The Thin Blue Line

Saw The Thin Blue Line, a documentary about the investigation of a cop killing. There are two major characters: Harris and Adams. We know Adams got charged with the crime, but we are told by the film that Harris actually did it. It lays out a convincing case, relying on interviews with lawyers and cops. There's much conflicting evidence. Like the prosecutor of a case, the film seeks to establish ugly motive: the D.A. had an unblemished record, Adams was only a drifter anyway, and finally (and ugliest of all) the cops wanted blood and Harris was simply too young to be executed whereas Adams was of a sufficient age.

The self-righteousness of the men who put Adams away is maddening, contrasted with the compelling doubt thrown by the film. We know Harris had robbed and killed before and since, that Adams had never been in trouble with the law before. We know that the car was stolen from Harris's neighbor, as was the gun. We know that the eye-witness testimony was given by an overly-mascara-ed woman with an addiction to mystery novels who was likely bought off. And yet the judge in charge of the case recounts how the closing argument of the D.A. about how cops are the "thin blue line" separating order from chaos was so moving that it near brought a tear to his eye. In general there's a lot of ugliness on the part of the law and the powers that be. The defense attorney is smeared by the local press as being an east-coast, civil-liberties type (this takes place in Texas, btw) and one hilariously editorialized headline reads "Cop Killer Appeals Conviction." Deeply frustrating.

We have to be a bit careful though. Documentaries are very good at making us feel informed when we've only heard a carefully selected subset of the facts (just talk to anyone who's just seen Loose Change, or Zeitgeist.) We run the risk of becoming like Adams's jury, easily swayed by a simple story, or like the shady eye-witness, seeing conspiracy and mystery behind every corner. Have I happily swallowed an invented story of southern hick-ery and cop-ly power-abuse just because it makes me feel smart? The film pioneered the use of dramatic reenactment which can serve to emphasize otherwise trivial events. A shot of the two men being stopped by the doomed cop is repeated with almost every combination of who was in the car and who was driving. It feels fair, but it may not be. Well that's the fun of documentaries, I guess.