I thought the author’s insight on “The thin blue line” were interesting. In general, I thought what she mentioned about documentary was interesting as well. One of the most compelling points is this idea of contradictions of the moving image: on one side there is not just one truth to what the image is showing/representing but on the other side documentaries have the power to show a truth the audience did not know about before.
Talking specifically about “The thin blue line,” the essay brings important insight on how even though it is a documentary it still has a specific story and the docu-auteur purposely reveals certain things at certain times, that in a way it is “staged.” The author mentions one moment that I thought was really interesting in the documentary and that kind of shifts our entire view of the story: when we see Harris’ hands for the first when he scratches his head and we realize that he is handcuffed. In this moment we realize that he is in prison as well but we know that he accused Adams of the murder so it makes us rethink the entire story right away because we know that Adams was accused by Harris but if Harris is in jail as well we question if he came forward at some point or is in jail for some reason. The tiny detail of him just scratching his head reveals so much more to the story line.
Another interesting insight is when the author of the essay mentions that documentaries who are more powerful do not set out to just follow one truth or go for a single target which is why “The thin blue line” works so well. The director originally was not looking to just show Adam’s innocence but was more interested in the story of the psychiatrist whose testimony is kind of the reason Adams was on death row and the psychiatrist was known for sending multiple people to the death sentence. Therefore, the director may have wanted to follow that story at first but ended up not just focusing on this point. He still mentions it in the documentary but he does not follow just one target in order to make the story more powerful.