Thin Grizzle Blue Man

Timothy Treadwell, the "kind warrior", the "lone guardian of the grizzlies", a man who has an addictive personality living his last 13 summers out in the Alaskan Peninsula among the Grizzly bears.  Grizzly bears are ranked as one of the most dangerous animals in the world, yet Treadwell believed he needed to be out there and protect them and love them.  Many people loved Timothy and his cause, mainly children, but with lovers also comes haters.  People also thought he was insane, or one man said he thought he had a mental disability. I don't think that was the case, Timothy was a loving man, almost like the Dr. Phil of Grizzlies.  He would talk to them like he was their father or he would help give them relationship advice. But he became so lost in living with grizzlies that he mentally almost became one.  His soul/spirit animal was a grizzly bear trapped in human form. The way his tone and speech when communicating to bears, was almost like talking to children.

The Thin Blue Line, providing a glance into the negatives of the justice system, opened my eyes and heart into the understanding that not everyone is a honest person, per not everyone is a liar as well.  "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit".  Randall was pinned on the murder of the police officer because of circumstance and they took the word of a 16 year old kid over a 30+ year old man with no prior problems with the police.

The part that unites these two film is the use of technology.  Without Tim's hours of video footage and   Randall Adam's story on The Thin Blue Line, the world would have never seen these people and heard their stories.  Although "human imagination [can] accomplish great things" for imagining into the lives of other, the creation of these films educate and (in Randall's case) allow others to reconsider prior judgements made about a person.  Hence, the case reopening after the film was made and they proved he was innocent of the Murder of the police officer, proving that David Harris was the killer after all.  Without Timothy Treadwell's hours of devotion to the conservation of wild animals, we would have just thought he was a crazy man who was more insane the Bear Grylls.  These two examples of Documentary's provide a real truth to the lives of people whom most people would never want to be, prisoner of the state, and prisoner of the body (wanting to be a grizzly bear).  Documentaries today are so much more entertaining to most because of the fact of editing, or in the sense, we cannot trust Reality TV Shows like Survivor.  Timothy Treadwell and Randall Adams were/are the real survivors, and thanks to technology, we can see that truth for ourselves.

Thin Blue Lie

The falsely accused in Thin Blue Line, Randall Adams, shares his experience with the judicial system as a disservice to justice: “He don’t give a damn if you’re innocent, he don’t give a damn if you’re guilty…they don’t care.”  “He” in this case refers to the judge, but frequently throughout the film, Adams uses the term “they” to include prosecutors, the jury, and the judge.  I also interpret “they” to mean “the man” or the government/law enforcement in general.  Some form of justice is sought after someone is murdered, but vengeance is an important factor when a police officer is killed in the line of duty: the courts will take severe measures to avenge an officer's death. Pertaining to the jury, one attorney rightfully claimed that it was “their verdict that counted.” This shows the fault in our judicial system and acceptance of the convenient truth versus the inconvenient truth. 

Though Thin Blue Line was created to show the fault in Adams’ case, this story is not new in United States' history.  The convenient truth, in other words, not the truth at all, is used to close cases.  Men, often deemed inferior because of minority and/or lower socioeconomic status, have been prosecuted as scapegoats to ease the minds of victims, victims’ families, and society.  Many desire the situation to be “handled” rather than justice be served. It is important to decipher between partial truth and whole truth: a man may be guilty of drunk driving and using illegal drugs, but that does not indicate guilt of further crimes.  

Herzog grapples with the importance of reality, the Factual, and Truth: “Of course, we can’t disregard the factual; it has normative power. But it can never give us the kind of illumination, the ecstatic flash, from which Truth emerges.” Herzog deciphers between the Factual and Truth; some things may be factually correct, such as hundreds sharing the same last name, yet not necessarily displaying the Truth – because they all identify as Schmidt, that does not mean they are THE Schmidt you are looking for.

Different realities are constructed depending on what evidence is presented; the only people who know the absolute truth are those who were present during the situation.  Even that is difficult to claim as some can convince themselves of a different past or find images and memories blurred in a haze of substances and adrenaline. Thin Blue Line encourages viewers to investigate and challenge assumptions: it shows that the determination to reveal truth can undermine a corrupt system.