The vast world of film and television has always held a special fascination with the legal system. From classics such as 12 Angry Men, to modern courtroom thrillers such as 2007’s Fracture, audiences and filmmakers alike flock to the inherent drama built into these legal proceedings. However, these celluloid visions often present us with scripted versions of such events; and the reality is distorted by the lens of Hollywood. This is not the case with Errol Morris’ documentary The Thin Blue Line (1988).

In this film we are introduced to a case in which a police officer was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop in Dallas Texas. We soon learn that once the officers looked at the case, they had very little evidence to go on and virtually no leads. Eventually they track down and end up convicting a man named Randle Adams for the crime despite his claim to innocence. He is subsequently put on death row.

As we burrow deeper into the case we learn that the situation is far more complicated, and that every person involved in the case has their own motives to which they are striving for. These threads of the case are woven so together so subtly by Morris that the bigger picture soon comes into focus.

The primary evidence used to convict Adams was testimony from a sixteen year old named David Harris who picked up Adams while hitchhiking and had earlier that night gone on a crime spree. Given Harris’ motives, the evidence should have made him the prime suspect in the case, but his age made him unable to qualify for the death penalty. Morris daftly maneuvers this point to the front of the film and argues that the reason Adam’s is in jail for Harris’ crime is because the officers and lawyers involved wanted to be sure of a death sentence conviction.This chilling tale of corruption and confusion from within the legal system is frightening to say the least. Morris forces us to ask big questions about the very concepts of truth and justice yet refuses to placate us by providing easy answers.

Fortunately Adam’s case was eventually reopened (mostly due to this film which was introduced as evidence in the case) and he was exonerated. In a cruel twist of irony, after his release Adam turned around and sued Errol Morris for the rights to his story.

What is remarkable is how the filmmaker reinvents the documentary genre and vividly whisks us into these character’s lives. He does this by introducing techniques which were not commonly used in documentaries such as reenactments, clips from television and movies, and even letting his subjects go off on tangents which at first glance seem irrelevant to the case at hand. This new approach was so radical that the Academy Awards rejected the film in 1989 because of these scripted segments.

The true magic that makes this film so haunting is the phenomenal score composed by Philip Glass. Morris is famous for collaborating with Glass on many of his projects and it is clear why. Glass plays with our emotions in each scene building the tension at just the right moments and letting us float along when we need to gather the facts. His music turns a documentary into a bona fide thriller.

Errol Morris spent years tracking down all of the people in the film and getting them to agree to show up on camera. Once they appear on screen though, he becomes a master at eking out the most fascinating and relevant information from his subjects, yet somehow managing to make them feel totally comfortable. This leads to a conversational flow in his films which makes the difficult subject matter much easier to comprehend.

The film finishes with a dramatic ending unrivaled by the biggest blockbuster productions. The scene opens with a small tape recorder playing back David Harris’ final interview (he was convicted and sentenced to death for an unrelated crime). In this interview Harris explains that he thinks Adams is innocent and admits the reason Adams is currently on death row is because of him. This is so painstakingly close to a confession it immediately sent a chill down my spine and leads to the inevitable question; how many times has this happened before?

This clip is about the film, just ignore the part about it winning the Academy Award because it’s a flat out lie.

Tags: documentary, Errol Morris, Jason Voss, Philip Glass

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