Film Analysis: The Thin Blue Line

The Thin Blue Line is a reflexive performative documentary released in 1988, which is the time of telling, while the documentary centers around the murder of Police Officer Woods on Saturday 27th November 1976, which is the time of event. The Thin Blue Line questions the reliability of documentary truth. Director Errol Morris investigated the conviction and subsequent sentence of Randall Adams for the murder of Officer Woods. The intent, just as in a traditional documentary, is serious, but the form and style used is also an intense examination of truth and the representation of truth. The Thin Blue Line draws on detective film genres alluding to the conditioned expectations of viewers that affect their understanding.

Morris uses archive footage and his goal for using archive footage is that it adds authenticity and credibility as the documentary is a trusted source of factual material. Archive footage also enables showing of events and adds interest to the view. News paper clippings, courtroom portraits and old photos are used. Helps narrative by, for

An example of this is when time passing is indicated by shots of a clock. Another example is an ashtray on the table when the police are interrogating Randall Adams that slowly fills with cigarette butts to show the viewer that Adams has been locked inside that room for a long time. When Randall Adams is explaining that Harris was always two hours off on his timing, explaining that he left the movies at 10:00pm, but Harris stated they left the movies at 12:00am, Morris uses a shot of popcorn popping in the movie theater to remind the viewer that the documentary is not in real time. Special effects like slow motion are used in The Thin Blue Line. A drink thrown by an officer moves through the air in slow motion, this is a vivid illustration of the way in which Morris can weigh event making the trivial