Title: How much truth is in the truth?
Name: Elizabeth Moll
Personal Response to Film:
Errol Morris directed a classic expository and
interactive documentary in The Thin Blue
Line that mimics a defense and juror relationship between the film and its’
audience. In general, I like documentary films or television shows. However, I
was really indifferent to The Thin Blue
Line. Part of what makes a documentary stand out from others is its ability
to convey a message that’s important during a meaningful time. You have to
catch the audience at just the right moment. For instance, Making a Murderer (a close in comparison criminal injustice-type
story) was more interesting, but
mostly because I’m from Wisconsin where the events had taken place. That same
notion is true for The Thin Blue Line. The
biggest reason I was interested in the film at all was because I used to live
Texas, close to Vidor where one of the “characters” had come from. I felt more
of a connection to the film, because I know what injustice looks like in that
area. If I were to have watched this in 1988 when the documentary came out, it
might have had a larger impact on me because pointing out the injustice and
corruption in the legal system was less common during that time than it is now.
So needless to say, I’m not really all that surprised that someone was wrongly
prosecuted in the murder case of officer Robert Wood. This goes to prove that
many documentaries are great in their time, but are not usually deemed timeless
classics.
It’s
hard to get past the slightly uninteresting topic of The Thin Blue Line, but when I do I really enjoy the film elements
that Morris uses to expose to truth, or the sort of truth. There is this
interesting subtextual purpose of developing the film. It’s easy to be drawn to
the idea that Morris is trying to expose how the criminal justice system is
flawed by using the murder of officer Wood as an example. But, it’s not what
he’s trying to expose as much as it’s how he’s exposing it. He uses the
film in
a way to make the audience feel like they are jury members. Morris being the
defense attorney, defending Randall Adams. The whole film is setting Adams up
as an innocent man. When the film was being taped, both Adams and David Harris
(likely, but un-convicted actual murderer) were in prison. Yet Adams looked significantly
more done up than Harris. Adams had on what looked like normal clothes. Closer examination revealed it was likely a white prison uniform due to his name above the chest pocket. However, my first time watching the film, I didn't even notice that. Harris, on the other hand, had a bright orange prison jumpsuit on. A clear iconic prison outfit. Already, in the first few minutes,
we have visual clues that set up Adams as innocent and
Harris as guilty.
Although nothing has been said that is “untrue”, there is a perception of truth
being told here. That perception is continued throughout the film, which is
exactly what Morris is trying to portray. Morris genuinely believes Adams is
innocent, but he’s making a statement with his film technique and film noir
elements. He’s saying that it’s easy to believe something when it’s set up so
perfectly. It’s hard to stand up and question the “perception” of truth, when
everyone else is following along with it.
I
connected the film noir techniques Morris uses with those common of
supernatural recollection documentary shows like The Dead Files and Paranormal
Witness. I have no aversion to using film noir elements in documentaries,
but the recreation of events using those elements is clearly overdone and even
a bit tacky at times. This adds to the lack of believability or at least adds
to the indication that what is being watched is simply a perception of truth. I
think if Morris really wanted to show the events objectively, he would have
only included images and/or video from the actual crime scene or criminal
evidence. This confirms my impression of the subtextual meaning
being linked to
the way people perceive things and how that relates to the criminal justice
system. Morris directed a solid documentary, if that’s what he’s trying to
prove. It’s all the more reason we should remain critical of what we see, and
question how much truth is actually in the “truth”.
Summary of Critical Article:
Lucien J. Flores wrote a critical analysis
sweeping The Thin Blue Line for
Morris’s hidden message that affects and examines mental constructs in his
article titled “The Thin Blue Line and
the Ambiguous Truth”. The article, short yet revealing, inspects Morris’ film
for its presentation of the truth. Flores writes, “This ‘truth’ revealed by the
end of the film is simply Morris’ interpretation and presentation of the
events, yet, he successfully convinces audience members to believe him”
(Flores, 2012, p. 3). This compelling statement discloses the criticism and
praise Flores gives Morris on his ability to offer the facts in a way to “convince”
the audience of one thing or the other. Flores gathers a plethora of evidence
that Morris is not objectively creating this film, but using it to persuade
others. However, even Morris “recognizes the pitfalls of the medium such as the
fact that truth cannot accurately be depicted with film” (Flores, 2012, p. 3). Flores
goes on to cite Richard K. Sherwin’s article about schemas and scripts within
the realm of mental constructs. The suggestion, is that through careful
examination of such mental constructs, there is the ability to see how multiple
versions of the same story can lead to various conclusions and thus
interpretations. Flores uses this information to propose that “Morris shows how
subconscious mental constructs ‘predispose us to play out certain scripts,
schemata, and setreotypes’ when interpreting any story” and therefore, “wants
his audience to understand that these mental constructs exist while
simultaneously appealing to these same constructs” (Flores, 2012, p. 4). This analysis
by Flores, more simply put, implies that Morris used the same technique in his
film that he was trying to expose. In revealing this, he is proving how it
works, and that it works effortlessly, so that by the end of the film the
audience was sure that Randall Dale Adams was innocent.
Response to Critical Article:
I am pleased to
see that Lucien J. Flores found a similar subtextual meaning within The Thin Blue Line that I did. Flores’
article was easy to read and efficiently produced his point of view in a
straightforward, candid way. I feel that Flores and I picked up on the same
idea that Morris constructed his film to reveal more than the corrupt criminal
justice system, but also show how people can be easily persuaded in either
direction of interpretation. Although our ideas were comparable, Flores laid
his out effectively as he pulled from various parts of the film to add proof to
his standpoint that “Morris engages in a form of reality-making” (Flores, 2012,
P. 2). Many of these that I hadn’t thought of.
One of the big choices that
Morris made, that Flores points out, is his “sequencing and editing decisions
that make [Emily] Miller seem unreliable and unbelievable” (Flores, 2012, p.
2). This was really interesting to me because I felt that Emily Miller kind of
proved that she was
unreliable on her own. I didn’t think she really needed any
help with that. However, Morris made certain filmmaking decisions to extend
that argument even further, leaving the audience shaking their heads at Miller.
Some of those include how the interview with Mr. Miller depicted a rather bizarre
Mrs. Miller, and how (as Flores points out) Emily Miller was introduced with
her obsession of crime shows. Flores even dwindles down to amplify the smaller
details like the how “typical murder-mystery show music that has a
circus-sounding childish quality to it” played while Miller was on screen
(Flores, 2012, p. 2)
References:
Flores deepens his
analysis by dipping into the idea that Morris showed a version of the truth, or
as I put it, a perception of truth. I really enjoyed how he brought up the
amount of people Morris talked to and interviewed. The number of people he
talked to tops over 200, interviewing 24 (Flores, 2012). Yet, we only viewed a
handful. That confirms how the audience only has a partial truth. This partial truth
leaves unanswered questions that the audience really doesn’t even consider. This
basically strengthens Morris’ subtextual meaning that “every story is a
construction, whether it is the prosecution’s interpretation of the events or
that of The Thin Blue Line” (Flores,
2012, p. 3).
Flores gave a
solid argument with substantial evidence to show his point of view on Morris’
film. Still, Flores didn’t really criticize Morris, but praised him; and by
doing so, Flores exposes how all documentaries are really only partial truths. And
I completely agree. This doesn’t mean that it is a bad thing for documentaries
to be a perception of truth. It’s just revealing how so many people perceive them
as whole truths; and instead, suggests that audience’s should view them understanding
that they are not reality, just reality making.
Consideration of Critic’s Use of Critical Frameworks/concepts:
Flores’s
article uses the formalist approach as a foundation for a gripping analysis. He
looks at many aspects of the film including the “characters”, point of view,
patterns, music, etc. He encouraged viewing the film for its elements in order
to perceive the hidden meaning that Morris is portraying. However, his second
to last paragraph proposes that his earlier formalist approach is only the tip
of the iceberg and that finding the subtextual meaning is through a deeper look
into Richard Sherwins article on mental constructs. This supplements his
already impressive analysis that has tangible evidence to discover Morris’s
motivations behind making the 1988 film.
Film Analysis:
In merely 15
seconds, Morris uses certain film elements to portray Emily Miller as an unreliable
eye witness as Flores noted in his article on the film. I was interested in
this aspect and searched for a scene that presents concrete evidence of Flores’s
point of view. This scene is placed near the end of Mr. and Mrs. Miller’s
recollection of events. The music, is very film noir-like and compliments the underwhelming
yet eccentric Emily Miller, all the while hardly being noticed. Mrs. Miller is
recalling how she was able to get a better look at the suspect, rather than her
husband, saying “This is how I got such a good look”. At that moment, the
camera straight cuts to an extreme close up of Miller’s eyes. By doing so,
Morris is almost making a mockery of her statement and then straight cuts to a recreation
of the event, giving a fairly clear image of the supposed driver that Emily
Miller proposes was Randall Adams. What’s interesting here is that in this view
of the driver, the person is clearly a man with curly hair, a testament that
was boggled from the series of misinformation, and likely a major aspect of Adams
conviction. Though, other portrayals of the same scene, different recreation,
purposely hide the face and hair from the viewer. Morris seemingly uses the
number one eye witness and careful represents her and her statement using
elements that give the audience uncertainty. This is an aspect of his
filmmaking decisions that address his subtextual meaning. Even a little doubt
in her statements will go a long way. Pair it with the other interviews and
multiple other facets of filmmaking elements that show Emily Miller as erratic
and untrustworthy, and not a single audience member will side with her story.
References:
Flores,
L. J. (2012). “The Thin Blue line and the Ambiguous Truth.” Student Pulse, 4(05). Retrieved from http://www.studentpulse.com/a?id=640
