The Thin Blue Line
1988, 101 minutes, Digital
USA
Language: English
Presented by: MICA Film & Video Department
Director: Errol Morris
Q&A with editor Paul Barnes, hosted by MICA faculty member Allen Moore, following the film.
Free and open to the public. RSVP recommended; please register here.
Among the most important documentaries ever made, The Thin Blue Line, by Errol Morris, erases the border between art and activism. A work of meticulous journalism and gripping drama, it 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. Incorporating stylized reenactments, penetrating interviews, and haunting original music by Philip Glass, Morris uses cinema to build a case forensically while effortlessly entertaining his viewers. The Thin Blue Line effected real-world change, proving film’s power beyond the shadow of a doubt.
“More like a waking nightmare than a docudrama. A true story of murder and justice evidently miscarried, wrapped in the fictional haze of a surrealistic whodunit, it will leave you in a trance for days.”
— Desson Thomson, Washington Post
“Morris’ visual style in The Thin Blue Line is unlike any conventional documentary approach. Although his interviews are shot straight on, head and shoulders, there is a way his camera has of framing his subjects so that we look at them very carefully, learning as much by what we see as by what we hear.”
— Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“A fact-filled study that’s also a full-fledged work of cinema art.”
— David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor
Selected for inclusion on the National Film Registry
Official Selection: Toronto International Film Festival
Presented by:
Additional Images
