The Thin Blue Line Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: The Thin Blue Line
Year: 1988
Director: Errol Morris
Country: US
Language: English

Unfamiliar to me until a couple of years ago, Errol Morris is quickly becoming my favorite documentary director. Born in Feb 5th, 1948 Morris is a remarkable filmmaker whose documentaries helped spur a rebirth of non-fiction film in the 80s & garnered wide critical success. Despite the high praise from fans and critics, it would take until late 2003 when Fog of War won him his first academy award for"Best Feature Length Documentary" Perhaps his best known film however is The Thin Blue Line.

Morris recounts the disturbing tale of Randall Dale Adams, a drifter who was charged with the murder of a Dallas police officer and sent to death row, despite evidence that he did not commit the crime. It makes a compelling case of his innocence. 

Errol Morris cites his detective experience as the reason for his often investigative filmmaking.  The Thin Blue Line resulted in a wrongfully convicted man being freed from a lifetime sentence in Texas after serving 13 years for a policeman's murder. The border between activism and art is blurred, because unlike most documentaries, Morris instigated actual positive change among the people involved in this project. The movie addresses real world issues that affect citizens around the world; mainly acts of injustice and the death penalty. Morris showed tremendous courage when he made a serious documentary focusing on a high-stakes topic, which would have brought great dismay if the facts were not in order.

Morris uses techniques not traditionally seen in documentaries, to make his films more dramatic and diverse, such as the Thin Blue Line's incredibly eerie Philip Glass score, and the haunting reenactments of the policeman's murder. The multiple points of view is very much reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. He gives very small doses of emotional reality, which have a tremendous impact on the viewer. Morris films his subjects in formal settings, obliterating their everyday milieus. Lighting is extensive and nonnaturalistic. Clothing appears to be carefully chosen and coordinated by the filmmakers. The highly stylized color scheme suites each testimonial rather well. Morris loves to also focus on his witnesses' facial expressions and body language.

In conclusion, The Thin Blue Line is a masterpiece that changed the landscape of cinema in the late 80's. Through rejecting Cinema Verite, a method which embraced the use of handheld cameras and natural light,  Morris gave the documentary a new vitality, rigor, and importance. It is unfortunate that most documentaries of the 2010's capture a similar entertaining quality but lack to promote actual facts (I'm looking at you Searching For Sugarman) Hopefully future films will aspire to be more like this magnificent picture. Praise it! 5/5