Postmodern Themes
Some scholars believe that by calling the certainty of events surrounding the murder case into question, Morris positions the film as a postmodern text. Referencing theorist Fredric Jameson's framework, film critic Linda Williams refers to documentaries that seek only to reveal the past as supporting the notion of an “intensified nostalgia for a past that is already lost.” Conversely, "The Thin Blue Line" suggests Adams' innocence by clouding a previously established history.
Stanford Law Review author Richard Sherwin believes The Thin Blue Line actually presents two plots. Through the construction and ordering of the non-linear story Morris presents, he reveals an easy-to-follow narrative implicating Harris instead of Adams, not unlike the story that implicated Adams in the first place, because it presents an easy-to-believe retelling of history. The other, is what Richard Sherwin points to as an example of “postmodern skepticism." Sherwin notes sociologist Jean Baudrillard's interpretation of the postmodern media landscape "flattening" meaning, and the impossibility of “truth, authority, and history” existing, as fitting within this notion. He criticizes The Thin Blue Line for failing to resolve what he calls an “acausal” plot, referencing certain details about the case that were presented but remain unanswered, such as where Adams actually was the night of the crime. Instead, the end of the film abandons the “acausal” plot by returning to the easy-to-believe narrative, that which paints Harris as the perpetrator. Sherwin argues that for the film to succeed as an affirmative postmodern work, it must contextualize the past events within a present narrative. In short, reveal through the clouding of history a present challenge, that of resisting the lure of a narrative and fulfilling “their sworn duty to convict only in the absence of reasonable doubt."
In an interview at the Museum of Modern Art, however, Morris denies being a postmodern at all, joking that “one of the nice things about Cambridge, Massachusetts is that 'Baudrillard' isn't in the phone book”. In a video interview for the Columbia Journalism Review, Morris reiterates his view of an inherent value in truth, acknowledging that our view of history will always be flawed, but that truth should still be sought after.
Read more about this topic: The Thin Blue Line (film)
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