The Thin Blue Line (1988) has stirred up controversy regarding its fixture in a particular genre. Some critics have argued that this film possesses qualities which attribute it to being a docudrama , while others such as Errol Morris, the director of the film, insist that it is a documentary in its purest form. This debate has highlighted one of the major issues presented in the film. That is, the question of how truth relies on the means to which it is represented. The second issue in which the film explores is the motivation of the director. In this case, it seems to expose the one-sidedness of the American justice system, and seeks to determine Randall Adam's innocence. Errol Morris's motivation can also be seen as trying to empower the idea of free speech in America using his documentary as an example of it. The style of the documentary helped emphasise the issues in most instances, as well as structure it. This essay will highlight the style and aforementioned issues which resulted from The Thin Blue Line.
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Following more classical notions of documentary theory, truth is often related to the cameras ability to gather and record. Dziga Vertov, who many American film catalogues recognised as the "father of documentary" , .
argued that "that the most effective images for purposes of indoctrination were those drawn from actual life". This resulted in the rise of cinema verite's claim to truth, which was based on the ability of technology to produce portable equipment that enabled the camera to gather and record information more reliably than ever before. As theories of documentary were developed further, the realism in documentary began to rely on other factors, such as representing the attitude of the filmmaker. It was at this stage that theorists such as Rotha argued that there was no such thing as truth, since the developing changes in society continually contradicted each other and there seemed to be no one truth.
