Errol Morris - Documentry Essay

In the 1988 Errol Morris documentary film, The Thin Blue Line, a man by the name of Randall Adams is false imprisoned for a crime that a teenager, David Harris commits. The teen meets and picks ups Adams on the side of the road. After the night is over, Harris heads home alone but before doing so, he is pulled over by local police and Harris opens fire killing an officer. He later gets caught and implicates Adams as the shooter when in fact Adams was never there and Adams becomes falsely imprisoned for the crime.

The style in which Errol Morris uses in this film is pretty unique to him. I notice that most of his interview subjects are centered on screen and they all tend to look into the lens rather than slightly off to the side. The lighting is dark and dreary as if Morris wants to convey drama in which would draw an audience into the story. This film has no narration and a score that is samiliar to what you would hear in a fiction or non fiction narrative film. The score comes in and out at certain points of the film to add intensity to the scene. For example, Adams begins to talk about the testimony of the female police officer that is the victims partner, the score begins to play dramatically as Adams tells the story of the police officers testimony.

Morris, also uses re-enactment to tell the story. Some argue that the film is more of a narrative than a documentary because of its heave re-enactment sequences. The re-enactment helps the story as it changes depending on who is telling the story, there re-enactments are pretty much the same with slight differences. Morris also interviews all of the interviewees in the respective environments. For example, Adams is interviewed in prison and what you see behind Adams is a fence or gate that is barely visible in the darkness and the police detectives are interviewed in what looks like a police briefing room.

In the end, Morris has made of perspective of innocence in the Randall Adams case in which he did not commit the crime he is accused of and because of the film, Adams was released.

In a contrast and comparison of The Thin Blue Line, the documentary series 48 Hours: Mystery, has a much different story telling format. In the episode Only Casey Knows. A single mother, Casey Anthony is profiled and accused of murdering her toddler daughter, Caylee Anthony. Caylee is missing for a month before Casey tells anyone.

The interview style used in the series is very much like a "60 Minutes" style in which you often hear and see who is asking the question and also the placement of the interviewees in different. They are placed either screen left or right within the rule of thirds while Morris places his interviewees screen center. The locations of the interviews differ as well from Errol Morris' film. Morris, conducts his interviews in a the workplace or home (natural domain) of the interviewees as when the interviews