“If Randall Adams and Davis Harris can agree on anything, it's that fate dealt them a terrible hand when, on Saturday, Nov. 27, 1976, it threw them together.”
-Janet Maslin, New York Times, 1988
One of the most revealing themes Errol Morris has to offer in his 1988 documentary, The Thin Blue Line, is the role fate plays in our lives.
Randall Adams is a victim to the concept of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Morris discovers him on death row for a crime he claims he didn't commit. “Adams told me he was innocent. Everyone in prison tells you they're innocent. It was only after I met Davis Harris that I began to suspect that the wrong man had been convicted of murder.”
Morris, himself, admits that he came upon the the framework story for The Thin Blue Line by accident. In 1985, he was interviewing prisoners in a Texas penitentiary for a documentary on James P. Grigson, a Dallas psychiatrist known as Dr. Death. One of his interview subjects just so happened to be Randall Adams. Was it fate?
That all depends on how you, as a sentient being, perceive the unexplained. Throughout the documentary, Adams repeatedly states that he has no idea how to explain the “why” of his situation. Why did he run out of gas that morning? Why did David Harris pick him up? Why was he accused of murdering a Dallas, Texas cop?
We find ourselves asking these questions to any unfortunate event that disrupts our lives. Sometimes it takes yesterday's storm to appreciate today's sunshine. When things are going well, we neglect to appreciate the trials and tribulations it took to get there, whether that be from the efforts of yourself or of others.
In the case of Randall Adams, he was plucked from his own mundane life and thrown into a world of chaos. How was he to know that getting in a car with David Harris would forever change his life?
One article describes Adam's appearance within the film as “passive and defeated.” If we were to refer to Blake Snyder's beat sheet, Randall Adams would be in the “All Hope is Lost” portion of a screenplay outline. How does a person even begin to cope with such a jarring event that they cannot seem to justify? Richard F. Taflinger may lead to an explanation within his commentary, A Myth of Objectivity in Journalism:
“The brain has no actual, physical contact with the world. It doesn't even have pain nerves, and thus needs no anesthesia when operated upon (of course, the skin of the scalp and the bone of the skull are not likewise blessed). Everything the brain knows or reacts to comes to it in only one way: through the senses.”
There seems to be a point in severe emotional distress where all senses are dulled and an individual becomes “numb” to their surroundings. This may be mistaken for an apathetic demeanor, or may even, in some cases, explain an apathetic demeanor. However, could it not be that Randall Adams, within the film, had been broken of all resolve to defend himself against the judicial system? His efforts didn't even seem to make a dent, despite their potential validity.
This gives rise to the age old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” Well, friends, bad things don't happen to good people. Bad things make good people. I would be interested to hear what Randall Adam's outlook on life is today.
Words of interest:
Duplicity- deceitfulness, double-dealing
Dossier-a collection of documents about a particular person, event, or subject
Epistemological- what distinguishes justified belief from opinion
Heterogeneity- diverse in character or content
Quibble- a slight objection or criticism, a play on words--a pun
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