The Thin Blue Line (1988)

Directed by Errol Morris. American Playhouse, Channel 4, Third Floor Productions.

In 1976, intinerant worker Randall Adams runs out of gas. He hitches a ride with passing teenager David Harris, who is driving a stolen car. The two spend some time together, drinking and visiting a local drive-in. Later that night, when Dallas police officer Robert Wood pulls the car over, someone shoots him dead and drives away.

When The Thin Blue Line director Errol Morris first met Adams he was languishing in prison for Wood’s murder, a crime he insisted he did not commit. Morris meticulously pulls apart the prosecutor’s case against Adams, highlighting its use of unreliable witnesses and the weight to gave to the testimony of Harris himself. A final, devastating interview leaves the audience with very little doubt about who was really to blame for the crime.

The Thin Blue Line is an extraordinary documentary, not only because it was key in winning Adams his freedom. It makes masterful use of interviews and pairs them with a suspenseful original score. Of particular note is the way the film returns time and again to a reenactment of the crime, allowing different people’s memories and theories about the crime to be played out, not matter how unlikely they seem. It is said to have influenced any number of true crime documentaries made since, including Netflix’s series Making a Murderer.

Morris’ interrogation of the legal process is key to the film’s success. He examines, how once a story is formed in the minds of investigators, evidence can be found to confirm it. The popular podcast Serial achieved a similar result and interestingly, in this recent interview Morris himself compliments Making and Murderer along the same lines.

“But what is powerful in Making a Murderer is not the issue of whether [Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey] are guilty or innocent. It’s the horror of the courts and how that story was handled the first time around and subsequently.”