THE THIN BLUE LINE
Errol Morris
1988

erhaps the most heralded of the Texas documentaries on my list, The Thin Blue Line is Errol Morris' look at a good old fashioned Texas railroading: the case of convicted murderer Randall Adams. Adams was sentenced to life in prison for the 1976 shooting of a Dallas police officer at point blank range in the course of a routine traffic stop. The only problem was that all evidence in the case pointed not to Adams but to David Harris, who had met Adams the day of the killing. But Harris, being a juvenile at the time, was not the most appealing perpetrator to the investigators of the case, so they settled on Adams (with a little persuasion from Harris, of course). Harris' admission of guilt is a powerful moment in the film, and eventually led to Adams' release.

Filmed while Adams was still behind bars, The Thin Blue Line is mesmerizing. Featuring a score by Phillip Glass and composed without the use of narration or titles, Morris lovingly studies the stuff of crime, his camera caressing the evidence, the paperwork, the photographs and the newspaper headlines. Morris also makes extensive use of the re-enactment, showing the crime from the point of view of every one of the witnesses and participants. But The Thin Blue Line is no television crime show, its meandering style allows the interviewees to talk about things outside the case and includes long sequences without talking: techniques that have never caught on in television.

Plutonium Circus

The Thin Blue Line

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