Scheduled film for 28 May 2010

THE THIN BLUE LINE

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The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988) refers to the thin line of the blue-uniformed police who defend the average citizen against criminals. The film uses direct interviews mixed with staged reenactments of events as they are reported.
Almost as a parable of cinema, it's up to the viewer to make sense of all the shots and scenes in the film, a point made in the stylized title, which colors the word "blue" red, a trick of Gestalt psychologists as an exercise in reading forms (that is, does one read it as an image (red) or as a word (blue).
Much of the editing is purposely redundant with what is reported, as if to contrast real images against uncertain reportage, forcing viewers to make up their minds in the same way as with the stylized (red) word "blue" in the title.
Other edited shots, such as clocks and ash trays, are more conventional and seem intrusive. Commentative intercutting between Hollywood genre movies and participants in the docudrama is more effective, undermining the speakers even as they speak.
The dramatic reenactments bring us closer to the truth of what happened even as the stylized images distance us from what happened. In this way they seem to explore elusive nature of filmed truth.
Finally, Philip Glass's minimalist score, with its haunting ostinato figures, contrast the different views of the speakers against the obstinate repetitions of the music.

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ostinato=obstinate; musical figures that stubbornly repeat, as in much of Baroque music, such as Vivaldi or Bach.

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