the glob

Last year sometime, TG and I ordered the box set of Errol Morris’ first three films. In order, they were Vernon, Florida, Gates Of Heaven, and The Thin Blue Line, and it’s interesting to watch the progression of Morris as a director and storyteller through these three documentaries.

I’d already seen The Thin Blue Line a couple years back, but TG never had and I wanted to see how it held up to a repeat viewing. Although it’s an easy film to digest just by watching it once, I felt like there were a lot of little things in it that I was able to pick up on the second time through, especially in the body language and in the odd wording of some of the interviews that Morris does with the different subjects of the film. Perhaps because it’s a bit older, and perhaps just because of the plain unique people in the film, it almost feels like a fictitious film at times, which makes it all the more haunting.

If you feel strongly one way or another about the death penalty, this is a movie that might just make you think about things in a different way or reinforce your beliefs. It shines a light on just how massively wrong a large criminal justice system (in Texas, interestingly enough) can get something and the consequences for one man because of that.

I’ve seen a lot of documentaries in my day, but this one is easily in the top five (like The Fog Of War, the score by Philip Glass is great). As a greedy film watcher, I wish that Morris would put out even more documentaries.