Evan Feist AP American History
Summer Assignment Choice I: Hollywood vs. History
The 1972 film 1776 is a cute whimsical musical. Yet, although it is entertaining and fun, it is not a very good source of historical information. It has a lot of the events and people, but they are extremely exaggeration to be comical and are very vague and brief with events. It exists with the sole purpose of being a light amusing historical lesson.
There were many of historical events that did occur during that time that were portrayed in the film. A lot of them were an exaggeration, but truth-based. The most obvious event was the actual writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was depicted accurately in that it was written by Thomas Jefferson and redrafted by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Regarding the signing, it was not signed by the entire Congress on July 4th 1776; most of the delegates signed next August. Also, the decision to open debate about independence is represented quite humorously. I doubt that everyone in Congress thought John Adams to be obnoxious and annoying; but then again, I also doubt that they randomly broke out into song and dance either! But, it did take awhile for John Adams to persuade the American colonies to support a resolution on independence. The characters in the film were true to their individual personalities to an extent in that the actors avoided crossing the line into buffoonish embellishment (with an exception to John Adams). Jefferson was reserved and "love struck" and Franklin was old, wise, and a little bit gouty in the leg. It's very surprising but large portions of spoken and sung dialogue was taken directly from the letters and memoirs of the actual participants of the Continental Congress.
Summer Assignment Choice I: Hollywood vs. History
The 1972 film 1776 is a cute whimsical musical. Yet, although it is entertaining and fun, it is not a very good source of historical information. It has a lot of the events and people, but they are extremely exaggeration to be comical and are very vague and brief with events. It exists with the sole purpose of being a light amusing historical lesson.
There were many of historical events that did occur during that time that were portrayed in the film. A lot of them were an exaggeration, but truth-based. The most obvious event was the actual writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was depicted accurately in that it was written by Thomas Jefferson and redrafted by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Regarding the signing, it was not signed by the entire Congress on July 4th 1776; most of the delegates signed next August. Also, the decision to open debate about independence is represented quite humorously. I doubt that everyone in Congress thought John Adams to be obnoxious and annoying; but then again, I also doubt that they randomly broke out into song and dance either! But, it did take awhile for John Adams to persuade the American colonies to support a resolution on independence. The characters in the film were true to their individual personalities to an extent in that the actors avoided crossing the line into buffoonish embellishment (with an exception to John Adams). Jefferson was reserved and "love struck" and Franklin was old, wise, and a little bit gouty in the leg. It's very surprising but large portions of spoken and sung dialogue was taken directly from the letters and memoirs of the actual participants of the Continental Congress.
