A more perfect union

This week in class, we watched A More Perfect Union: America Becomes a Nation





Just to start this blog out on a lighter note, my friend Derk looks exactly like Craig Wasson, who played James Madison in the movie. A total Doppelgänger. I pointed this out to Derk, and this photo is now his Facebook profile picture. Win.

On a more substantive note, I keep noticing in every film that we watch the differences between the characters and personalities of the Founders. I sometimes think of them as a monolithic block of upper-class white men in wigs. How wrong could I be! Benjamin Franklin's hair was totally real.

But seriously, the creation of the Constitution required serious sacrifice and compromise between competing ideas of what a good government would be. It is really incredible that the document they were able to draw up has lasted as long as it has, especially with only minor revisions. The fundamental premise of our government has remained what James Madison organized and wrote and compromised into the Constitution.

Interesting to me, in the film, was the debate over the Bill of Rights - that states would protect those rights, and that the prescribed system of government would check that.

Last, and I know this is sort of a weak-sauce blog entry, and further, I write this doubting that the TAs actually read our blogs, but why are we watching movies instead of having class lecture? How does a C-list film produced by BYU replace a lecture from a PhD? This is an honors class, and I can see the value of watching films as a supplement to lecture, but totally replacing class with a movie? I'm always a little sketched out by historical films in any case, because how can you represent another time period accurately?

Sorry to be critical, I just expected more from an Honors course.

The struggle.

This week's blog topic is the big questions the Founding Fathers wrestled with in creating the constitution.

Unfortunately, I can't dig up the drive in myself to write 600-800 words about these big questions, so I hereby forfeit my weekly blog points.

Better luck next time.

John Adams on the silver screen

First, I'm glad that Tom Hanks made this film. In general, it seemed to be quite honest in its portrayal of the Continental Congress. I think we sometimes forget how much internal struggle existed before the colonies finally united. Of course, there's only so much we can realistically recreate, be it in a film or in a novel, because the documents that still exist aren't of a descriptive nature – they don't say things like, "The air in the Congressional hall hung heavy with tension," – nor do they contain personal details like, "John and Abigail shared a tender moment sitting on the edge of their nuptial bed." So the artist has to take some liberties and experiment. I thought Hanks did a great job of capturing his audience's attention but keeping the film historically accurate.

Second, I absolutely loved the Ben Franklin character. He was hysterically funny, yet had wise insights into the politics of the Congress. If Ben was anything like that in real life, I want to be friends with him in the life to come.

Third, I wondered why Hanks chose to include the scenes of the children’s inoculation. It’s scientifically interesting from a medical-historical perspective, but it doesn’t seem to fit clearly into the central story, at least not explicitly. I wonder if perhaps Hanks included to stand as a sort of metaphor for the colonies’ decision to break ties with England.

For example, the doctor warns Abigail Adams of the dangers associated with inoculation – illness, even death, potentially. Yet she decides the risk of inoculation is worth it to protect her children. This is similar to the risk the colonies took in seceding from Britain and declaring their independence. They faced extreme risks. In spite of Thomas Paine’s optimism for America’s political and economic stability, the colonies stepped out onto a political and financial ‘limb’ by challenging Britain, a major world power.

Similarly, the American colonies were still in their ‘childhood’ – they didn’t have centuries upon centuries of independent history like Great Britain did. They described their relationship with Britain in terms of ‘mother’ country and ‘child.’

Further, in seceding, the American colonies weakened themselves, just as Abigail’s daughter succumbed to an infection from her inoculation. Yet America emerged stronger from her period of challenge and testing.

The film interpreted this time in John Adams life as a time of great growth of character for him personally. By showing Adams under the tutelage of Ben Franklin, the film creates an arc of the development of Adam’s own life. He moves from being almost violently outspoken and alienating his political rivals at the beginning of the film, to understand the ‘politics’ of politics, or being able to reconcile differences in opinion and unite political rivals in order to accomplish the good of the people.

More than the portrayal of John Adams, I loved the portrayal of his wife as strong, independent, and unafraid to express her true feelings to her husband. She was a ‘republican mother’ – she taught her children to love the new America, as in the scene where she and her children read the Declaration of Independence. Most telling to me was the line where she says that women would cut through all the ‘politics’ (in the sense of verbose speeches and stagnancy) and get things done quickly and efficiently. More power to that woman!

Intimations of Divinity

For class on Wednesday we attended the exhibit at the Museum of Art called 'Types and Shadows: Intimations of Divinity." It wasn't the first time I had been to the exhibit, but I definitely saw new things this time around, and I think I'd even like to go back to study more the things that I noticed on Wednesday.

First, the very object of the exhibit is remarkable to me - that our specifically Mormon culture so celebrates art. We seem to understand how art - and all symbolic representations - can lead us to God. Last semester in my French culture class, we discussed the beginning of the Gothic art and architecture movement and read the writings of Abbot Suger, the movement's founder, and Pseudo-Dionysis, an early Saint that he often quoted. These two men believed art to be an essential and enlightening part of religious worship with 'anagogical' - that which leads us to God - character. They believed that God, as the "father of all lights," created all material things, and that thus all material things reflect him, and art's job was to celebrate that light. On the other hand, Saint Bernard disliked art because he felt it distracted from worship. We Mormons tend to agree with Suger and Pseudo-Dionysius, and embrace symbolic representations and explorations of divinity and divine character. I love this, because through symbolism, we are taught 'line upon line.' This is the principle I was trying to get at when I said that new things came to me the second time I saw this exhibit, and that new things will come with the third: God uses symbolic teaching methods (art, Myth [capital M intended, but not explained here]) because it allows for varying and progressive interpretations, and enables man to push beyond the constraints of the temporal to access the divine.

Okay, that was all super theoretical and probably unclear, but what I basically mean is this: God uses symbolism - and in this case, art specifically - to teach us because it's multifaceted. Different people can understand one work in multiple ways, and learn equally valuable things from it. One person can also grow to understand more of a work of art as they study it, and as they have more different life experiences. As for the temporal to the divine, I like what President Packer says in his book The Holy Temple. Basically, he explains that temple ordinances and rites are symbolic, because the spiritual is used to explain the spiritual, and the symbols of the temple are a conduit to from temporal to spiritual.

Second, specifically to this exhibition, my favorite piece was actually not any of the ones we discussed on the tour, but the Brian Kershisnik painting entitled Resurrecting. I love Kershisnik's work - it's all so light-hearted. Resurrecting is again, just that. The painting depicts people joyfully jumping out of their tombs, and a mother running to scoop up her baby into her arms, both newly resurrected. The simple gladness this painting expresses makes me smile every time I see it.