Thin Blue Line (1988) is ‘a film that successfully argued that a man was wrongly convicted of murder by a corrupt justice system in Dallas County, Texas.’ (Chislom). This documentary is filmed and directed by the award-winning director and filmmaker, Errol Morris; it centred around Randall Dale Adams; a 27-year-old worker and 16-year old David Harris. These two males were suspect of the murder of Dallas police officer, Robert W Wood in 1978.
This documentary is structured to persuade the audience to believe that suspect, Adams; who was convicted of the crime against Officer Wood and sentenced to the death penalty; was absolutely innocent of the crime and that David Harris is guilty of the murder. The film technique of using reenactments was
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The film as a whole gave enough validated criticisms of the evidence that was collated by the police that the audience made up their own minds that Adams was innocent.
Errol Morris, the director of Thin Blue Line, is an award winning director with 35 years of experience in the industry. Morris has come across great success in his career, he has had great directing roles in films such as The Fog of War and Mr. Death. Although he has come across great success, Thin Blue Line not only did not make any profits but left Errol Morris in one hundred thousand dollars in debt.
Randall Adams and Errol Morris had a very close relationship during and after the filming of the documentary as Morris was determined to make Adams a free man. Although, once Adams was released from his life sentence, he sued Morris as there was a written agreement the two men made before the film was released, stating that ‘Adams would be paid $10 if Mr. Morris made a documentary film or $60,000 and 2 percent of profits if he made a commercial film.’ (P. A) Errol Morris therefore owns the material in Thin Blue Line but Morris reinforces that it was never his intention
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Also, there aren’t many hard facts presented as most of the information given in interviews and such are reliant on memory, in which can be terribly distorted. This was most likely the mode chose this mode as it allows the audience to make their own judgements on the social actors and their innocence. The film gives out more than adequate contradictory evidence that it almost forces the audience to believe that Adams is innocent, highlighting the characteristics of this chosen mode using techniques to create a subjective
The jurors took a vote and saw the ratio at eleven for guilty and only one for not guilty. When they repeatedly attacked his point of view, his starting defense was that the boy was innocent until proven guilty, not the opposite as the others had seen it. After Henry Fonda instilled doubt in the mind of another juror, the two worked together to weaken the barriers of hatred and prejudice that prevented them from seeing the truth. The jurors changed their minds one at a time until the ratio stood again at eleven to one, this time in favor of acquittal. At this point, the jurors who believed the defendant was not guilty worked together to prove to the one opposing man that justice would only be found if they returned a verdict of not guilty. They proved this man wrong by using his personal experiences in life to draw him into a series of deadly contradictions.
Pilkington, Ed. "The Wrong Carlos: How Texas Sent an Innocent Man to His Death." TheGuardian. Guardian News and Media, 16 May 2012. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
“We can all say we’re never going to commit a crime, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be accused.” The trailer of Netflix’s series, Making a Murderer, begins with this statement. Before viewers have even begun watching the series, this quote prods them to go down a scary thought path. Where would you find the strength to stay hopeful while in jail? How would you prove your innocence? Would you succumb to the pressure of pleading guilty for the chance of early parole? The first seven seconds of the trailer captures the viewers’ attention, and from there they are hooked. Netflix creates the infamous good vs. evil scenario in this series. Steven Avery and his family are portrayed as the poor and innocent citizens, while the investigators and prosecutors
The death penalty, a subject that is often the cause of major controversy, has become an integral part of the southern justice system in recent years. The supporters and opponents of this issue have heatedly debated each other about whether or not the death penalty should be allowed. They back their arguments with moral, logical, and ethical appeals, as seen in the essays by Ed Koch and David Bruck. Although both authors are on opposite sides of the issue, they use the same ideas to back up their argument, while ignoring others that they don’t have evidence for. Koch and Bruck’s use of moral, logical, and ethical persuasion enhance both of their arguments and place a certain importance on the issue of the death penalty, making the readers come to the realization that it is more than just life and death, or right and wrong; there are so many implications that make the issue much more 3-dimensional. In dealing with politics and controversial issues such as capital punishment.
A decent critical thinking statement in the film is “How come you believe the woman’s story rather than the boy’s story”. This statement questions the potential bias of the person the speaker is questioning. This is a good critical thinking skill of identifying biases that questions the information provided. However, there exists multiple incorrectly used critical thinking statements in the film that imply that the suspect is guilty such as “The woman saw him do it” and “The kids guilty, What else?”. The first statement is an assumption that the suspect committed the crime, all because someone believed that they saw him committing the murder.
This movie goes to show how such crucial facts and minuet evidence if not processed fully and clearly can change the outcome in such a big way. In this jury you have 12 men from all different walks of life, 12 different times, and 12 different personalities. Who have an obligation to come to one conclusion and that's whether or not the young man on trial is guilty of murdering his father or is innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. Under much frustration and lack of patience these 12 men began to get unruly and unfocused. Throughout this distraction key terms get misused, facts get turned around and more importantly emotions start to cross making it hard for these men to produce a verdict.
For this assignment, this review will be about the documentary The Central Park Five by Ken Burns. Ken Burns the director of the movie is also known for his style of using archival footage and photographs in his documentary films. Other documentary films he is known for is The Civil War, Brooklyn Bridge, and Baseball. His other works don’t seem to be significant to the analysis of the film because they are mostly just about different types of topics that aren’t like this one but with the way that he does his types of films will help could help with the analysis because it gives an idea at the way that he convinces people. The Central Park Five are 5 young men who were convicted of a crime of raping a jogger in Central Park. They implicated themselves in the crime after hours of pressure and aggression during the integration. They were all released at different times but they spent six to thirteen years in prison. The goal of this documentary was to revisit what had happened and to review the injustices of what had happened. In this review, I’m going to be talking about how Ken Burns uses pathos and ethos to convenience the audience/whoever
Throughout America’s history, capital punishment, or the death penalty, has been used to punish criminals for murder and other capital crimes. In the early 20th century, numerous people would gather for public executions. The media described these events gruesome and barbaric (“Infobase Learning”). People began to wonder if the capital punishment was really constitutional.
One of the most prominent and influential directors in New Hollywood was Italian-American Martin Scorsese. His first major critical success, and what is often considered his “breakthrough” film, was 1973’s Mean Streets. This film helped to establish Scorsese’s signature style in regards to narrative and thematics as well as aesthetically. Scorsese developed a unique and distinct directorial flair to his films, with reoccurring themes, settings, cinematography, and editing techniques, among other elements. This led a number of film critics to declare Scorsese an “auteur,” similar to Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, and other auteur directors of the French New Wave.
Guilty or not guilty? This the key question during the murder trial of a young man accused of fatally stabbing his father. The play 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, introduces to the audience twelve members of a jury made up of contrasting men from various backgrounds. One of the most critical elements of the play is how the personalities and experiences of these men influence their initial majority vote of guilty. Three of the most influential members include juror #3, juror #10, and juror #11. Their past experiences and personal bias determine their thoughts and opinions on the case. Therefore, how a person feels inside is reflected in his/her thoughts, opinions, and behavior.
The Public Conviction of Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders makes a persuasive argument for DeSalvo being innocent of the strangling murders. She cites a number of reasons why she and others still believed that DeSalvo was innocent. One of the strongest of these reasons is that there was "not one shred of physical
“The thin blue line” is a phrase that many people have heard of yet do not fully understand. It is a name that applies to law enforcement officers and their essential role in society. It shows support to the living law enforcement officers and commemorates the fallen ones. It is usually presented as any black shape or object with a blue line through the middle. The half above the blue line represents the general public and law abiding citizens, and the half below the blue line represents the criminals. The thin blue line symbolizes the officers. The idea behind it is that the police officers are the only thing separating the public from the criminal element of society (Flosi 2016). They work tirelessly to keep these two groups
In this paper, I will discuss the key facts and critical issues presented in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case.
He based his guilty verdict on the logical information provided in the courtroom. He continued to feel this way until later in the movie when he changed his appeal to pathos. The decision to change his mind was caused by the other jurors starting to change their minds. As the one juror that felt the boy was innocent continued to try and convince the others that there was a chance that they could all be wrong, most of the jurors were starting to see the possibility. Every time there was a new reason why he could be innocent, each juror had more to think about.
Edward Koch, who was former mayor of New York, wrote an article about one of the most controversial talks called the death penalty. This controversial topic questions if it is right to execute a person for a crime committed or if it is wrong. He made the point that the death penalty is good, in order to conclude that murderers should be punish with this penalty. He was bias in most of the passage, yet he tried to acknowledge other people’s opinion. In this article, Koch gives his supports to the idea to convict a murderer with death penalty by using a tone of objectiveness, shooting for the individuals who opposes his position to be the audience, and have a written form of conviction for the audience.