The Randall Adams case

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Movie
German title The Randall Adams case
Original title The Thin Blue Line
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1988
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Errol Morris
script Errol Morris
production Mark Lipson
music Philip Glass
camera Robert Chappell
Stefan Czapsky
cut Paul Barnes
occupation

The Randall Adams Case (Original Title: The Thin Blue Line ) is a 1988 documentary directed by Errol Morris .

action

A police officer is shot dead during a vehicle inspection. The police then presented two suspects: the underage David Ray Harris, who was recorded in the criminal record and later claimed in his hometown to have murdered a police officer, and the 28-year-old Randall Dale Adams, who had not been noticed by the police. The documentation shows that the investigative authorities constructed evidence and influenced testimony.

background

Originally, Errol Morris wanted a documentary about the psychiatrist Dr. Filming James Grigson from Dallas , who, based on his expertise, had put over a hundred offenders on death row. Grigson was also notorious as "Doctor Death". Under Texas law, sentencing someone to death was only possible if a psychiatric report confirmed that the accused would continue to commit violent acts. In almost every report, Dr. Grigson confirms that the person he studied is an "incurable sociopath who has a 100 percent chance of killing again."

While researching the project, he came across the "Randall Adams case" and began, more by chance, to deal more intensively with the murder case.

Through extensive knowledge and numerous interviews, Errol Morris was able to uncover a miscarriage of justice and rehabilitate the convicted death row inmate. In 1988, Morris was one of the first to add feature film scenes to documentary material in a film in order to bring the viewer closer to what happened. Morris investigations had concluded that five witnesses in court were deliberately untruthful and thus guilty of perjury.

After his release from prison, Adams and Morris contested the rights to the story in court. An agreement was finally reached out of court in favor of Adams. He said that the legal dispute was not about money, but about the rights to his life story.

Morris later recalled: "When he got out he was very angry when he realized he had sold the rights to his life story to me ... he felt like I stole something from him. Maybe I had "Or maybe I can't put myself in the shoes of someone who's been in jail for so long for a crime they didn't commit."

Adams died in October 2010. The original title of the film comes from a reworking of a quote from Rudyard Kipling's poem Tommy , in which British soldiers are described as "thin red line" due to their uniforms and formation.

Awards

literature

  • Renée R. Curry: Errol Morris' Construction of Innocence in "The Thin Blue Line". In: Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, Vol. 49, No. 2 (1995), pp. 153-167.
  • Linda Williams: Truth, History, and The Thin Blue Line. In: Barry Keith Grant / Jeannette Sloniowski (eds.): Documenting the documentary: close readings of documentary film and video. 1998. ISBN 978-0814326398

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Study: State relies too much on 'killer shrinks' , Fort Worth Star-Telegram . March 31, 2004. Retrieved March 11, 2008. 
  2. ↑ Pat Gillespie: Expert psychiatric witness was nicknamed Dr. Death , Dallas Morning News . June 14, 2004. Retrieved March 21, 2009. 
  3. ↑ Laura Bell: Groups Expel Psychiatrist Known for Murder Cases; Witness nicknamed 'Dr. Death 'says license won't be affected by allegations , Dallas Morning News . July 26, 1995. Retrieved March 21, 2009. 
  4. ^ Errol Morris: Predilections , New York Times . February 2, 1989. Retrieved January 12, 2010. 
  5. ↑ Ex parte Adams , 768 SW2d 281 (Tex. Ct. Crim. App. 1989) ( en banc ), at [1] .
  6. ↑ Errol Morris: Thin Blue Line: Five Key Witnesses , ErrolMorris.com . Retrieved March 11, 2008. 
  7. ↑ Freed Inmate Settles Suit With Producer Over Rights to Story , Dallas Morning News . August 6, 1989. Retrieved on March 11, 2008.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / select.nytimes.com  
  8. ↑ Danny Yeager: Danny Yeager Interviews Randall Dale Adams , The Touchstone. Summer 2000. Archived from the original on February 22, 2001. Retrieved March 11, 2008. 
  9. ^ Brian Bull: An Interview with Errol Morris , Wisconsin Public Radio . July 2, 2004. Retrieved March 11, 2008. 
  10. ↑ Douglas Martin: Randall Adams, 61, Dies; Freed With Help of Film . In: The New York Times , June 25, 2011.