Musings on... A Thin Blue Line

It would appear that I’ve gone for a bit of a crime/death mad in the last few weeks, apologies. I appear to have an unhealthy fascination for it. Not sure what that says about me... 

Following on from this post, I wanted to investigate some of Errol Morris’ work. The best place to start, I felt, was his relatively famous documentary, The Thin Blue Line, released in 1988. The film tells the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man convicted and sentenced to death in 1976 for a murder he did not commit. On the back of the documentary, Adam’s case was reviewed and he was released in 1989. 

In brief, the film centers on the murder of Dallas police officer Robert Wood. It painfully reconstructs the scene of the crime, in which Wood pulls over the car for a routine check. He is then shot at point blank range as he approaches the window. In the aftermath, it was pretty much Adam’s word against the 16 year-old David Harris’. 

It was on Harris’ testimony that Adams was arrested and convicted - he identified Adams as the murderer by claiming that he was in the passenger seat of the car at the time of the shooting. The film is constructed around interviews with people involved in the case, including Harris, Adams, witnesses, detectives and the judge. In Morris’ usual style, he allows the interviewees to speak directly to the camera, with no voiceover at all. This made following the intricacies of the case pretty difficult. Frustratingly, probably because I’m a bit impatient, the film kept you guessing. It wasn’t clear who was in prison, who was guilty  and what actually happened. But, as all good films aim to do, it slowly started to give the information that I wanted. I can’t decide if it was too slow, or, like I said, I was too impatient. 

All in all, it’s a pretty simplistic documentary. It has a style that you don’t often see nowadays, based I think on the stationary camera during the interviews. There are repetitive, simplistic shots that have a key importance to the story, specifically the incessant repetition of the crime recon, built carefully on the witnesses’ statements. These are key in telling the story of how the evidence could have been misrepresented in order to place a man at the scene who, allegedly, wasn’t even there. But, crucially, the film does not recreate the version of events in which Harris shoots the police officer, which is the version promulgated throughout. It is instead a subtle assertion, leaving the ending ‘unfinished’, but in reality, it has carefully placed an opinion in your head throughout. 

Randall Dale Adams

In a way, the time spent on small details during the film (for example, the fact that a Vega car and a Comet car were mixed up) shows just how crazy it was that Adams was convicted in the first place. It almost mocks the justice system by showing seriously obvious flaws from the beginning to end. Most shocking is an assertion made by a number of people related to the case. Adams was the ‘criminal of choice’, because, of the two, Adams was the only one that could be sentenced to death under Texas law, ie. it can't execute minors.

There is no denying the genius of Morris in his ability to translate a complicated legal story onto the screen, and crucially make it interesting. His technique filming interviewees straight on, with only head and shoulders in sight, encourages you to stare at them, and mentally assess their answers, almost like an interrogation. It’s exhausting in a good way. 

Dave Harris

Even so, it left me uneasy. Maybe it was the fact that the film was almost two films, one being the careful and slow interviews of all those involved, and the other the repetitive recon. Maybe it was the fact that it reeeeeeally took its time to get going. Maybe it was because I had no clue who was telling the truth on camera, and still don’t now, particularly Dave Harris - he was pretty slimy. Maybe it’s because the thought of putting a man on death row for something he didn’t do is undeniably awful. Either way, this film encourages an interaction with its subject and the people it explores, and lets you be the detective for a little while. 

The recon... again and again...

On a side note, nobody has been held accountable for the murder of Robert Wood. Despite some clear suggestions that Harris was responsible for his murder, he was never charged after Adams was released. Innocent until proven guilty I guess.... He was, however, executed in 2004 by lethal injection for the unrelated 1985 murder of Mark Mays. Make of that what you will!