeah.
00:17:29.481 --> 00:17:30.083
That's fascinating.
00:17:30.103 --> 00:17:31.423
And another character who is
00:17:31.604 --> 00:17:32.483
one dimensional in our
00:17:32.503 --> 00:17:34.165
historical memory is Washington.
00:17:34.205 --> 00:17:35.247
Maybe that's one reason it's
00:17:35.307 --> 00:17:36.988
hard to translate them to film.
00:17:37.508 --> 00:17:37.888
Yes.
00:17:38.469 --> 00:17:39.390
Yeah, absolutely.
00:17:39.410 --> 00:17:41.491
And Washington didn't leave
00:17:41.592 --> 00:17:44.233
us nearly as much as John Adams did.
00:17:44.314 --> 00:17:47.296
John Adams is the dictionary
00:17:47.336 --> 00:17:48.857
definition of transparency.
00:17:50.179 --> 00:17:52.901
He just lays it all out there and there's,
00:17:52.921 --> 00:17:53.080
I mean,
00:17:53.121 --> 00:17:54.461
you've got a lot to work with there.
00:17:55.403 --> 00:17:56.903
Washington and Jefferson
00:17:56.963 --> 00:17:59.145
both played things pretty
00:17:59.602 --> 00:18:01.781
close to the chest there.
00:18:01.821 --> 00:18:05.643
So there's a lot that we have to guess at,
00:18:06.002 --> 00:18:06.982
a lot of assumptions that
00:18:07.002 --> 00:18:07.624
we have to make.
00:18:07.644 --> 00:18:10.304
And you also talk about the
00:18:10.403 --> 00:18:11.443
Seventeen Seventy-Six,
00:18:11.503 --> 00:18:13.224
both the musical and the play.
00:18:13.244 --> 00:18:14.204
And that's a curious one
00:18:14.224 --> 00:18:16.704
because it's about, not about a battle,
00:18:16.805 --> 00:18:18.306
it's about this basically
00:18:18.346 --> 00:18:19.846
debate in Congress.
00:18:19.986 --> 00:18:20.905
And I've had students who
00:18:20.945 --> 00:18:21.965
tell me when I say,
00:18:22.026 --> 00:18:22.586
I don't think there are
00:18:22.626 --> 00:18:23.807
good movies about the revolution.
00:18:23.826 --> 00:18:24.126
They say, well,
00:18:24.166 --> 00:18:25.727
what about Seventeen Seventy-Six?
00:18:25.747 --> 00:18:27.087
It's kind of heartening to hear that.
00:18:27.647 --> 00:18:28.008
Yes.
00:18:28.387 --> 00:18:28.627
Yeah.
00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:32.421
I know that some people who
00:18:32.500 --> 00:18:33.741
specialize in some of the
00:18:33.781 --> 00:18:35.462
other characters in that
00:18:35.502 --> 00:18:37.923
movie aren't as fond of it as I am.
00:18:38.124 --> 00:18:40.164
I've heard people who study
00:18:40.204 --> 00:18:42.886
Richard Henry Lee get very
00:18:42.987 --> 00:18:44.448
upset with that movie.
00:18:44.528 --> 00:18:46.489
And I understand that completely.
00:18:47.628 --> 00:18:49.210
But when it comes to the
00:18:49.230 --> 00:18:50.290
characterization of John
00:18:50.391 --> 00:18:51.632
Adams in particular,
00:18:52.531 --> 00:18:54.373
especially in that period of time,
00:18:54.712 --> 00:18:56.653
probably the most intense of his life,
00:18:58.394 --> 00:18:59.914
William Daniels is brilliant.
00:19:00.315 --> 00:19:02.175
And the script is brilliant there,
00:19:02.516 --> 00:19:02.875
I think.
00:19:03.715 --> 00:19:05.356
And so you throw in some
00:19:05.396 --> 00:19:06.277
singing and dancing.
00:19:08.377 --> 00:19:08.877
It's OK.
00:19:08.917 --> 00:19:10.078
You have to allow for that.
00:19:10.159 --> 00:19:12.079
But the nuance is there.
00:19:12.579 --> 00:19:13.880
And I think also,
00:19:14.921 --> 00:19:16.781
even though there are some
00:19:17.882 --> 00:19:19.042
funny moments and we
00:19:19.123 --> 00:19:21.022
humanize the founders in that movie,
00:19:21.624 --> 00:19:23.463
there's also a respect there.
00:19:25.874 --> 00:19:27.315
I don't want to say reverence so much,
00:19:27.335 --> 00:19:28.275
that sounds sacred,
00:19:28.375 --> 00:19:31.215
but I think especially in
00:19:31.236 --> 00:19:33.336
the closing moments of the film,
00:19:34.916 --> 00:19:38.557
you see this respect for
00:19:38.597 --> 00:19:40.138
these people and what they
00:19:40.179 --> 00:19:41.980
do and the sacrifices
00:19:42.019 --> 00:19:43.880
they've made at this point,
00:19:43.900 --> 00:19:45.580
which comes through in the film.
00:19:46.780 --> 00:19:46.881
Yes.
00:19:46.901 --> 00:19:48.422
We're talking with Marian Holtzcum,
00:19:48.622 --> 00:19:50.583
author of Based on a True Story.
00:19:52.733 --> 00:19:53.453
Abby Chandler,
00:19:53.473 --> 00:19:54.913
who is editing the H-Net
00:19:54.953 --> 00:19:55.994
series on remembering the
00:19:56.035 --> 00:19:57.434
revolution at two fifty.
00:19:57.954 --> 00:19:59.174
Two films you didn't mention.
00:19:59.194 --> 00:20:00.214
I'm not criticizing you.
00:20:00.275 --> 00:20:01.476
I know you had a choice that
00:20:01.536 --> 00:20:03.496
were Johnny Tremaine and
00:20:04.415 --> 00:20:05.596
Guns Along the Mohawk,
00:20:05.655 --> 00:20:07.936
which both are revolutionary.
00:20:08.376 --> 00:20:09.076
Johnny Tremaine,
00:20:09.136 --> 00:20:10.616
it's maybe before your time
00:20:10.836 --> 00:20:12.317
and definitely before Abby's time.
00:20:12.376 --> 00:20:13.637
But a lot of kids grew up
00:20:13.718 --> 00:20:14.877
seeing that as their first
00:20:14.917 --> 00:20:16.417
real exposure to the revolution.
00:20:16.597 --> 00:20:17.377
I know you've written about
00:20:17.978 --> 00:20:19.398
the Disney version of history,
00:20:19.459 --> 00:20:21.398
so maybe you've covered it already there.
00:20:21.499 --> 00:20:21.558
Yes.
00:20:22.474 --> 00:20:23.175
Yeah, I did.
00:20:23.736 --> 00:20:25.738
I covered Johnny Tremaine in
00:20:25.778 --> 00:20:28.259
that particular chapter in
00:20:28.299 --> 00:20:29.240
that edited volume.
00:20:30.781 --> 00:20:34.163
And my first or second draft
00:20:34.545 --> 00:20:36.266
of this article, Abby may remember,
00:20:36.766 --> 00:20:38.327
I did have a paragraph or
00:20:38.347 --> 00:20:39.669
two on Johnny Tremaine.
00:20:41.549 --> 00:20:44.211
When we decided to sort of refocus,
00:20:45.353 --> 00:20:46.874
I felt that I needed to
00:20:47.095 --> 00:20:48.375
take Johnny Tremaine out
00:20:48.415 --> 00:20:49.896
and I didn't really want to,
00:20:50.711 --> 00:20:52.452
but there was a word limit
00:20:53.334 --> 00:20:55.015
as well that I was working under.
00:20:55.875 --> 00:20:58.416
And I decided to really
00:20:58.497 --> 00:20:59.596
focus on some of these
00:20:59.656 --> 00:21:00.798
other films rather than
00:21:00.857 --> 00:21:02.898
just have a paragraph here on this one,
00:21:02.959 --> 00:21:05.060
a paragraph there on that.
00:21:05.141 --> 00:21:08.383
So, but- That makes sense.
00:21:08.423 --> 00:21:09.423
And I also applaud you for
00:21:09.542 --> 00:21:10.983
not simply rehashing what
00:21:11.003 --> 00:21:12.545
you've already said somewhere else.
00:21:13.184 --> 00:21:13.566
Thank you.
00:21:13.786 --> 00:21:14.746
Yeah.
00:21:15.047 --> 00:21:16.807
I certainly did not want to do that.
00:21:18.746 --> 00:21:20.347
But I think Johnny Tremaine
00:21:20.367 --> 00:21:21.208
is interesting.
00:21:22.328 --> 00:21:23.950
I've never read the original novel,
00:21:24.611 --> 00:21:27.432
but I have seen the movie several times,
00:21:27.573 --> 00:21:28.773
and it is one of those.
00:21:29.814 --> 00:21:32.737
It's also a coming-of-age story,
00:21:34.357 --> 00:21:36.318
which is huge in
00:21:36.839 --> 00:21:40.182
revolutionary plays and novels, and it's
00:21:40.599 --> 00:21:41.661
that seems to be a theme
00:21:41.701 --> 00:21:43.761
because we were coming of age too,
00:21:43.862 --> 00:21:45.701
I guess, as Asian or something.
00:21:45.742 --> 00:21:48.763
And so you, you see this parallel a lot,
00:21:49.084 --> 00:21:51.325
but I've,
00:21:51.684 --> 00:21:53.405
I've wondered since I've started
00:21:53.445 --> 00:21:53.986
working on,
00:21:54.267 --> 00:21:55.846
on this project and I was looking at,
00:21:56.067 --> 00:21:57.208
at the historiography,
00:21:57.428 --> 00:21:59.628
it may be a full length
00:21:59.669 --> 00:22:03.371
book might be in order to
00:22:03.770 --> 00:22:05.291
cover all of these things.
00:22:06.203 --> 00:22:07.786
without me rehashing things
00:22:07.806 --> 00:22:08.866
that I've already done and
00:22:08.906 --> 00:22:10.067
other people have done.
00:22:10.087 --> 00:22:11.288
I'm still thinking about that,
00:22:11.348 --> 00:22:13.030
and I'm going to ask Abby's
00:22:13.290 --> 00:22:15.794
advice on that as well.
00:22:16.314 --> 00:22:17.055
And Abby,
00:22:17.795 --> 00:22:20.178
what other projects do you see coming up,
00:22:20.278 --> 00:22:21.538
and what next topics will
00:22:21.558 --> 00:22:23.381
you be tackling in the HNET series?
00:22:24.394 --> 00:22:27.756
So we actually have one
00:22:27.796 --> 00:22:29.336
essay that's in layout right now.
00:22:29.776 --> 00:22:31.176
So it's going to be coming
00:22:31.396 --> 00:22:33.636
out probably two weeks,
00:22:33.717 --> 00:22:35.637
maybe three weeks at the longest.
00:22:36.498 --> 00:22:38.117
And this is actually the
00:22:38.178 --> 00:22:42.098
first of two essays in the
00:22:42.138 --> 00:22:44.579
Revolution for a New Century category.
00:22:45.319 --> 00:22:49.121
And it's written by three scholars
00:22:49.840 --> 00:22:51.162
who are affiliated with the
00:22:51.241 --> 00:22:53.664
Old North Church in Boston.
00:22:54.505 --> 00:22:56.307
And the original essay that
00:22:56.346 --> 00:22:58.588
they sent us was looking at
00:22:58.628 --> 00:23:00.851
how their interpretation of
00:23:00.911 --> 00:23:02.472
the revolution and of the
00:23:02.512 --> 00:23:04.494
community around the Old
00:23:04.535 --> 00:23:07.057
North Church in the eighteenth century
00:23:08.659 --> 00:23:09.960
or how their interpretation
00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.842
of that community has evolved over time.
00:23:13.843 --> 00:23:17.286
And we eventually decided
00:23:17.546 --> 00:23:21.929
that it would work better as two essays.
00:23:22.269 --> 00:23:23.250
So the first essay that
00:23:23.289 --> 00:23:25.092
we'll be publishing in the
00:23:25.112 --> 00:23:27.953
next couple of weeks is a
00:23:28.034 --> 00:23:30.615
history of the Old North Church
00:23:31.517 --> 00:23:32.778
in the eighteenth century,
00:23:32.798 --> 00:23:33.678
which is particularly
00:23:33.738 --> 00:23:37.378
focused on the very multicultural,
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:39.740
multiracial community that
00:23:39.779 --> 00:23:42.701
were part of that congregation.
00:23:43.582 --> 00:23:46.863
And we decided that because
00:23:46.883 --> 00:23:47.784
that's a story that's not
00:23:47.864 --> 00:23:49.364
usually associated with the
00:23:49.443 --> 00:23:50.365
Old North Church,
00:23:51.005 --> 00:23:52.325
that we wanted to give
00:23:52.405 --> 00:23:54.506
people that back history.
00:23:55.027 --> 00:23:56.886
And then the second essay,
00:23:57.007 --> 00:23:58.208
which we'll be publishing
00:23:58.748 --> 00:24:00.788
early in twenty twenty five,
00:24:01.229 --> 00:24:02.470
looks at how their
00:24:02.509 --> 00:24:03.991
interpretation has evolved.
00:24:04.011 --> 00:24:05.333
Interesting.
00:24:05.693 --> 00:24:06.795
Yes.
00:24:06.835 --> 00:24:09.897
That's what we have immediately coming.
00:24:10.878 --> 00:24:14.843
The other thing we have
00:24:14.903 --> 00:24:18.926
coming along is a series of
00:24:19.126 --> 00:24:21.229
essays looking at the
00:24:21.288 --> 00:24:24.092
experiences of loyalists.
00:24:25.233 --> 00:24:29.159
And that collection is near
00:24:29.179 --> 00:24:29.960
and dear to my heart
00:24:29.980 --> 00:24:31.762
because I am a Loyola scholar,
00:24:32.304 --> 00:24:35.087
but did not come about
00:24:35.548 --> 00:24:37.211
because of that particular
00:24:37.270 --> 00:24:38.132
interest of mine.
00:24:38.471 --> 00:24:39.354
We just kept getting
00:24:39.394 --> 00:24:41.316
proposals for Loyola collections.
00:24:42.396 --> 00:24:45.018
And maybe that may be people looking at,
00:24:45.097 --> 00:24:45.358
okay,
00:24:45.398 --> 00:24:47.419
the lead editor is a Loyalist scholar,
00:24:47.459 --> 00:24:49.279
so maybe this is a journal
00:24:49.299 --> 00:24:50.681
that's interested in Loyalists.
00:24:50.921 --> 00:24:53.521
But the first of those
00:24:53.582 --> 00:24:55.022
essays we'll be publishing
00:24:55.182 --> 00:24:57.604
is one looking at Loyalists
00:24:57.644 --> 00:24:59.404
in memory in the United States.
00:24:59.944 --> 00:25:01.204
We're also working with a
00:25:01.265 --> 00:25:03.365
scholar based in Canada,
00:25:03.826 --> 00:25:05.487
a Loyalist in memory in Canada.
00:25:05.887 --> 00:25:08.328
We're working with one based in the UK.
00:25:09.368 --> 00:25:11.549
because because the
00:25:11.589 --> 00:25:13.550
loyalists become the
00:25:13.570 --> 00:25:15.571
loyalist diaspora we really
00:25:15.612 --> 00:25:17.333
wanted to look at well how
00:25:17.373 --> 00:25:18.773
do other people in other
00:25:18.814 --> 00:25:20.775
countries remember that
00:25:20.815 --> 00:25:23.036
particular people so that
00:25:23.115 --> 00:25:24.196
gives you a sense of where
00:25:24.237 --> 00:25:26.498
we are headed that's
00:25:26.518 --> 00:25:27.577
interesting and it is I I
00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:29.338
think the study of
00:25:29.419 --> 00:25:30.339
loyalists is picking up
00:25:30.359 --> 00:25:31.779
maybe because we recognize
00:25:31.819 --> 00:25:34.142
now the complexity and the
00:25:34.162 --> 00:25:36.883
shift in the ambiguous alliances and the
00:25:37.509 --> 00:25:39.351
prevailing idea here was
00:25:39.391 --> 00:25:41.211
that everyone was on the same side.
00:25:41.231 --> 00:25:42.073
And when we know that
00:25:42.173 --> 00:25:43.273
actually this was really a
00:25:43.314 --> 00:25:45.536
contested story at the time,
00:25:45.576 --> 00:25:47.897
which the Patriot kind of says,
00:25:47.958 --> 00:25:49.378
although the bad guys
00:25:49.440 --> 00:25:50.580
really are the bad guys,
00:25:51.580 --> 00:25:52.823
but it is these choices
00:25:52.843 --> 00:25:54.203
people are making because
00:25:54.243 --> 00:25:56.005
an interesting theme in the revolution.
00:25:57.566 --> 00:25:58.867
And one of the things these
00:25:58.948 --> 00:26:01.309
essays are getting at is
00:26:02.231 --> 00:26:03.593
the choices people are
00:26:03.633 --> 00:26:05.634
making are not necessarily
00:26:05.675 --> 00:26:07.738
for political reasons.
00:26:08.598 --> 00:26:09.880
In the
00:26:12.039 --> 00:26:15.462
british army has done more
00:26:15.542 --> 00:26:17.884
proclamation if you are an
00:26:17.944 --> 00:26:19.547
enslaved african-american
00:26:19.987 --> 00:26:22.909
and you belong to a patriot
00:26:22.930 --> 00:26:24.411
family and you run away and
00:26:24.451 --> 00:26:26.112
join the british army you
00:26:26.152 --> 00:26:27.733
will be set free
00:26:30.718 --> 00:26:32.298
And the Museum of the
00:26:32.318 --> 00:26:33.319
American Revolution in
00:26:33.339 --> 00:26:35.201
Philadelphia has an exhibit
00:26:35.461 --> 00:26:36.500
about those people,
00:26:36.840 --> 00:26:39.742
which has this really straight,
00:26:39.782 --> 00:26:42.243
it's a diorama, and above it, it reads,
00:26:42.304 --> 00:26:44.546
sometimes freedom wore a red coat.
00:26:44.865 --> 00:26:45.705
Right, yeah.
00:26:45.885 --> 00:26:47.707
Yeah.
00:26:47.787 --> 00:26:48.347
It's interesting.
00:26:48.367 --> 00:26:50.429
This, you know, and Marianne,
00:26:50.469 --> 00:26:52.410
in a couple of the films you mentioned,
00:26:52.970 --> 00:26:54.651
there is this reluctant warrior.
00:26:54.691 --> 00:26:56.071
I didn't want to go to war, but.
00:26:56.553 --> 00:26:57.432
Right.
00:26:57.554 --> 00:26:58.673
And that's certainly here.
00:26:58.713 --> 00:26:59.894
And people are making this
00:26:59.954 --> 00:27:01.756
choice for a lot of reasons
00:27:01.796 --> 00:27:04.116
aside from having read Thomas Paine.
00:27:04.136 --> 00:27:04.517
That is,
00:27:04.576 --> 00:27:06.837
it's something else in South Carolina.
00:27:06.857 --> 00:27:07.699
You know,
00:27:07.719 --> 00:27:08.598
you never really liked your
00:27:08.638 --> 00:27:11.181
neighbors or they raided
00:27:11.201 --> 00:27:12.560
your house and raped your
00:27:12.601 --> 00:27:14.563
wife and burned your burned your barn.
00:27:14.603 --> 00:27:15.762
These kinds of things,
00:27:15.843 --> 00:27:17.163
which whatever side you're on,
00:27:17.203 --> 00:27:18.845
that is going to turn you
00:27:19.025 --> 00:27:21.145
away from whoever is doing that.
00:27:22.489 --> 00:27:22.689
Right.
00:27:22.769 --> 00:27:25.049
And I think it, it gets back to the,
00:27:25.109 --> 00:27:25.690
the saying, you know,
00:27:25.750 --> 00:27:29.092
all politics are local, um, you know, how,
00:27:29.132 --> 00:27:30.692
depending on what is
00:27:30.732 --> 00:27:31.972
happening to you right,
00:27:32.534 --> 00:27:34.433
right now in your place
00:27:34.554 --> 00:27:37.476
with your neighbors, um, terminal lot.
00:27:38.215 --> 00:27:41.938
Um, and I've thought for a long time, um,
00:27:42.117 --> 00:27:44.138
that it would be nice in
00:27:44.239 --> 00:27:45.358
revolutionary scholarship.
00:27:45.419 --> 00:27:46.359
If we could come up with
00:27:46.380 --> 00:27:48.540
some different terms to refer to people,
00:27:49.421 --> 00:27:51.241
uh, Patriot is pretty,
00:27:52.076 --> 00:27:55.398
um and and do we say that
00:27:55.459 --> 00:27:57.901
people who were loyal
00:27:58.280 --> 00:28:00.122
weren't patriotic I don't
00:28:00.142 --> 00:28:03.263
think that's fair yeah I I
00:28:03.364 --> 00:28:04.384
wish we could come up with
00:28:04.423 --> 00:28:05.944
some from different ways to
00:28:06.005 --> 00:28:07.405
refer to these people but
00:28:07.586 --> 00:28:08.866
I'm I'm not sure that's
00:28:09.267 --> 00:28:10.147
that's going to happen
00:28:10.188 --> 00:28:12.729
anytime soon no it may be
00:28:12.828 --> 00:28:14.650
too why you make the case
00:28:14.670 --> 00:28:16.111
that some of the television
00:28:16.171 --> 00:28:18.873
adaptations have done better and the um
00:28:21.011 --> 00:28:21.852
And maybe that's because you
00:28:21.872 --> 00:28:23.053
have a smaller scale there
00:28:23.093 --> 00:28:23.853
where you can actually can
00:28:23.913 --> 00:28:26.054
have these smaller moments
00:28:26.213 --> 00:28:27.154
where someone is making
00:28:27.174 --> 00:28:28.435
this choice on TV as
00:28:28.476 --> 00:28:30.636
opposed to on the big screen.
00:28:31.217 --> 00:28:32.317
Yeah, absolutely.
00:28:33.238 --> 00:28:34.638
I think overall,
00:28:35.219 --> 00:28:36.380
television has done a
00:28:36.420 --> 00:28:37.700
better job with this.
00:28:39.101 --> 00:28:42.722
And that includes PBS.
00:28:43.002 --> 00:28:43.242
I mean,
00:28:43.544 --> 00:28:44.844
they have obviously come up with
00:28:44.884 --> 00:28:47.306
some really good things lately.
00:28:49.442 --> 00:28:50.384
I would be interested,
00:28:50.564 --> 00:28:52.084
as I was writing this piece,
00:28:53.305 --> 00:28:54.665
the Ben Franklin series
00:28:54.685 --> 00:28:55.945
came out on Apple TV.
00:28:56.686 --> 00:28:57.846
And I haven't seen it yet,
00:28:57.906 --> 00:29:01.328
so I can't really judge what that's like.
00:29:01.469 --> 00:29:03.250
I know being a John Adams scholar,
00:29:03.289 --> 00:29:04.430
I'm probably not going to
00:29:04.450 --> 00:29:06.951
be hugely happy with his depiction.
00:29:07.211 --> 00:29:10.614
But being reminded that it's
00:29:10.634 --> 00:29:11.993
from Franklin's perspective.
00:29:12.534 --> 00:29:14.134
Right, right, right.
00:29:14.194 --> 00:29:16.175
Franklin doesn't come across
00:29:16.215 --> 00:29:17.576
very well in McCullough's book either.
00:29:17.998 --> 00:29:19.739
right no oh no he does not
00:29:19.858 --> 00:29:21.539
so you know it's all about
00:29:21.819 --> 00:29:23.339
perspective and perception
00:29:24.361 --> 00:29:29.042
um but I I think overall if
00:29:29.083 --> 00:29:30.222
you look at the television
00:29:30.343 --> 00:29:31.624
offerings there's there's a
00:29:32.483 --> 00:29:40.428
at least a much more thoughtful way of
00:29:41.247 --> 00:29:42.208
at some of these things
00:29:42.907 --> 00:29:44.128
because yes you are
00:29:44.189 --> 00:29:45.608
touching on on the smaller
00:29:45.648 --> 00:29:46.589
moments and you're getting
00:29:46.609 --> 00:29:47.990
the intimate conversations
00:29:48.030 --> 00:29:48.971
about why people are doing
00:29:49.010 --> 00:29:51.333
what they're doing I can
00:29:51.353 --> 00:29:52.252
just share a story about
00:29:52.292 --> 00:29:53.574
the making of john adams
00:29:53.713 --> 00:29:54.753
and you know jeff
00:29:54.794 --> 00:29:55.734
mccullough is a very good
00:29:55.755 --> 00:29:56.474
friend this is david
00:29:56.494 --> 00:29:58.415
mccullough's son and he
00:29:58.476 --> 00:30:00.978
went to be an extra in the
00:30:01.018 --> 00:30:02.157
filming of john adams you
00:30:02.178 --> 00:30:02.939
may know this he didn't
00:30:02.979 --> 00:30:04.019
tell anyone didn't tell
00:30:04.058 --> 00:30:04.940
anyone in the family
00:30:05.430 --> 00:30:07.171
But he went down to Williamsburg,
00:30:07.211 --> 00:30:07.631
signed up,
00:30:07.671 --> 00:30:09.392
and he is in the jury during
00:30:09.432 --> 00:30:11.333
the trial of the soldiers.
00:30:11.752 --> 00:30:12.513
And he's sitting there in
00:30:12.534 --> 00:30:15.414
the front of the jury box in costume.
00:30:15.694 --> 00:30:18.096
And Paul Giamatti is getting ready.
00:30:18.135 --> 00:30:19.696
He's pacing back and forth
00:30:19.757 --> 00:30:20.538
in front of the jury,
00:30:20.577 --> 00:30:22.077
getting ready for his scene.
00:30:22.499 --> 00:30:23.078
And all of a sudden,
00:30:23.098 --> 00:30:24.880
he stops in front of Jeff, turns to him,
00:30:24.900 --> 00:30:25.279
and says,
00:30:25.700 --> 00:30:27.461
tell your dad I'm not going to F this up.
00:30:27.921 --> 00:30:28.442
And then he goes off.
00:30:28.461 --> 00:30:28.781
I love it.
00:30:36.089 --> 00:30:36.911
And I guess he didn't.
00:30:37.010 --> 00:30:41.673
So, but yeah, yeah.
00:30:41.693 --> 00:30:43.414
So you also,
00:30:43.776 --> 00:30:45.016
and in your discussion of Mary
00:30:45.036 --> 00:30:45.517
Silliman's War,
00:30:45.537 --> 00:30:47.077
you also talk about that ambiguity.
00:30:47.117 --> 00:30:48.157
And that is also a film
00:30:48.178 --> 00:30:49.479
that's made for a smaller moment.
00:30:49.499 --> 00:30:49.558
Yes.
00:30:49.920 --> 00:30:50.220
Yes.
00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:50.900
Yeah.
00:30:50.920 --> 00:30:51.441
Oh, yeah.
00:30:53.162 --> 00:30:54.442
Abby, do you want to,
00:30:54.462 --> 00:30:56.144
you were much more familiar
00:30:56.163 --> 00:30:57.704
with Mary Silliman's War than I was.
00:30:57.724 --> 00:30:59.605
And I appreciated being
00:30:59.645 --> 00:31:01.326
guided there because I had
00:31:01.366 --> 00:31:02.407
not seen it before.
00:31:03.119 --> 00:31:06.101
So I first saw that film in college, again,
00:31:06.382 --> 00:31:07.561
as a history major.
00:31:08.041 --> 00:31:09.522
It was a class on the
00:31:09.542 --> 00:31:11.544
American Revolution taught
00:31:11.564 --> 00:31:14.865
by the professor who also
00:31:14.925 --> 00:31:16.346
taught classes on women in
00:31:16.405 --> 00:31:17.527
American history.
00:31:18.346 --> 00:31:20.367
And she used it in class.
00:31:20.929 --> 00:31:23.150
And I remember being very struck by it.
00:31:23.710 --> 00:31:25.711
And then years later,
00:31:25.951 --> 00:31:27.172
I had become a professor.
00:31:28.462 --> 00:31:30.443
which was not something I
00:31:30.624 --> 00:31:31.544
ever thought I would do.
00:31:32.304 --> 00:31:34.384
And I was teaching a class
00:31:34.424 --> 00:31:35.444
in the American Revolution
00:31:35.484 --> 00:31:37.286
for the first time and thought, oh,
00:31:38.465 --> 00:31:39.807
I remember liking that.
00:31:40.686 --> 00:31:42.326
And I tracked it down.
00:31:42.586 --> 00:31:45.028
What I did not realize at
00:31:45.048 --> 00:31:47.509
the time when I was in college was that
00:31:48.435 --> 00:31:50.477
that my professor who
00:31:50.537 --> 00:31:52.377
assigned it at the time,
00:31:52.679 --> 00:31:53.959
Mary Solomon's War had only
00:31:53.999 --> 00:31:55.720
just been made a year or two before.
00:31:56.840 --> 00:32:00.563
It was a very new movie at that time.
00:32:01.243 --> 00:32:04.905
And so rewatching it two decades later,
00:32:05.526 --> 00:32:06.426
one of the things that
00:32:06.507 --> 00:32:09.909
struck me was that it felt
00:32:10.449 --> 00:32:11.630
as fresh as it did when I
00:32:11.670 --> 00:32:14.131
saw it as a college student in the early
00:32:16.152 --> 00:32:18.232
And there's a wonderful
00:32:18.894 --> 00:32:20.494
website called Frogflix,
00:32:20.795 --> 00:32:23.496
which specializes in
00:32:23.856 --> 00:32:25.317
critiquing historical
00:32:25.356 --> 00:32:27.719
clothing in period film.
00:32:28.439 --> 00:32:29.500
And one of the points they
00:32:29.539 --> 00:32:31.401
make is that you can often
00:32:31.480 --> 00:32:33.321
date a film by the hairstyles.
00:32:34.342 --> 00:32:36.983
that the hairstyles will
00:32:37.064 --> 00:32:38.124
often reflect what's going
00:32:38.223 --> 00:32:40.744
on in whatever era it is.
00:32:41.546 --> 00:32:43.426
And Mary Silliman's War is
00:32:43.547 --> 00:32:45.086
one of those rare films
00:32:45.587 --> 00:32:46.968
where you watch it and you
00:32:47.008 --> 00:32:49.088
can't quite tell when it was made.
00:32:49.108 --> 00:32:50.269
I mean, okay, yes,
00:32:50.750 --> 00:32:52.871
the production values at this point,
00:32:54.632 --> 00:32:55.873
but otherwise,
00:32:57.361 --> 00:33:00.221
it really has a very timeless feel.
00:33:00.281 --> 00:33:02.721
It is not tied to the decade
00:33:02.821 --> 00:33:04.143
in which it was produced.
00:33:04.303 --> 00:33:06.083
I think is one of the things
00:33:06.103 --> 00:33:07.723
that Marianne really got at
00:33:07.763 --> 00:33:10.904
with her essay is how much
00:33:11.404 --> 00:33:12.384
each of these films in the
00:33:12.424 --> 00:33:13.565
revolution reflect the
00:33:13.605 --> 00:33:15.425
periods in which they were made.
00:33:17.106 --> 00:33:17.646
So, yes,
00:33:17.846 --> 00:33:19.868
I wish Mary Silliman's war was
00:33:19.929 --> 00:33:20.650
better known.
00:33:21.069 --> 00:33:22.590
And as both of you have said,
00:33:22.951 --> 00:33:24.133
I think it really does get
00:33:24.192 --> 00:33:26.193
at the nuances of the
00:33:26.213 --> 00:33:27.655
decisions that people are
00:33:27.675 --> 00:33:31.057
making in a small community.
00:33:31.138 --> 00:33:32.219
And one of the things that I
00:33:32.559 --> 00:33:33.820
really liked about it is
00:33:33.861 --> 00:33:35.701
that you often hear about
00:33:36.282 --> 00:33:40.365
the quote unquote patriot
00:33:40.445 --> 00:33:42.768
loyalists divide in the South.
00:33:42.948 --> 00:33:43.449
Mm hmm.
00:33:43.924 --> 00:33:45.285
don't hear a lot about that
00:33:45.326 --> 00:33:46.625
happening in New England.
00:33:47.266 --> 00:33:49.307
And Mary Solomon's war is in Connecticut.
00:33:50.446 --> 00:33:51.347
So that's one of the things
00:33:51.407 --> 00:33:52.948
I found really interesting
00:33:53.728 --> 00:33:54.749
about that film.
00:33:56.368 --> 00:33:59.931
And her story is that it's
00:33:59.990 --> 00:34:00.851
New England where you're
00:34:00.871 --> 00:34:02.671
seeing these clashes happening as well.
00:34:03.231 --> 00:34:04.071
Right.
00:34:04.132 --> 00:34:05.692
Another piece that it gets
00:34:05.772 --> 00:34:07.212
is the role of religion.
00:34:07.512 --> 00:34:10.034
That is, the pastor is her counselor.
00:34:10.094 --> 00:34:12.215
And this is a big part of her choice.
00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:14.260
And you're right.
00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:16.021
You also make the point about the,
00:34:16.541 --> 00:34:17.001
you know,
00:34:17.402 --> 00:34:19.423
the Patriot doesn't cover that
00:34:20.744 --> 00:34:22.547
intensity of the loyalist
00:34:22.606 --> 00:34:24.168
feeling in South Carolina
00:34:24.208 --> 00:34:25.789
the way Mary Silliman's war
00:34:25.809 --> 00:34:26.750
does of what's happening
00:34:26.769 --> 00:34:28.110
here among really ordinary people.
00:34:29.331 --> 00:34:29.532
Yeah.
00:34:29.733 --> 00:34:34.476
And the Patriot clearly
00:34:34.717 --> 00:34:38.420
wanted to concentrate on good American,
00:34:38.460 --> 00:34:39.340
bad English.
00:34:39.721 --> 00:34:39.800
Yeah.
00:34:40.771 --> 00:34:42.492
and making the English the villains.
00:34:42.713 --> 00:34:44.414
So if you have that tension
00:34:44.474 --> 00:34:47.476
between Americans,
00:34:47.536 --> 00:34:48.817
you can't really go there.
00:34:48.856 --> 00:34:50.478
You can't tell that story.
00:34:52.478 --> 00:34:54.721
And the other interesting
00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:56.501
aspect of that is if you
00:34:56.561 --> 00:34:57.623
look at something like
00:34:57.663 --> 00:34:59.063
Disney's The Swamp Fox,
00:35:00.003 --> 00:35:01.405
you get a very different message.
00:35:02.166 --> 00:35:05.967
You see that tension between
00:35:06.128 --> 00:35:09.791
Americans in a Disney television show.
00:35:12.518 --> 00:35:14.380
in the Patriot, really.
00:35:14.400 --> 00:35:16.161
It's fascinating.
00:35:16.262 --> 00:35:17.844
And about twenty years earlier, too,
00:35:17.884 --> 00:35:19.045
they captured that.
00:35:19.065 --> 00:35:21.067
Exactly, yeah.
00:35:21.126 --> 00:35:21.688
I think, you know,
00:35:21.728 --> 00:35:23.510
Mel Gibson hates the British Empire,
00:35:23.550 --> 00:35:25.110
so that's kind of a running
00:35:25.130 --> 00:35:26.193
theme of his film.
00:35:26.213 --> 00:35:28.434
That's another pattern, definitely, yeah.
00:35:29.956 --> 00:35:30.197
Yeah.
00:35:31.693 --> 00:35:32.295
Well, thank you.
00:35:32.434 --> 00:35:34.115
We've been talking with Abby Chandler,
00:35:34.195 --> 00:35:35.677
a professor of history at
00:35:35.737 --> 00:35:37.277
the University of Massachusetts Lowell,
00:35:37.297 --> 00:35:38.579
who's editing H-Net's
00:35:38.659 --> 00:35:40.320
Remembering the American Revolution,
00:35:40.340 --> 00:35:41.681
a two-fifty collection.
00:35:41.721 --> 00:35:43.902
And the first issue has just
00:35:43.961 --> 00:35:45.864
dropped free online at
00:35:46.204 --> 00:35:47.465
H-Net for anyone to read,
00:35:47.784 --> 00:35:48.865
based on a true story,
00:35:48.925 --> 00:35:49.806
Remembering the American
00:35:49.846 --> 00:35:51.166
Revolution through Film,
00:35:51.286 --> 00:35:52.847
which Marianne Holtzcum
00:35:52.887 --> 00:35:54.088
from Kennesaw State
00:35:54.128 --> 00:35:55.289
University has written.
00:35:55.349 --> 00:35:56.871
And Marianne's written other things.
00:35:56.891 --> 00:35:58.472
And Marianne's also doing a new book on
00:35:58.942 --> 00:36:00.523
Place and the Revolutions.
00:36:00.543 --> 00:36:01.324
We'll have to have you back
00:36:01.364 --> 00:36:03.146
to talk about that at some point.
00:36:03.166 --> 00:36:05.108
So thank you both for joining us.
00:36:05.128 --> 00:36:06.929
It's been fun talking to you.
00:36:07.010 --> 00:36:07.990
Thank you for having us.
00:36:08.172 --> 00:36:08.711
Thank you.
00:36:09.353 --> 00:36:10.693
And let me thank Jonathan Lane,
00:36:10.713 --> 00:36:12.755
our producer, our man behind the curtain.
00:36:12.996 --> 00:36:14.717
And I want to thank our listeners.
00:36:14.757 --> 00:36:16.000
Every week we thank folks in
00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:16.940
different places who are
00:36:16.960 --> 00:36:18.161
tuning in regularly.
00:36:18.860 --> 00:36:20.302
And we have actually all
00:36:20.382 --> 00:36:21.623
over the world tuning in.
00:36:22.244 --> 00:36:22.885
So this week,
00:36:22.925 --> 00:36:23.626
if you're in one of these
00:36:23.666 --> 00:36:24.869
places and want some of our
00:36:24.909 --> 00:36:26.490
Revolution two fifty swag,
00:36:26.510 --> 00:36:27.773
send Jonathan an email.
00:36:27.813 --> 00:36:30.215
Jay Lane at Revolution two fifty dot org.
00:36:31.099 --> 00:36:31.780
And by the way,
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:32.800
it's just occurring to me
00:36:32.840 --> 00:36:34.061
how appropriate it was that
00:36:34.081 --> 00:36:35.541
we found someone named
00:36:35.581 --> 00:36:37.023
Jonathan to be the director
00:36:37.043 --> 00:36:38.242
of Revolution Two-Fifty.
00:36:38.262 --> 00:36:41.445
So folks in Leawood,
00:36:41.485 --> 00:36:43.686
Kansas and Santa Rosa and
00:36:43.746 --> 00:36:46.268
San Francisco in California, Queens,
00:36:46.307 --> 00:36:48.048
New York, Hamilton, New Jersey,
00:36:48.088 --> 00:36:49.590
places between and beyond.
00:36:49.610 --> 00:36:50.891
And now we will be piped out
00:36:51.291 --> 00:36:52.251
on the road to Boston.
00:36:52.311 --> 00:36:52.692
Thank you.