Thin Blue Line

Released in 1988, Thin Blue Line tells the captivating story of two men, Randall Adams and David Harris' different sides of the murder of a policeman and all of the repercussions involved. The film was directed by Errol Morris and was one of the first serious documentaries to use reconstruction as a major part of the film. Reconstruction or re-enactments were usually thought to be untruthful and not very legitamate. The reconstruction is used to show the crime scene and how each man said the murder happened. Although obviously not completely accurate because no one can re-enact exactly what happened, the re-enactments worked for their purpose and gave reconstruction a better name than it had previously had with documentaries.

Morris used archival footage, reconstruction, and interviews with David Harris and Randall Adams themselves, as well as all other parties involved in the murder and trial. Although he used interviews quite often throughout the film, he never used titles to let the audience know who was speaking or what their relation to the case was. I'm not really sure as to why Morris chose to do this, but I think it definitely did keep the audience's attention because they were always guessing as to who the person was. Also, there was no real narrator since the interviewees basically told the entire story. As previously stated, this film was one of the first to use reconstruction, and it really paved the way for the shows of today such as Law and Order and America's Most Wanted.