The Thin Blue Line (1988 film)

Prior to the conception of The Thin Blue Line, Morris originally planned to film a documentary about prosecution psychiatrist Dr. James Grigson, known as Doctor Death,[5][6] who testified in more than 100 trials that resulted in death sentences.[7] As an expert psychiatrist, Dr. Grigson made a name for himself by giving testimony in capital cases for the prosecution. Under the law in Texas, the death penalty can only be issued if the jury is convinced that the defendant is not just guilty, but will commit violent crimes in the future if not put to death. In almost every instance, Dr. Grigson would, after examining a defendant, testify that he had found the individual in question to be an incurable sociopath, who he was "one hundred percent certain" would kill again.[8]

In pursuit of creating this idea, Morris sought and received funding for the initial project from the Public Broadcasting Service.[9] Morris also received funding from Endowment of Public Arts.[10] Using this grant, Morris was able to initially interview Grigson.[9] During this meeting, Grigson suggested to Morris that his research should begin with all the inmates he had testified against in court.[9] It was during this preliminary research that Morris met Randall Dale Adams, and learned of his case.[9] Grigson had told the jury that Adams would be an ongoing menace if kept alive, but Morris, after meeting Adams, became skeptical that he committed the crime.[11] Dr. Grigson's interviews often lasted less than an hour and were arbitrary at best, often asking inmates to copy doodles.[10]

Morris later chose to refocus his research efforts into an investigation on the circumstances of Randall Dale Adams' conviction. Grigson does not appear once in the final cut of the film.[9]

The film presents a series of interviews about the investigation of the shooting of Dallas police officer Robert Wood and a re-enactment of the crime based on the testimony and recollections of Adams, Harris (the actual murderer), the judge presiding over the case (Donald J. Metcalfe), and several witnesses (including Emily Miller and R. L. Miller), as well as detectives (including Gus Rose, Jackie Johnson, and Marshall Touchton). Two attorneys (Edith James and Dennis White) who represented Adams at the trial where he was convicted also appear; they suggest that Adams was charged with the crime despite the evidence against Harris because Harris was a juvenile at the time, whereas Adams, as an adult, could be sentenced to death under Texas law. The prosecutor (Douglas D. Mulder) does not appear in the film.

The film's title comes from prosecutor Doug Mulder's phrase during his closing argument that the police are the "thin blue line" separating society from "anarchy". This is a re-working of a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy" in which he describes British soldiers (nicknamed "Tommy Atkins") as the "thin red line", from the color of their uniforms and their formation.

The film makes use of dramatic re-enactments, a composed score, and interview testimony that takes the place of a narrator.[12]

Morris is often credited with re-purposing film noir aesthetic to the documentary format.[13] Film scholar Charles Musser has credited Morris for using 'fiction film' techniques in The Thin Blue Line.[14] Morris himself has claimed all of his films are brazenly "anti-vérité" in style.[15] Morris presented the characters like in fiction films, not typical documentaries. He chose to not include official labels for the interviewees, causing the viewers to determine who is who throughout the film. He includes documents, but presents them artistically, ignoring authenticity signs. Philip Glass' musical score is played under interviewees' statements, which was unconventional in documentaries, but Morris used it as "movie music" to create a film-like experience.[14] Morris has often associated “The Thin Blue Line” with film noir, further emphasizing its connection to the conventions of fiction filmmaking.[14]

The film's re-enactment scenes were built carefully from witnesses' statements.[16] Morris is commonly credited with the invention of re-enactment scenes in documentary format, though this is untrue.[12] Although the film recreates several versions of the shooting, it does not recreate one in which David Harris shoots the officer, the interpretation which it argues is true.

Prior to working on this film, Morris worked for several years as a private detective investigating fraudulent transactions on the stock market in New York City.[10][13] Once fascinated by the Adams/Harris case, he applied those skills to his research on the film.

Harris was later tried, convicted, and executed for committing the unrelated murder of Mark Walker Mays on September 1, 1985.[17] On the weekend of that murder, Morris had an interview scheduled with Harris. Morris remarked in an interview with James Hughes: "I often say it's my favorite excuse for missing an appointment: 'I'm sorry, I was off killing someone.'"[18]

Morris' interview style (that of the subject staring directly into the camera) led to a later invention that his wife termed "the Interrotron". It was first used in Fast, Cheap & Out of Control (1997), and places Morris behind a curtain staring into one camera, which feeds into a teleprompter-like device on the camera in front of the interviewee, which causes the interviewee to look at and talk to the image of Morris, and, therefore, the camera directly, rather than to a person sitting off to one side.[19]

The final scene, in which Morris and Harris are only heard, while shots of a tape recorder appear from various angles, was not originally planned. Morris' camera broke down on the day of the interview, forcing Morris to use a tape recorder to document the dialogue.[20]

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, Program Development Company Productions Inc., public television stations, and The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies funded the documentary.[21]

The film was scored by composer Philip Glass.[22] The original film soundtrack was published by Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc.[22] The music for the original film was produced by Kurt Munkasci, and the performing orchestra conducted by Michael Riesman.[22]

Morris has claimed that prior to Glass' involvement in the project, he personally edited The Thin Blue Line to a mix-tape of Glass' earlier works, including selections from Mishima and In the Upper Room and Glassworks.[15][23] In an interview with Marc Glassman of POV magazine, Morris explained his rationale for seeking Glass to compose the score:

I had the good fortune of actually convincing him [Philip Glass] to write the soundtrack himself. Someone asked me, 'Why Philip Glass?' And I said, 'because he does existential dread better than anybody. He's the master of existential dread.'[15]

Morris' investigation suggested that five witnesses committed perjury.[42] As a result of publicity around the film, Adams (whose death sentence had been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 and subsequently commuted to life in prison by the Governor of Texas, Bill Clements) had his conviction overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,[43] and the case was returned to Dallas County for a retrial.[44] The district attorney's office declined to prosecute the case again,[45] and Adams was subsequently ordered released as a result of a habeas corpus hearing in 1989.

After Adams' release from prison, he ended up in a legal battle with Morris concerning the rights to his story. The matter was settled out of court after Adams was granted sole use of anything written or made on the subject of his life.[46] Adams himself said of the matter: "Mr. Morris felt he had the exclusive rights to my life story. I did not sue Errol Morris for any money or any percentages of The Thin Blue Line, though the media portrayed it that way."[47]

Morris, for his part, recalled: "When [Adams] got out, he became very angry at the fact that he had signed a release giving me rights to his life story. And he felt as though I had stolen something from him. Maybe I had, maybe I just don't understand what it's like to be in prison for that long, for a crime you hadn't committed. In a certain sense, the whole crazy deal with the release was fueled by my relationship with his attorney. And it's a long, complicated story, but I guess when people are involved, there's always a mess somewhere."[48]

Despite being wrongly imprisoned for twelve years, Adams received no payment from the state of Texas. Had Adams been found to be wrongly convicted under today's law in Texas, he would get $80,000 for each year of incarceration. However, since Adams was released because his case was dismissed, and not because he was pardoned, he received no payment from the state after his release for his wrongful conviction.[49] Adams later worked as an anti-death penalty activist. He died of brain cancer in October 2010 at the age of 61, but lived in such anonymity that his death was not discovered by the media until June 2011.[49]

Some scholars believe that by calling the certainty of events surrounding the murder case into question, Morris positions the film as a postmodern text.[50] Referring to theorist Fredric Jameson's framework, film critic Linda Williams writes that documentaries that seek only to reveal the past support the notion of an "intensified nostalgia for a past that is already lost". Conversely, The Thin Blue Line suggests Adams' innocence by clouding a previously established history.[51]

Stanford Law Review author Richard Sherwin believes The Thin Blue Line actually presents two plots. He says Morris presents one plot through the construction and ordering of the non-linear story, revealing an easy-to-follow narrative implicating Harris instead of Adams, not unlike the story that implicated Adams in the first place, because it presents an easy-to-believe retelling of history. The other plot, Sherwin says, is an example of "postmodern skepticism". Within this notion Sherwin notes sociologist Jean Baudrillard's interpretation of the postmodern media landscape as "flattening" meaning as well as the impossibility of the existence of "truth, authority, and history".

Sherwin criticizes The Thin Blue Line for failing to resolve what he calls an "acausal" plot, referring to certain details about the case that were presented but remain unanswered, such as where Adams actually was the night of the crime (Adams himself answers this question by stating that he was watching TV in his motel room and fell asleep, but this is left without conclusive explanation, with Adams' brother, who was in the motel room at the time, not appearing in the movie to corroborate the explanation). Instead, the end of the film abandons the "acausal" plot by returning to the easy-to-believe narrative, that which paints Harris as the perpetrator. Sherwin argues that for the film to succeed as an affirmative postmodern work, it must contextualize the past events within a present narrative. He argues that it should take on the challenge, through the clouding of history, of resisting the lure of a narrative and fulfilling "their sworn duty to convict only in the absence of reasonable doubt."[52]

In an interview at the Museum of Modern Art, Morris denied being postmodern in any way, and quipped:

"I am no post-modernist. I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And one of the nice things about Cambridge, Massachusetts is that "Baudrillard" isn't in the phone book. To me, there's a physical world out there, pure and simple. There's a world where things actually happen. In The Thin Blue Line, it was of all-consuming importance to figure out who was driving that car; who pulled the gun out from underneath the seat, who shot the cop. Questions like these are not up for grabs."[53]

In a video interview for the Columbia Journalism Review, Morris reiterates his view of an inherent value in truth, acknowledging that our view of history will always be flawed, but that truth should still be sought.[54]

• The Thin Blue Lie, a television film about police brutality in Philadelphia under the mayorship of Frank Rizzo

• Renée R. Curry: Errol Morris' Construction of Innocence in "The Thin Blue Line". In: Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol. 49, No. 2 (1995), pp. 153–167.
• Matthew Sorrento: Documenting Crime: Genre, Verity, and Filmmaker as Avenger. In: Caroline Picart, et al. (eds.): Framing Law and Crime. Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2016. ISBN 978-1-61147-705-4.
• Linda Williams: Truth, History, and The Thin Blue Line. In: Barry Keith Grant/Jeannette Sloniowski (eds.): Documenting the documentary: close readings of documentary film and video. 1998. ISBN 978-0814326398

• The Thin Blue Line at IMDb
• The Thin Blue Line from ErrolMorris.com
• The Thin Blue Line: A Radical Classic an essay by Charles Musser at the Criterion Collection
• Excerpt
• The Thin Blue Line on MUBI