Thin Blue Line By Errol Morris: Film Analysis

The Truth Is Not Always What It Seems “Our need to believe what we want to believe is stronger than our need for the truth.” by Errol Morris from the documentary Thin Blue Line. The truth is ambiguous. In the Thin Blue Line, the truth was so ambiguous that it resulted in the imprisonment of an innocent man. In October of 1976, 28-year-old Randal Adams and his brother were driving from Ohio to California when they arrived in Dallas, Texas. David Harris, a 16-year-old boy, stole his father’s pistol and shotgun and his neighbor’s car. He ran away from home and drove to Dallas, Texas. It was Thanksgiving weekend, November 28, 1976; Randall was driving back to his motel room from work, after discovering no one was there, when his car ran out of gas. He was walking up the road when David happened to drive by and offered him a ride. That evening, Randall and David had some beer, smoked marijuana, and went to the movies around 7:00 pm. They caught the end of one movie and watched half of the next. Randall was not interested in …show more content…
There were details that were the same, but there were also details that were not. The police officers wanted to have the murder cleared and they­­­ wanted that person to be Randall Adams. They asked leading questions and had information out in the public that could be manipulated to fit what the police wanted to hear. David even said the police were coaching the witnesses with leading questions that had details of the case in them. The truth is ambiguous. Nobody knows who was right, but each one believed he knew what the truth was. The need to believe what we want to believe is stronger than the need for the truth. This was shown clearly in the documentary Thin Blue Line. The truth is not always what it seems, and in this case it put Randall Adams, an innocent man, in