Questioning the Truth

The Thin Blue Line (1998) is a documentary, written and directed by Errol Morris, which tells the story about a man, Randall Dale Adams, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for a crime he did not commit. Adams was convicted of the murder of Dallas police officer, Robert Wood, during a traffic stop. Adams’ arrest and conviction were based on the testimony of 16 year old, David Harris, who identified Adams as the murder, when in reality; Harris was the one who committed the crime. The documentary is a collection of interviews and reenactments of the murder based on the testimonies of both Adams and Harris, as well as several witnesses and detectives.

In his essay, “On the Absolute, the Sublime, and Ecstatic Truth,” Werner Herzog questions the relationship created between a documentary and its viewers. He suggests this relationship is different from that of a traditional film and its viewers given the sense of reality portrayed through documentaries. The purpose of a documentary is to present a reality to the viewers through the eyes of the filmmakers. However, as we have come across previously in Rene Descartes’ “Second Mediation,” we are faced with the questions of “what really is reality” and “how can we know if anything is true?”

The Thin Blue Line serves as an interesting subject when analyzing these questions because there exists both a truthful and fictitious part of the reality portrayed in the documentary. At the time the documentary was being filmed, Adams’ reality was his life within the confines of a prison cell. However, the purpose of this specific documentary is to question the truth behind Adams’ conviction. Thus, as the viewer we are presented with an interesting dilemma; forced to determine both the truth of the Adams’ conviction and of the documentary. One of the main points of Descartes’ essay is that we must only rely on our own knowledge and ideas when making decisions. This is because the knowledge and ideas of others may be presented with the specific purpose of deceiving us. Thus creating this internal struggle for the viewer. The information for which we are supposed to determine whether or not Adams’ was wrongly convicted is presented to us through testimonies of various witnesses, detectives, and Adams’ and Harris themselves. Thus, our decision can’t be based on our own knowledge, but rather is based on the knowledge of others. According to Descartes, we are thus not able to completely certain of the truth of our decision.

Similar ideas are discussed in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” In his essay, Plato tells the story of prisoners being chained inside a cave since their birth. All they have grown to know are the images on the wall of the cave created by shadows made from the fire behind them. One day, one of the prisoners is released into the world outside the cave were he becomes accustomed to the outside world. Upon his return to the cave, he recounts his experiences of the outside to the other prisoners. However, the information he gives them is meaningless because all that they know is still that which they have experienced within the cave. Thus, they deem the other prisoner crazy. In a way, the viewers of a documentary can be compared to the prisoners locked inside the cave their whole life. We have become accustomed to our own sense of reality. Thus, when viewing a documentary, we are hesitant to accept the reality that the maker is trying to present to us. How can we be certain that this reality presented in the documentary is in fact reality or just what the documentary maker wants us to believe is reality? Because the purpose of a documentary is to project some facet of the truth to its audience, it creates a situation that is harder to accept than a tradition film would create. Thus, if we listen to both Descartes and Plato, we should be more skeptical while watching documentary because of the nature of film and the “reality” it presents.