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 Hunt's screen version of "1776", a musical play I somehow didn't see during its three-year Broadway run, 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.

Mr. Stone has followed the series of patriotic cliches that was drilled into all of us in the days before anyone complained about history text-books. Thomas Jefferson being terribly idealistic, Benjamin Franklin being terribly wise, John Adams being terribly dour. To liven this up, Stone has given Jefferson the added quality of being hot for his sorely missed bride, and for a frivolity has her imported by a thoughtful Franklin for a touch of inspiration. Once out of bed, Jefferson rips off the Declaration of Independence. So much for humor. Franklin is made out to be earthy and Adams is given a touch of New England conservative-romance (the best kind). This does not stop any of them from being cardboard characters from summer historical pageants, and the whole business is rather bizarre when you think of the American image that was so long sustained by just this sort of thing. It is an image that has become, practically, a national neurosis.

NP: Still Hangover Square

His name is Richard Henry Lee and here he goes again. Prancing all over the goddam set like a meth-addict chicken with its head cut off.

It's historical accuracy was challenged in a review contained within a Film Encyclopedia, a multi-volume set of full movie reviews. The "critic" challenged, among other things, that only 30-some people are portrayed in the film as signing the document, when there are actually 56 signatures (this person was apparently unaware that the document was being signed upwards of 20 years after the famous date). My friend, a history buff, took this as a challenge, and found, among his collections of writings by these historical figures (mostly their correspondances), he found line after line of dialogue from the film in these letters. Thing's Livingston said in his arguments in the play were things he said in letters to Jefferson. Jefferson's words often came from his letters to Adams, and to Abigail or Dickenson. Etc. While the words were not recorded as spoken in congress, they were the words of these men. Stone's suppositions about how these debates might have been made were beyond simply good guessing.

As to character portrayals, the film was made pre-revisionism. Revisionist history has given us such nonsense as the notion that Jefferson produced children with one of his slaves - a notion purported by someone not considered by reliable historians to be a reliable historian, but nevertheless one popularized in our current self-deconstructionist culture (sorry for that $64 word, I can't figure out how else to say that). It's a blight that real historians will have to deal with for probably another 10-15 years.

1776 went out of its way to show the blemishes and character flaws of the fathers of this country (USA, sorry "my" country) and was written with TONS of background and research.

I'll take that "series of patriotic cliches" over Mr. Gottfried's desire for . . . whatever. "...the American image that was so long sustained by just this sort of thing" wasn't sustained by this sort of thing at all, by broadway plays for 200 years - or anything like that - indeed! It was sustained by the evidence of their own words, and those of those who knew them, and presented as such because it was the best representation of who these people were.

" Y Chromosomes from descendents of one of Hennings's sons were matched to a descendent of Jefferson's paternal uncle. Y chromosomes pass from father to son making Jefferson the likely father of at least one of Hennings's children"

Volume 129, Number 4, Page 79

The role of the historian is to find the truth, not to support any political or philosophical agenda. Sometimes our views of history need revising because we discover new information that we didn't have before.

When our view of the past becomes so ossified and can't allow for any changes or viewpoint we move from history to mythology.

Whether you agree with revisionist history or not, the way to refute is with research and facts not derision. For example, John Toland’s book, Day of Infamy, which deals with whether FDR knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor is definitely revisionist history.

Most people say “Ridiculous!” Well, I think so too now that I read it and Gordon Prange’s At Dawn We Slept. It shows that Toland’s evidence is negligible and not persuasive. There is no physical evidence and only the testimony of one officer (who can not provide a copy of said telegram) that the “Climb Mount Nitaka” telegram was in Washington in time warn of the attack.

You have to approach these historical controversies with an open mind and examine the evidence before deciding what you think the truth is.

I think that was my point. Those who examined merely came to different conclusions. The controversy over this Jefferson issue was not begun with the chromosomal data, but with ex post facto supposition. And the data is hardly conclusive. It adds support to a theory which, for many other documented reasons, still appears to be very unlikely.

Whether or not it began the argument, the DNA evidence seems to be a telling blow. Here you have evidence that would be accepted as proof of paternity in a court of law. It is hard to ignore that.

I tend to accept it in light of the fact that little exists to refute it. I might not like what it implies, but I can't ignore it
either.

The fact that it is "a notion purported by someone not considered by reliable historians to be a reliable historian" means little in light of similar statements about other historians who, like Schliemann, were ridiculed despite the fact that they were correct. Who decides who is reliable and who isn’t?

Experts can be wrong, even when espousing long cherished beliefs.

I have spent more than half my life studying History. I have read some things that I considered absurd that turned out to be right. I have seen interesting new theories fall before the onslaught of the recalled past. I have read books that twisted facts so badly that they were barely recognizable. I have even read books were people made up evidence to support a conclusion. Anybody can be wrong. Anybody can be right.

History is constantly being examined and re-examined in light of our current understanding and the filter of our own perceptions. It could hardly be any other way. To dismiss the revisionist school of history outright seems more radical than anything that they are claiming.

MWRuger (rightly) challenged "To dismiss the revisionist school of history outright seems more radical than anything that they are claiming."

Agreed, if only on the face of it. I don't reject re-examination, by any means, nor revision in light of new evidence, should such evidence warrant that.

I do reject the fad of revisionism. That is a blight, and nothing but. It allows for carelessness and cavalier pronouncements. It permits weak reasoning, if encouraging any at all.

I reject the notion that revisionist history should not to be subject to the same, or better, level of challenge as it poses to accepted history.

All truth should be subject to the hammer of close inspection, and of re-inspection. Go ahead and demolish the propaganda, I say.

So what you are saying is that you reject revisionist history when it is done merely for the sake of revising. If so, I agree.

In fact, Revisionists should have an even tougher test that established history. I try to subject it to that test and others before accepting its conclusions. Most of the time, I am forced to reject them because of lack of evidence, poor scholarship or outright fraud. The only reason that I even bother is to be able to explain to my non-historian friends exactly why they shouldn’t accept such piffle as fact.

There is one other point that I would like to make. This revision of history is nothing new, but instead is part of a cycle that occurs whenever there is a shift in out cultural bias.

As an example, look at the way biographers have viewed George Washington over the years. In the early part of the 20 Century, he was the blameless saint who walked on water. By the 60's and 70's the view had changed completely. He was portrayed as a venal manipulator and an abuser of his slaves and a leech. Of course, neither view is correct, although the turn of the century is more close to reality than the view of the counterculture. James Thomas Flexner’s biography does an excellent job of defining the man based on scholarship and evidence and avoids the flights of fancy that some biographers seem unable to avoid.

I am saying exactly that, so we do agree, but I am also making the charge that the Jefferson issue is an example of it. It's not just an issue of evidence, but of how well we analyze it (case in point whether the chromosomal data clinches T.J.'s paternity, or only possibly so, with that of his family member being another likelihood).

I mentioned the T.J. thing as an example because it is (I think) the most popularized of such recent popularized revisions. There was a Merchant/Ivory production about it, for goodness sake! (pre-chromosomes?) It's a known one, and, as I see it, a good example of the point I was trying to make - though we may differ on that.

MWRuger: "In fact, Revisionists should have an even tougher test that established history."

I wholeheartedly agree again.

MWRuger: "As long as we continue to redefine ourselves only in the light of our current experiences and forego the lessons of History, we will continue through these cycles of revisionism that you reject so vehemently."

My issue with revision fads is that the current cycle is an example of redefining of ourselves only in the light of our current experiences. And when those cycles become fads, and occasionally frauds, we will also see the return backlash.

I realize that this is the pendulum-like process, I just happen to favor one side of the pendulum. Those who are reacting against a thing (propaganda-ish history, discrimination) shouldn't make the same mistakes in correcting it (revisionism in its fadish forms, reverse-discrimination). I guess I have more confidence in the abilities of people to find the things that need to be reacted to in the first place than I have in their abilities to do so evenly, so that's where I focus.

There is a Hebrew proverb (Christian now, as well)

"The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him."