The Thin Blue Line

The film The Thin Blue Line is a documentary about a murder case that took place in 1976 in Texas. It was filmed in 1988 and directed by Errol Morris. The uniqueness of this documentary has to do with the reconstruction that was added in with the typical interviews and archival footage. At the time, reconstruction or “re-enacting” of something that occurred in the past was controversial and was not looked upon as professional or even considered to be a documentary type film. However, that all changed when this documentary was released. Its successfulness at using reconstruction while still keeping it a documentary paved the way for other films to have credible reconstruction footage. The film replayed the footage of the re-enacting scene of the police officer being shot probably over 15 times. Although almost every time they replayed it, it was in a slightly different way because it re-enacted the scene in whichever way it was being described by the person at the time. Another thing that the film did was continuously show close up footage of the red police light rotating around. It showed this so many times that it must symbolize for something, maybe justice? This documentary is considered a documentary that made a difference because it exposed the unjust ways of our justice system.