‘WITHOUT FREEDOM, there is no creation, no life, no beauty,” said the Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun.

The great historian David McCullough won the Pulitzer Prize for writing the biography of the second president of the United States, John Adams. I want to add that, in addition to his literary talents, David is also a masterful speaker, one of the best.

The other day Mr. McCullough was down near Richmond, Va., visiting the replica that HBO has created there of the famous Massachusetts house of Abigail and John Adams. When David walked into the “Braintree Cottage” set, he broke down and wept. It had taken him seven years to write the book “John Adams,” and now it was all coming to cinematic life. But after wiping away his tears, McCullough made a wonderfully inspiring speech to the cast and crew.

THIS STORY is all about Tom Hanks‘ seven- hour production to star Paul Giamatti as the man who led the brand-new United States after George Washington. And it’s about his devoted and beloved wife, Abigail, as played by Laura Linney. We should see this series next year. Filming has just begun and will take all of the spring and summer. Right now, Hanks manages to get down to oversee his production at least once a month.

I had a talk with the 34-year-old “child prodigy” (my term) director of this endeavor. Tom Hooper comes from London. He is the man who is overseeing the re-creation of this most important part of American history. Tom, who is actually half Australian, says being a Londoner helped him since the arguments John Adams and his fellow revolutionaries are having in this life drama are arguments with the very power center of King George III’s England. In fact, when the story begins, John Adams is fighting for his rights as a natural born Englishman in British America.

Tom started directing movies when he was only 13 years old, and at age 18 made his first short film. Since then, he has Nancy Mitford’s “Love in a Cold Climate” to his credit, directed the South African film “Red Dust” with Oscar winner Hilary Swank, shepherded a Helen Mirren “Prime Suspect,” won an Emmy and Golden Globe directing the great Dame in “Elizabeth I,” and recently racked up the much-praised “Longford” for HBO TV. His target after “John Adams” will be the life of the Washington Post’s publisher Kay Graham.

TOM TELLS me that when the “John Adams” project was first mentioned to him, he simply assumed it was a subject already well covered for America. “But then I began to discover that there was no iconic series or film about the birth of the United States. As my friend the writer Joan Didion says, ‘John Adams is tabula rasa.’

“When I met Laura Linney she sang me three of the songs from the Broadway musical ‘1776’ and told me that, for her generation, this was the version of the American Revolution that they carried in their heads! I watched the musical; it is a strange mix of seriousness and ’70s camp.

“I find it fascinating – the gap between rhetoric about the birth of this nation and the reality. Thomas Jefferson was a deep romantic who believed that people are perfectible and could become self-governing. John Adams had a pessimistic view of human nature. Coming from 1770s Boston, he feared the mob and believed people needed strong government. From the clash of these two views, comes the whole American debate about more or less government, the debate that resounds today about the power of the executive.”

Tom adds, “My recent work has been driven by these universal ideas about the relationship between the individual and power. To be looking at these in the context of the American Revolution is a huge and exciting privilege.”