A musical retelling of the American Revolution's political struggle in the Continental Congress to declare independence.
Director: Peter H. Hunt
Stars: William Daniels, Howard Da Silva, Ken Howard, John Cullum, Virginia Vestoff.
Onna White ... choreographer
Watched online, ok print.
13 songs in the Soundtracks; no, not 1 per colony.
Hamilton (the musical) this ain't. Although this has 13 songs, they're not long, and I didn't think there was a choreographer (but there was).
This is very talky. No idea how much of the dialog comes from historic (primary) documents, but it certainly sounds as though a lot of it might.
One of these days I want to study the American Revolution. This film begins too deeply into the timeline to satisfy my curiosity about how/why reasoning men come to war.
We get a clear idea that the colonies were divided on the question of independence. It shows Jefferson doing the first draft, and 3+ days of picking apart his document. The final issue was whether slavery should be abolished, and South Carolina refused to accept the declaration without that paragraph's removal. TJ argues against slavery, and "resolves" to free his own, but he never did it. I wonder why.
Worthwhile as a history lesson. Hopefully it does not mislead.
Columbia, dir. Hunt; 7
