Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Eva Bizovská

The Voice of Crime Documentaries Paradise Lost (1996) and The Thin Blue Line (1988) Bachelor's Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph.D.

2018 / declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Eva Bizovska Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all who gave me much needed support to finish this thesis - my family and friends, and to Mgr. Stefan Veleski, B.A. for his advice in bachelor seminars. Last but not least, I thank to doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Ph.D. for believing in my topic and laying the crucial foundations of this thesis. Table of Contents

Introduction 1 1. The Documentary Genre 4 1.1. The Crime Documentaries 6 1.1.1 The Paradise Lost Series 7 1.1.2 The Thin Blue Line 9 2. Voice - Theory and Methodology 11 3. Case Studies and Seeming Objectivity 13 3.1. Paradise Lost: Guilt by Association 15 3.1.1. Sentiment and Authenticity 17 3.1.2. The Authentic Footage 19 3.2. The Thin Blue Line: "Heard of the proverbial scapegoat? " 21 3.2.1. Word against Word 23 3.2.2. Manipulated Reenactments 26 Conclusion 27 Works Cited 30 Summary 33 Resumé 34 Introduction

Every film communicates with the viewer through narration and style. The combination of both transforms the reality into something poetical. This is mostly the domain of the fiction films that do not necessarily aspire to influence the viewers. They rather evoke emotions than an influence in the viewers. On the opposite side, the non- fiction films allow more for the viewers' influence. The reason for that is a dominant presence of reality. There is a constant focus on the viewer because they themselves are aware of the reality. So, the documentarists work not only with narration and style in the process of making, but also with the approach towards depicted reality.

Regardless of filmmakers' motivations, the approach they choose towards reality is visible in a final essence of the film - the essence called voice. The voice of the documentary was defined by an American film critic and theoretician Bill Nichols. The documentary's voice is captured not just in the aftermath. The voice is shown throughout the entire projection of the film. Nichols' work elaborates on the qualities of the voice, such as style or arrangement observable in editing or in the compositions of the scenes, the presentation of the protagonists and more. These are the choices of the filmmakers' that define many approaches towards the depiction of reality in documentaries.

This bachelor thesis analyzes two documentaries that differ in approach toward the reality but agree with the voice. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood

Hills and The Thin Blue Line portray two different crime stories that took place in the late

20th century in the United States. The documentaries are about the investigation of the murders where the killer is unknown. The creators of both introduce the crimes through the camera in their own specific way. One uses authenticity as a key notion, while the other does the exact opposite by playing with the dramatic reenactments. Yet both are

1 similar in three features: influence (saved life of the protagonist), manipulation of the viewer (through manifestation of that innocence) and self-reflexivity (active participation of filmmakers on investigation). Three features that together create the voice of these documentaries.

These features, altogether, form the logic and the structure of both documentaries visible in the voice. Both films give rise to the release of main protagonists who were sentenced to life imprisonment. Paradise Lost (referred to as PL) gained such media popularity and the huge interest among some individuals that enough money was raised to finance a further investigation. Errol Morris in The Thin Blue Line (referred to as the

TBL) recorded the statement from a criminal during the interview that proves the innocence of another falsely convicted man. The voice of PL and the TBL influenced the start of the research for this thesis similarly as it influenced many people globally.

The production team of Paradise Lost represents HBO Channel. Court in

Arkansas trusted the HBO team in making a documentary that depicts the horror of satanic sacrifices of children. The police believed that this will help to discredit three teenage suspects and possibly to gain some praise for their investigative work (Kors).

However, right from the begging the director Joe Berlinger and the camera man Bruce

Sinofsky wanted to stay objective rather than point fingers at someone.

The center of the creative team in The Thin Blue Line is the director Errol Morris.

His work as an investigative journalist resulted into the documentary worth the life of a falsely convicted man for the murder of the Dallas police officer. Morris' depiction of the reality does not leave much space to the imagination - the reenactments of the crime scene or testimonies are that imagination. He looks at this film as a case and he investigates its each evidence or testimony as a potential truth, leaving the viewer puzzled the whole

2 time. However, Morris knows his truth and he intends to reveal it at a right time to everyone.

The documentaries did not discover the killer but they made the judiciary system free the falsely convicted men imprisoned for years. Two seemingly different films from diverse time periods saved lives because new evidences were found due to their makings.

Paradise Lost and The Thin Blue Line are characterized by their objective style in filmmaking which leads to the very subjective results, by Errol on purpose, by Berlinger and Sinofsky accidentally.

The main goal of my thesis is to analyze these crime documentaries through their voice, as defined by a scholar Bill Nichols, that forms itself from the logic and structure specific for each documentary. The voice uncovers the narrative of seeming objectivity through the conscious and unconscious choices of the filmmakers and sees it as illusory because of the features - influence, manipulation and self-reflexivity - projected into the voice. Furthermore, the thesis' aim is to prove these three features specifically for each documentary through examples from the texts of the films.

In the following chapter, I introduce the problematic of the documentary genre in general and briefly describe the crimes depicted in each film. The second chapter provides a closer look on the voice and explains its logic used for this research. The main analysis is described in the third chapter giving detailed information on the plot of both documentaries and then showing the particular components of the voice starting with

Paradise Lost and then The Thin Blue Line. In the chapter, I also prove the seeming objectivity that is of a specific nature in both films and it is visible in the qualities of their voice.

3 1. The Documentary Genre

The documentarists create on the basis of the real events to make a unique version of known truth. Even though the influence of the viewer is not their primary intention, the feature is constantly present in each phase of the documentary filmmaking.

Documentary films are hard to define for the scholars even today. There are many variations of these definitions but the carried meaning usually remains:

Documentary films ... are part or parcel of the discursive formations, the language

genres, and rhetorical stratagems by and through which pleasure and power,

ideologies and Utopias, subjects and subjectivities receive tangible representation.

(Nichols, Representing Reality 10)

The definition of documentaries is formed in the contrast with the limitations or the similarities of fiction films.

So, the certain is that the documentary films belong to the category of non- fictional films. However, the line between the fiction and non-fiction gets thinner as new documentaries originate every year. Bill Nichols, as Professor of Cinema at San Francisco state University, very thoroughly explores many varieties of documentary genre in his book Introduction to Documentary. The author compares documentaries with fiction films and searches for the uneasy definition of this genre. The book explores its potential and limitations. The defined voice then represents the solution of the documentary films and it elaborates on its characteristics and qualities.

Still, Nichols suggests that all films are documentaries separated in two categories

- documentaries of wish-fulfillment and documentaries of social representation (1). The first category embodies everyone's dreams and fears; it depicts the imagination. This could be the category of fiction films. The second one is about documentaries as a generally accepted non-fictional medium. With this differentiation of films, the author

4 acknowledges that behind every film is a group of filmmakers whose decisions alter the reality.

Whether it is a fiction shot in the courtroom with real actors or a documentary about the real case shot during the actual trial, there are still makings of a person behind the total outcome of the footage. Even when there are depicted real personas and there is as minimum manipulation of a camera and a scene as possible, there are still choices made by director that reshape the reality. According to Nichols "documentary claims to address the historical world and to possess the capacity to intervene by shaping how we regard it"

(39). In other words, documentary captures some periodical fragments of the time and presents itself in a certain structure that aims at the viewer. This proves that the intervention of the documentary author is always present but it becomes more visible after the release when its voice is finally captured. The question to which extent is the creator aware of this structure in the process is the matter of many discussions among film scholars.

Looking from the historical point of view, Nichols explains four styles of a documentary film that can be observed, such as the direct address style aka "voice of

God", then very realistic cinema verite or the style of direct address through interviews with participants ("The Voice of Documentary" 17). The fourth style is the one where the scholars' opinion varies the most - the self-reflexive documentary. The amount of directiveness and communication that the filmmaker brings determines his reflexivity.

Still, some argue that the self-reflexive documentary does not consist of reenactments and it is closer to the cinema verite. This tradition is closely connected to the technological development after the 60s where filmmakers got into closer connection with the action in the scene asking: "if ... [the protagonists] were not being filmed, how could they account for the presence of the camera and crew and the modifications it

5 caused?" (Ruby 8). The academics and creators began to analyze their objectivity and the intrusion of the film crew into the personal space of the film's protagonists.

However, the self-reflexive documentaries try to expand the limits of cinema verite but do not entirely disregard it. They are variations of cinema verite on some level.

For example, Paradise Lost appears to be more in the tradition of cinema verite and The

Thin Blue Line is the one more self-reflexive one that hides the reality and consciously interacts with the imagination. So, PL and the TBL does not differ that much because "the process of constructing meaning overshadows constructed meanings" (Nichols, "Voice of the Documentary" 29). In this case, the constructed meaning is the unbiased objectivity and the process of its construction reveals the voice. Considering this, the voice overcomes the objectivity because of the biased attitude of the filmmakers of both films.

On the other side, American film scholar Linda Williams claims that the self- reflexive documentaries area the new type of documentary in a postmodern era strongly affected by the boom of crime television series. Post-modern cinema claims that the truth is always relative because there are two sides to each story. The author mentions The Thin

Blue Line and marks the technique used to express the truth as a proper example of postmodern cinema. However, Errol Morris expresses negative attitude towards post modernistic view of the truth. He would regard himself as anti-postmodernist in search on the truth that is always out there (Rosenbaum).

1.1. The Crime Documentaries

Nowadays, the crime documentaries have much bigger recognition that two analyzed documentaries. Many of them, such as Making a Murderer (2015) or Jinx (2015) are inspired by the documentaries compared in this thesis. The Thin Blue Line and

Paradise Lost were groundbreaking documentaries. They were among few non-fiction

6 films projected in the movie theaters (Eagan). This was mostly the privilege of fiction features.

The Thin Blue Line was one of the first documentaries that used the reenactments based on the witnesses' statements. Soon, this technique was popularized with many modern crime-scene films, mostly in television series, such as Cold Case Files or C.S.I.

The documentary popularized a new technical device, at that time, called the interrotron which in the principle allows the interviewee to talk frontally on the camera as if he talked to the camera man (Dewhurst).

The uniqueness of Paradise Lost is in its trial footage - this is truly special permission given by legal authorities. The film makes a great use of it and it further expands the tradition of cinema verite. The interviews contradict this tradition, even though they are shot in the authentic matter in homes of the protagonists. The director Joe

Berlinger admits that his career was strongly inspired by Errol Morris and The TBL in particular.

Nevertheless, he claims that Paradise Lost differs from The Thin Blue Line stylistically. But they do have in common that they "treat the audience like jury members"(Eagan). Berlinger himself says that the motivation is to leave people make their own judgement of the crime where is impossible to choose sides.

1.1.1 The Paradise Lost Series

The documentary film Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills is a first part of a trilogy that follows the story of the (WM3). The trilogy tracks the story of three teenagers who were convicted of a triple child murder in

West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. There was no actual evidence from the crime scene against , Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley, Jr. Still, the jury concluded

7 that they are guilty based on the forced confessions, disturbing appearance (wearing black), worship of Satan (book of Wicca religion) and taste in heavy metal music

(, Slayer), sentencing Jason and Jessie to life imprisonment, and Damien, as the only adult, to death by a lethal injection (Klein).

First part of the trilogy, that I closely analyze in my paper, introduces the murder itself and the following investigation. The distinctive feature of this documentary is the actual trial footage serving as a narration of the film. The filmmakers Joe Berlinger and

Bruce Sinofsky were allowed to passively participate on the trial sessions and meetings of prosecution and defense attorneys. Film's projection also consists of interviews with both parties - convicted boys and their parents, and parents of the victims. The authenticity of the actual process of the murder investigation step by step with its uncensored images, is what strikes the viewer the most.

In 1993, three 8-year-old Steve Edward Branch, Christopher Mark Byers and

James Michael Moore were found death near their homes in the forest. They were naked, mutilated and tied up. Months later police arrested two suspects - Damien Echols and

Jason Baldwin - after the accusation made by Jessie Misskelley, Jr. After many trial sessions, the court closed the case as another Satanic ritual that required the human sacrifice in 1994. Paradise Lost ends with the conviction of the WM3.

After the release of Paradise Lost in 1995 people all around the world questioned the legal authorities of Arkansas. Popularity of the case raised up alongside with the popularity in the mass media. Six years after the release of PL Berlinger and Sinofsky gathered together again for the second part - Revelations (2000). The style and the total voice of this documentary differs from the first part. It shows obvious propagation of legal system's failure injustice and points out its every mistake to underline the possibility of the WM3's innocence.

8 Synopsis of the second film focuses around evidences, re-opening of the case and starting fanbase of the WM3 to raise money for the attorneys. Revelations also re• examines the old evidences over the neglect of the first investigation. This part shows less of the families and it puts in focus just the individuals - Damien Echols and stepfather of

Christopher - Mark Bayer. Moreover, the film suggests the possible guilt of Mark Byers in many ways. This escalated to such extent that Bayer took a lie detector test that he passed flawlessly.

In 2011, aired the last part of the trilogy symbolically called Purgatory. The plot of this part losses the focus of Byers who became a supporter of the WM3. The episode shows constant attempt of the defense to re-examine the case in search of a new evidence as the technologies improve over the years. It was after the premiere when the court offered the West Memphis Three an Alford plea (Grow). This deal guarantees the freedom of the convict but it does not recline them of the guilt. In other words, the state sets the felon free when they plea themselves to be guilty.

1.1.2 The Thin Blue Line

In the night of November 27, in 1976, Dallas police patrol - Robert Wood and

Teresa Turko - spotted a car with turned off headlights. They followed the car until it pulled over on the side of the road. Robert Wood stepped to the car to alert the driver when he hit five bullets. The shooter then started the car and drove away leaving death police officer behind. Teresa Turko as a freshman in the field was unable to act according to the procedure or recollect what exactly happened.

On the same day as the murder, juvenile David Harris stole the car from his neighbor and some guns in Vidor. He drove to Dallas and offered a ride to the man in need - Randall Adams. He ran out of the gas and as a new in town he accepted the ride.

The men spend the day together drinking beers and visiting a drive-in cinema. Then, they

9 both went their separate ways - Adams staying in a hotel room and Davis driving back to

Vidor.

In the next days, the man who was accused of Wood's murder was Randall

Adams. He was sentenced to death and then commuted to life imprisonment. The entire investigation and evidence against Adams was very vague and mostly based on the accusation by David Harris who committed another crime shortly after officer's murder.

Harris kept bragging to his friends about killing "a Dallas pig" when officer Wood's murder aired in television and a stolen car and a weapon led to him soon enough just days after the Wood's murder (Klein). Almost a decade later, David Harris ended up in prison too for a murder of Mayes.

Errol Morris, as a partial investigative journalist, was doing a research on "Dr.

Death" in the late 80s for his article in The New York Times. In his focus was an infamous psychiatrist James Grigson who misdiagnosed many convicts and testified against their release on the trials (Klein). Morris came across with Randall Adams during this research.

After the interview with Adams, Morris searched for David Harris.

While on the death row, Harris bragged to his cell inmate about the murder of

Wood and how Adams was not even there. Morris receiving this information from mother of inmate prisoner believed in innocence of Adams even more (Klein). In the last interview Morris recorded on the audio-tape Harris saying that Randall Adams is innocent

(The Thin Blue Line). Afterwards the court used this tape as the evidence that overturned

Adams' conviction.

10 2. Voice - Theory and Methodology

American film theoretician Bill Nichols evolves the idea of the voice in his essay

"The Voice of Documentary" from 1983. The voice, carried in each documentary, is a combination of style, narration and the whole aesthetic and mood of the film or as Nichols puts it: "... that which conveys to us a sense of a text's social point of view, of how it is speaking to us and how it is organizing the materials it is presenting to us" (18 -19). The voice is something that makes people question whether the judiciary made a mistake in the analyzed documentaries.

The documentarists depict true events accurately but the arrangement of these historical truths is up to them. They make certain choices that are important for this resulting perception of the truth among the viewers. These choices by the filmmakers alter the reality to their mind. There are documentaries that base their narration on the realistic style by manipulating with the recorded material as little as possible but still, these films are thoroughly compound footages. For example, makers of Paradise Lost use the authentic footage from the courtroom but the shots are deliberately arranged in a specific order to make the statement.

These given cuts then evoke actions and reactions within a film that make the viewers contemplate about them in the moments dictated by the filmmakers. It could be unintentional as a subconscious decision but the filmmakers carry the responsibility for the outcome of the final product. For Nichols all documentaries are forms of re• presentation where a filmmaker is an active member who witnessed the story, "a producer of cinematic discourse rather than a neutral or all-knowing reporter of the way things truly are" ("The Voice of Documentary" 18). This fact alone suggests that whoever created a documentary projects consciously or unintentionally their point of view in the narrative.

11 If the documentary filmmaker chooses to remain objective and not to state their point of view, they still create some new perspective of the historical events. Such is the case of the TBL that has no voice-over by the director but it makes a clear statement about the innocence of Randall Adams (Nichols, Introduction to Documentary 48). Evidence used in documentaries to support their story can be inartistic (DNA sample, confessions, fingerprints) or artistic/artificial (filmmaker's opinion or product of their making) (50).

The difference between them is that the filmmakers should not manipulate with the inartistic evidence. The analyzed documentaries deliberately manipulate with the inartistic evidence and aim to avoid using artificial evidence. These choices create objectivity that is illusory.

The analysis of the case studies in this paper uses qualities of the voice - invention, arrangement, style, memory and delivery to prove this seeming objectivity (Nichols,

Introduction to Documentary 49). These are the classic divisions of rhetoric that also form the structure of the voice of documentary. My paper describes every feature by giving the examples for both films in the following chapters. When defining these single qualities of the voice I conclude the final logic and perspective of both voices that lies in self- reflexivity, influence and manipulation.

Logic of the voice is constructed in the choice of cut; in the composition of the scene; in a choice of the sound as being recorded at the scene or added later; in the usage of the archive footage or just the filmmaker's recorded material and then choosing the documentary mode that binds these features together (Nichols, Introduction to

Documentary 88). In a fictional film, the influence of the voice is omitted because creates the images from the abstract world made up by a screen-writer. Fictional style conveys a distinct, imaginary world, whereas documentary style or voice reveals a distinct form of engagement with the historical world (44).

12 Documentarist choose to show the real stories in distinctive approaches. These approaches are defined as documentary modes and Nichols listed a total number of six1

(Introduction to Documentary 138). These modes are sort of sub-genres of documentaries. Both analyzed films collide between the observational and the participatory mode. They give up of active participations to a certain degree and yet they make interviews with participants (PL, TBL) or use intertitles (PL). Considering the fact that the filmmakers of both films handed over a potential evidence to the legal justice (a knife in PL; an audio-tape in TBL) is questionable to which extent is the approach of these filmmakers still observational?

Bill Nichols claims that "texts know more than they tell at any one moment"

(Representing Reality 123). The reenactments of the real events in the TBL are purposely revealing the truth partially. The trial footage in PL is constructed into successive parts but the scenes in between consist of interviews from different time frames, so the truth is also manifested only to the certain extent. This in mind creates the mode of seeming objectivity in analyzed documentaries, but it is just the style and narration. In total, the voice does not equal this mode and it overcomes the seeming objectivity when it is uncovered by self-reflexivity, influence and manipulation.

3. Case Studies and Seeming Objectivity

The similarity of the studied films is mostly the theme of falsely convicted personas due to the lack of proper investigation by the local authorities. Two different crimes, two different states, two different teams of filmmakers, yet the result for both is very similar. The result represented here means the narratological choice of objectivity

1 Poetic, expository, observational, participatory, reflexive and performative documentary. 13 overshadowed by the voice whose logic and perspective is visible in the three key factors shared with both documentaries.

The team of Paradise Lost aims at the authenticity with their recordings from the trial and the interviews without interferences. In addition, the information come mostly from the reporters and the newspapers. The filmmakers' interference is subtle; they choose to manipulate with the shots as little as possible. The creators leave the scenes without extensive editing, even if the scenes are too long or too moving, and not crucial for the story. The scenes are kept in the original form just to underline its realness. These authentic and sentimental scenes prove the accidental manipulation of the viewer by the filmmakers of PL.

On the other hand, the TBL consciously manipulates with the viewer. Errol Morris withholds the information on purpose and reveals it as he sees fit, often in a juxtaposed and ironic way. The multiple reenactments that should strengthen the unbiased position of the author by staying open to all possibilities, do the opposite. These reenactments strongly fog the truth and the manipulation of the viewer is mistaken for objectivity.

The reenactments serve more to the purpose of the self-reflexivity - that is undisputed. For The Thin Blue Line is the self-reflexive feature of the documentary visible in its poetical presentation in a form of reenactments, orchestral score or noir-like imagery

(Williams 4). More importantly, the recording on Adams' innocence obtained by Morris caused the overturn of the conviction. That is a solid confirmation of self-reflexivity in this documentary.

However, the self-reflexivity in PL is hidden behind the footage from the trials and defense meetings in the tradition of cinema verité. Yet, the participation of the filmmakers is present all the time and it is visible the most when the directors hand over an artefact to the defense that serves as an evidence on the ongoing investigation

14 {Paradise Lost). I discuss the issue in more detail in the next chapter. The motivation behind this choice of the filmmakers clearly show the subjective standing to the discussed matter.

The feature of influence is noticeable the most from all three features because of the releasement of convicted men. Shortly after the premiere of PL started a supportive group for the West Memphis Three called "Free The West Memphis Three"2, so that years later even celebrities started raising money to pay for the expensive DNA testing "that eventually convinced the State of Arkansas to negotiate ... [the WM3 's] release (Dunne).

The resentment among viewers towards the US judiciary system became very strong.

After watching Paradise Lost people from all around the world were calling for justice -

"[it] became one of the most catalytic documentaries ever produced" (Grow).

The influential power of The TBL is contained in the entire film that serves as rightful investigation of the Randall Adams' case. His freedom followed the release of this documentary after nine years spend in prison for a crime he did not commit. However,

Adams suit the filmmaker for depicting his story without the permission and demanded the financial reward. Eventually, he lost the case.

3.1. Paradise Lost: Guilt by Association

In the evening of May 5, 1993, were three eight-year-old boys - Steve Edward

Branch, James Michael Moore and Christopher Mark Byers - reported missing. The boys went on a bike ride after the school and never returned home. The next day everyone searched the local area until short after the noon when an officer spotted a tennis shoe in a canal which led to the Robin Hood Hills ditch (Leveritt 10). There, the search party

2 http://www.westmemphis3.org/ 15 found three bodies of little boys. They were beaten and totally naked. Christopher Byers' body was even mutilated in the scrotum and penis. All three had their arms and legs tied with their own shoelaces behind their backs.

Initially, the police found some sperm DNA on the pants of one of the boys located at the crime scene. Though, later research disproved the suspicion of rape. The police pulled the bodies out of the water without calling the coroner right away leaving the bodies rotten on the hot sun in the area filled with mosquitos. Later research again discovered that some evidence ascribed to the mutilation by a man was cause by the post mortem animal predation (Kors). There was no blood evidence found on the crime scene.

First, Jessie Loyd Miskelley Jr. - 17-year-old boy with the IQ of 72, considered a little slow minded, was held for ten hours at West Memphis Police Department and interrogated on the matter of killings. People present at the trial listened to only one recorded hour where Jessie says that he helped Damien and Jason kill and sexually abuse three boys. Attorney Dan Stidham argued that the police officer manipulated with the boy through repeated questions. The defense's expert concluded that lower IQ of Jessie and exhaustion from long-lasting interrogation significantly contributed to his false confession, just to escape an intense situation {Paradise Lost).

Even though, the recorded confession of Jessie Miskelley could not be used as evidence, the court held a trial against Damien Wayne Echols and Charles Jason Baldwin.

Miskelley later denied his confession and refused to testify against two other boys, even with the promise of reduced sentence. He was convicted and sentenced for life plus 40 years for a triple capital murder.

The court accused 18-year-old Damien and 16-year-old Jason of being a part of a satanic cult based on their black clothes, taste in heavy-metal music or involvement with

Wicca religion. Especially with Damien, under whose bed was found a book with

16 pentagram and up-side-down crosses on it. The chapter Satanic Ritual was underlined with a red marker and presented as a disturbing evidence at the trial. Even when Damien claimed to buy the book in such condition or that Wicca religion is about respect for Earth, the prosecutors were convincing the jury that Damien worships a devil and the deaths of

8-year-olds were a human sacrifice as a part of the satanic ritual.

The prosecution did not have any evidence that would directly connect Jason

Baldwin with the murders expect for his friendship with Damien. This is pointed out at the final argument by his attorney for simply being guilty by association. Whether it was with Damien or some religion, none of the evidence could prove Jason's participance.

One potential evidence was the knife found in the river behind the Jason's house of which he had no knowledge about and without the presence of DNA or blood on it.

Finally, some unexpected witnesses testified against the two that was later disputed as lies. After long-lasting trials, the jury found both guilty. Jason was sentenced to life imprisonment and Damien was send on a death row to be killed by lethal injection.

When the documentary was finished all three boys appealed their convictions.

3.1.1. Sentiment and Authenticity

The style of Paradise Lost carries many features of a classic documentary, such as the names of the interviewee and locations in subtitles. The film shows the events with the eye of the camera as all-knowing narrator. The scenes are arranged for the viewer to understand the situation easily, so they can make an opinion about the case for themselves. The narration has a descriptive form where the directors introduce the protagonist and their issue one by one. To remain objective each sequence devotes few shots to the victims and few shots to the suspects.

The scenes appear to be edited with the minimal interference as the filmmakers are keen to stay objective. There are moments of authentic emotions, spontaneous

17 reactions or blooper situations made by reporters - these are long shots without cuts until the prologue is finished. Berlinger expressed that the film is edited manually in the old technique of cutting with the scissors and the tape (Kors). This limitation of the creator explains the uninterrupted long shots but does not dispute the manipulation. Arrangement of the shots evokes these meanings too.

The manipulation of PL lies in the rawness of the shots that evoke strong opposite emotions - compassion and disgust. Compassion is to be expected in the scenes of crying families visiting the graves, hateful scenes where fathers of victims - Byers and Moore - shoot at the pumpkins naming them as suspected boys. The viewer's sentimentality can be felt for the both sides - the victims and the suspects. For example, when Jessie calls his girlfriend and tells her that he is scared or Damien holds his sun for the first time right before they take him to the prison.

Scenes that evoke the emotion of disgust in the most shocking way are the ones with the pictures of mutilated boys. Their naked bodies are shown at the very beginning at the crime scene or even during the trial when shown as an evidence. With this brutality the director wants to underline the fear of an unknow cold blooded killer among local

Christian community, so that the police are urgent to capture practically anyone (Kors).

The viewer might perceive similarly the shots of teens being chained as the most dangerous murderers with the doubt of their innocence in mind.

So, no matter what the motivations is, the filmmakers must make decision in editing. They choose to cut many scenes with vocative statements like showing the mutilated kids right at the beginning with the serious face of the police and the church community depicted in the fear of Satan to capture the life of the locals. A different choice represents a scene when Damien seeing Mark Byers during the interview sees him more like a human now that he heard him speak {Paradise Lost). It is an unnecessary scene for

18 the plot of the story regarding the pattern so far, but still the directors use it and the only purpose might be to see Damien more like a sensitive human being than a killer. These choice in style and arrangement of the shots make the desired objectivity of the filmmakers lose its form, so the objectivity becomes illusory.

3.1.2. The Authentic Footage

The objectivity of Paradise Lost is built on authentic audio-visual recordings. The makers of the film shoot in the courtroom during the trial. The court naively believed that the filmmakers are portraying the horrors of the crime and the depravity of murdering teenagers (Kors). The film does show misery and pain of the stricken parents whose children were terribly murdered. The cameras are present in their homes or meetings of parents who lost a child. But the documentary also shows the misery of the parents of

Damien, Jason and Jessie. Berlinger and Sinofsky even visit them in the cell for interviews.

The narration of the film is formed as an ongoing trial of the three convicted teenagers with the shots within the courtroom or the meetings of defense attorneys. Some important information that filmmakers did not catch on the camera are shown with the usage of the intertitles. The objective commentary is provided by the media, reporters, television or newspaper. This flow of a trial narration is intercut with the opinions of interviewed people from both sides - the victims' relatives and the relatives of convicts.

This narrative structure imposes the unbiased position of filmmakers. However, the actual editing of the trial footage makes this objectivity illusory. The first impression of a biased moment is when the filmmakers replay Jason's statement about his innocence3: "I didn't kill those boys" {Paradise Lost). This does not seem as a mistake

3 12 min. 19 on the recorded material but an intentional repetition of this specific sentence, so nobody misses it. This editing choice makes the filmmakers show their position.

When the family of murdered Stevie Branch talks to the camera in their living room, they seem to talk specifically about forgiveness. Again, this could be just a random capture of this conversation but then when the stepfather Terry Hobbs speaks, he answers

"I don't think it's fair, right now, for someone to ask me if I can forgive the ones that caused this"4 {Paradise Lost). This is direct answer for the man behind the camera who looks for some interesting topic. This conversation puts some negative light on the Pam

Hobbs - mother of Stevie - because she feels strong resentment towards alleged murderers.

With this scene showing the possible negative side of the victims' family, stand in the opposition the scenes that show positivity on the side of alleged murderers. That is visible in those ending lines of the Jason or Damien, as mentioned in previous chapter.

Another similar scene is when Damien speaks of his son "I just hope I'll be there when he grows up"5 {Paradise Lost). Even when the trial says that the teenagers are cold• blooded Satanist, the filmmakers suggest that it might not be entirely true by showing this sensitive side of Damien wanting to be a good father. These are very remarkable moments of self-reflexivity of the PL's filmmakers.

One of the striking moments of the disturbed objectivity in PL is when the filmmakers interfere into the trial with a new evidence making their documentary self- reflexive. Mark Byers, the stepfather of one of the victims, gave Joe Berlinger and Bruce

Sinofsky a hunting knife as a gift during the Christmas time. The filmmakers spotted some marks of blood on it and hand it over to the defense. Byers was then summoned to

4 80 min. 5 99 min. in Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Directed by Joe Berlinger and . Home Box Office, 1996. 20 explain himself in front of the jury claiming that he simply cut himself. This reaction of filmmakers towards this presented knife clearly shows whose side they take. Their motivation to interfere with the investigation weakens their objective position through this inartistic evidence.

After the first part Damien Echols became a character represented by his intelligence and wit that evoked sympathies in many viewers. Damien was rather reasonable at his young age. One day, an New York architect Lorri Davis felt the urge to write Damien about her sympathies for him after watching the documentary. This future wife of Echols became his biggest supporter and she had the aid from many famous people, such as Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp or Peter Jackson (Dunne). That is just the brief summary of what followed thanks to the making of this documentary. It is certain that the influential feature is visible in saving the life of Damien as he himself claims

(John). But a huge influence of this footage is also in this little movements that grew bigger with the time and eventually lead to the freedom of the West Memphis Three.

3.2. The Thin Blue Line: "Heard of the proverbial scapegoat? "

On the morning of November 27, 1976, Randall Adams' car runs out of the gas on the road in Dallas. Some car stops to give him a ride. In the car sits 16-year-old David

Harris who stole the car in his hometown Vidor, Texas. The two spend the evening together. They visit a road-in cinema and watch two films, smoke some marihuana and drink a couple of beers. The description of the events that followed this differ with both main protagonists.

Adams claims to say goodbye to Harris and to go to his hotel room, where his brother was asleep. There, he watches the TV programme and goes to bed. Harris claims to drive together some more until the police car pulled them on the side of the road for

21 driving with no headlights. As a patrol officer Robert William Wood approached the side of the driver, Adams shot the man down with five lethal shots. The car sped away from the scene and the only remaining was the Wood's female colleague Teresa Turko. She could not remember neither the license plate, nor what really happened.

The one certain thing is that Robert Wood was killed that night when he stopped the vehicle by multiple shots from the pistole. How many people were actually in the car and who fired from the gun is mysterious to this day. The statements about what happened changed with everyone involved throughout the whole investigation. Still, it was Randall

Dale Adams who was sentenced to death and spend 12 years in prison for Wood's murder until his case was overturned in 1989.

There was no substantial evidence on Adams' conviction, only the testimony of

David Harris. Later, three more witnesses were added stating that they saw a man "with bushy hair" at a driver seat when they drove by the scene shortly before the murder (The

Thin Blue Line). However, these testimonies are now considered to be perjurious because the eyewitnesses lied in front of the jury for a financial reward. This trial based on word against word testimony was keen to find a murderer of a police officer and to punish the culprit properly.

There are many disputes about the investigation and the trials held by Dallas

County District Court. The documentary suggests the court's desire to prosecute a 28- year-old adult, such as Adams rather than a 16-year-old juvenile Harris; just to close this case with a death sentence. Errol Morris examined this crime mostly because of his original research on "Dr. Death" - a psychiatrist James Grigson who send many imprisoned men on death.

In his assessments, Grigson labeled many convicts as socially unstable with a potential to commit more serious crimes in case of their release. The same thing happens

22 when Grigson visits Adams in his cell. Adams says in the film, that the meeting took just

15 minutes and he was asked to draw some abstract pictures without any closer assignment and to explain some unrelated proverbs, such as a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (The Thin Blue Line).

The defense attorneys wonder what led the police to prosecute a man with a clean crime record rather than a person who had several records before and after the murder of

Wood (The Thin Blue Line). David Harris gets on the death row for the 1985 murder of

Mark Mays and in 2004 is executed by a lethal injection. Randall Adams death sentence is commuted to life during the shooting of the film. Finally, a year after the release of the film Randall Adams he is released without any compensations. Adams dies of a brain cancer in obscurity in 2010. The official records state as a prime suspect David Ray

Harris, though never really trailed for this murder.

Heading for this subchapter occurs6 almost at a very end of The Thin Blue Line and it captures the plot of the film rather concisely. David Harris replies with this rhetorical question to Errol Morris' question on the innocence of Randall Adams in the last interview on December 5, 1986. That is eleven years after the murder of the police officer Robert Wood. The proverbial scapegoat stands for "a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency"

("Scapegoat"). It is not just the voice of film, but David Harris himself that assign the role of the scapegoat to Randall Adams.

3.2.1. Word against Word

The narration of TBL concentrates around the idea of one word against the other. After retrospective introduction in twenty minutes of projection, the narration

6 95 min. in The Thin Blue Line. Directed by Errol Morris. American Playhouse, 1988. 23 is successive for the rest of the film. It unfolds the information about the case as if it is a real investigation and the viewer is a detective. This is a logical choice, since Errol Morris was at that time working on an ongoing investigation while making the film. Morris and his team revealed new evidences in the Adams/Harris case, such as perjurious testimonies or Harris' statements about Adams' innocence.

The projection of The TBL starts with the credits in a graphical design of a blue line separating letters in white and red. This implies the strong constructiveness around a single idea that escorts the entire film. That line between public (white) and anarchy (red) secured by the police (blue). With the sensual score composed by Phillip Glass the images start to show a rather dark scenery of Dallas. Red lights on the buildings are shown in a long shot and then in a big close-up, as they often represent a cut between the scenes in the film to separate certain ideas.

After this poetical entrance, the narration introduces the story with a voice-over.

Soon after, the viewer sees a man in white shirt with a name Adams on it as he talks frontally to the camera. His story seems to be very ordinary - Adams talks of his move from Ohio to Dallas and his new job. Then the image of the detailed red light comes up and we switch to another man. This one wears an orange overall known from prisons and talks immediately of his criminal past, his escapes from home and stealing the guns. The viewer gets an immediate contrast in depiction of two personas - one being the well- ordered and the other deviant one. Still, both sitting in an unknown place with clothes suggest some institutional place.

Errol Morris expressed that this was his key intention - not to show the true face of the protagonists or their exact location (Butler). He planned to keep it a secret for the viewer so badly that he re-arranged the time and the conditions of the meeting in a death row cell with Harris couple of times, as I further explore in the next chapter. The

24 manipulative choices of Morris reside in his passion to manifest the truth in so many ways no matter what is right. The reenactments themselves and these juxtaposed scenes in a precise construction form the manipulative feature of the voice in The Thin Blue Line.

The poetics of the narration continues as Adams contemplates "I don't know why it happened to me" {The Thin Blue Line). We see a pattern that is consistent throughout the whole film - scenes constantly cut into contrast and giving two positions for a discussed matter: "The voice of the film speaks to us through the juxtaposition of interviews with images that affirm ... what is said, in a spirit of a critical irony ..."

(Nichols, Introduction to Documentary 48). For example, when an eyewitness Miss

Miller justifies her good guess on the killer with her passion for detective films, the shots of her favorite Series Boston Blackie follow her statements on identifying Adams as a driver of the car.

These first scenes indicate objectivity of the author where he supports neither of the arguing sides, the viewer sees them both and then they choose the answer for themselves. But as my thesis claims, this objectivity is just illusory and as the story evolves further, the manipulation becomes more visible. Narrators of the story are frontal interviews without hearing the voice of the director or the newspapers as the indicator of time. In addition, the film uses reenactments that easily allow the viewer to imagine the situation in a more detailed way.

Throughout the film we see reenactments of interrogation, a crime scene and drive-in movie. As first, the film shows the key part of the story - the actual crime. This is also the part that changes the most. The viewer sees this scene many times over, so his memory gets used to it to orientate easier. Just as the viewer gets comfortable with the story - meaning less confusing - the reenactment of the crime scene changes as the new information rises to the surface, so the perspective on the case for the viewer changes too.

25 This is the first strong signal of a manipulation which is more visible as new information are revealed. The reason is not the successiveness of the plot but the choice of the filmmaker to withhold the information. The motivation behind this choice could be a mere aesthetic purpose or it is to make the viewer more intrigued in finding the killer.

Still, it is only one of the features that form the final voice.

3.2.2. Manipulated Reenactments

The objectivity in The Thin Blue Line is played on the viewer because Errol Morris constructs the shots very thoroughly. It is important for him to mess with the viewers' minds. The film shows many different reenactments of the actual murder of the police officer without the certainty who the killer is. The depictions of the murder vary on the given interviews and the revealed evidences throughout the film. But the reenactments represent also the strong self-reflexive element.

Director's manipulation makes the viewers' opinions change constantly. In one moment, you think that the killer is Adams. Yet a couple of scenes later, you root for

Adams because he does not seem to be guilty anymore. So, the viewer switches its perception of a killer in Harris. Then, your opinion changes again as new witnesses join the case but the viewer does not know that their testimonies are not truthful yet. It is because of the constant alteration of a previously known information made by Morris. He knows the entire truth but he lets the viewer to see only partially until the climaxing end.

The director himself admits his playful manipulation when he discusses his struggle to interview David Harris. When he was on the death row, Huntsville prison would let Morris interview Harris only through the chicken wire: "I felt that it would ruin the movie ... you're just giving away the fact that he's in prison" (Butler). Morris would wait strictly because he had certain ideas he planned to execute on the viewer. As the

26 Linda Williams states "...Morris captures a truth, elicits a confession, in the best verite tradition, but only in the context of a film that is manifestly staged and temporally manipulated by the docu-auteur" (4).

The best proof of the inartistic evidence is the climactic final scene when David

Harris assures Morris of innocence of Randall Adams. The scene has a very poetic notion though very simple style. The image of tape recording is swiped with the intertitles of the ongoing dialogue {The Thin Blue Line). At the day of this interview Morris' camera broke and he had to record the interview on the audiotape - Without director's intention he got his desired truth that allowed the film to become a proof of Randall Adams' innocence.

This itself accounts for the third influential part of the voice of The TBL.

Conclusion

On the one side, there are Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger who came to West

Memphis, Arkansas, in 1994 and shot the ongoing trial of a case of a triple child murder.

On the other side, there is Errol Morris reenacting the murder of the policeman from 1976 in Dallas, Texas. Both teams of the filmmakers chose to retell the stories of capital murders with an unbiased narration but two approaches.

In depicting very different cases from two different states, they do not differ that much in the results. Paradise Lost story deals with the judicial mistakes and so does the story of The Thin Blue Line. In both cases there are perjurious testimonies with witnesses stepping forward out of the blue. There are no hard evidences that would connect the alleged murderers to the crime scene apart from confessions which are immediately after labelled as false.

This thesis analyzes the voice of both documentaries concluding that the objectivity of these films is illusive. The construction of the shots, the choice of the

27 camera's point of view, following the action and reactions of characters - all these are nothing but choices by the team of filmmakers who construct the film as a puzzle. This puzzle creates the voice. No matter how unbiased the documentaries tend to be, they are always constructed mechanically into the final product. The voice of the documentaries

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and The Thin Blue Line overcomes the seeming objectivity of these films by revealing it.

Both films share the same voice very vividly - the filmmakers of Paradise Lost try to keep the narration objective on purpose, while the director of The Thin Blue Line consciously creates the false objectivity. Without the authorities knowing who is truly guilty of the crime, it is best for the filmmaker to be objective. My bachelor thesis questions this objectivity and shows the manipulation of the viewer developed by the filmmakers. Even though there are visible factors that are deliberately objective, the voice of these films states the opposite.

The voice as defined by the scholar Bill Nichols is manifested through this seeming objectivity. Both documentaries have the voice that overcomes this objectivity by revealing its biased factors. These factors are discovered through closer observation of the voice's qualities in each documentary. Arrangement of the story, the style of editing, framing or sounding, the memory, invention and delivery of new information are the qualities that form the voice that represents a certain logic or a viewpoint to viewers.

Logic and perspective of analyzed documentaries is mirrored in the voice through the self-reflexivity, manipulation and influence specific for each film. Paradise Losťs authenticity and sentimentality depicted in the scenes manipulates the viewer. The knife evidence gained with the help of the filmmakers makes the film self-reflexive and the influential power of the documentary is remarkable in fact that it continued with two more documentaries until the release of the WM3 is accomplished, among other things.

28 The power of reenactments in The Thin Blue Line lies within the amount of revealed truth by the director. This self-reflexive component also adds up to the manipulation of the viewer thoroughly controlled by Errol Morris. The feature of self- reflexivity and manipulation overlap because of the intentional choice to pretend the objectivity. The third feature of this voice - influence - again mingles with other, this time, with the feature of the self-reflexivity when the evidences carried with this film freed an innocent man.

The failure to righteously investigate both cases is undisputed in both judiciary systems. Maybe not at the time when the documentaries premiered but the future proved them right. This fact alone proves the biased standing of the filmmakers to the depicted truth in both documentaries. The both teams of the filmmakers ended up manipulating with the inartistic evidence and trying to avoid artificial evidence. This contradictory result supports the power of the voice over the seeming objectivity.

29 Works Cited

Primary Sources

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Directed by Joe Berlinger and

Bruce Sinofsky. Home Box Office, 1996.

The Thin Blue Line. Directed by Errol Morris. American Playhouse, 1988.

Secondary Sources

Butler, Isaac. "What Errol Morris Thinks of Making a Murderer." Slate, 27 Jan 2016,

www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2016/01/errol_morris_q_a_on_the_thin_

blue_line_and_making_a_murderer.html. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.

Dewhurst, Benjamin. "Interrotron: an Interviewing Tool Essential to the Documentaries

of Oscar Winner Errol Morris." No Film School, 24 Sept. 2012,

nofilmschool.com/2012/09/interrotron-errol-morris-documentary. Accessed 28

Apr. 2018.

Dunne, Carey. "Paradise found: she waited for him while he was wrongly on death

row." The Guardian, 14 Feb. 2018,

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/14/against-all-odds-the-most-

incredible-love-story-youll-read-today. Accessed 21 Mar. 2018.

Eagan, Daniel. "Paradise Lost's Joe Berlinger on the Roots of his West Memphis Three

Films." Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Aug. 2011,

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/paradise-losts-joe-berlinger-on-

the-roots-of-his-west-memphis-three-films-62617491/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2018.

30 Grow, Kory. '"Paradise Lost' at 20: How West Memphis Three Doc Influenced the

True-Crime Boom." Rolling Stone, 14 Dec. 2016,

www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/how-paradise-lost-predicted-todays-true-

crime-docs-w454146. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.

John, Emma. "Interview: Damien Echols: how I survived death row." The Guardian, 26

May 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/26/damien-echols-i-

survived-death-row. Accessed 16 Mar. 2018.

Klein, Alvin. "Film Dissects Murder and Justice." The New York Times, 23 Oct. 1988,

ww'w.nytimes.com/1988/10/23/nyregion/film-film-dissects-murder-and-

justice.html. Accessed 26 Apr. 2018.

Kors, Joshua. "Q&A with Joe Berlinger, Director of West Memphis Three

Documentary." Huffington Post, 6 Dec. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-

kors/paradise-lost-purgatory-west-memphis-three_b_1208176.html. Accessed 16

Mar. 2018.

Leveritt, Mara. Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three. New York,

Atria Books, 2002. Print.

Nichols, Bill. Introduction do Documentary. Bloomington, Indiana UP, 2001. Print.

Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary. Bloomington,

Indiana UP, 1991. Print.

"The Voice of Documentary." New Challenges for Documentary, edited by Alan

Rosenthal and John Corner, Manchester U P, 2005. pp. 17-30. Print.

"Scapegoat." English Oxford Living Dictionaries, Oxford Dictionaries.

en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/scapegoat. Accessed 26 Apr. 2018.

31 Rosenbaum, Ron. "Errol Morris: The Thinking Man's Detective." Smithsonian

Magazine, Mar. 2012, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/errol-morris-the-

thinking-mans-detective-99424163/. Accessed 26 Apr. 2018.

Ruby, Jay. "The Image Mirrored: Reflexivity and the Documentary Film". Journal of

the University Film Association, vol. 29, no.4, pp. 3-11, U of Illinois P, 1977.

JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20687384. Accessed 18 June 2017.

Williams, Linda. "Mirrors without memories: Truth, History and the New

Documentary". Film Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 9-21, Oakland, U of California P,

1993. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1212899. Accessed 18 June 2017.

32 Summary

This thesis explores the voice of documentary films - Paradise Lost: The Child

Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996) and The Thin Blue Line (1988). Documentaries follow the historical truths of brutal murders for which innocent men were put in prison.

The creation of these films set in movement another elaborative investigation bringing successful results for both cases. Death row inmates were set free thanks to the public media interest in case of Paradise Lost and thanks to the acquiring of the crucial evidence while shooting the documentary in case of The Thin Blue Line. The influential power of these documentaries lies within their voice that overcomes objective storytelling.

The methodology of this research consists primarily of analysis of two documentaries (chapter 3) using the theory (chapter 2) by a film scholar Bill Nichols.

The author defines the voice as something bigger than narration or style of films; it is a form of aesthetic and reaction or atmosphere that films evoke in the viewers. Paradise

Lost presented with actual trial footage hides its manipulation behind the authenticity and sentimentality of scenes. The Thin Blue Line creates fictional reenactments while manipulating with the viewers perception by withholding the information and by the juxtaposed linking of scenes.

This logic and formulation of the voice in these documentaries seems objective; yet the outcoming voice is strongly subjective. This thesis proves that the texts of the documentary genre always tell altered truths of historical events for mere presence of the film crew and cameras. In addition, the choices of cutting and lighting of scenes or the choices of the narration are always influenced by the standing of the filmmaker who manipulates the viewer's perception.

33 Resumé

Tato bakalářská práce zkoumá hlas dokumentárních filmů - Paradise Lost:

Child Murders at the Robin Hood Hills (1995) a The Thin Blue Line (1998). Filmy sledují historické události brutálních vražd, za které byli odsouzeni a uvězněni nevinní lidé. Vznik těchto dokumentárních filmů vedl k dalšímu rozsáhlému vyšetřování, jehož výsledky byly v obou případech úspěšné. Vězni odsouzeni na smrt, nebo doživotí byli propuštěni na svobodu díky zájmu veřejných médií v případě Paradise Losí a díky získání klíčového důkazu během natáčení v případě The Thin Blue Line. Síla vlivu těchto dokumentárních snímků se zakládá na síle jejich hlasu, který překonal objektivní vyprávění.

Metodologie použita pro tento výzkum je tvořena analýzou dvou dokumentárních filmů (3. kapitola) s využitím teorie (2. kapitola) filmovědce Billa

Nicholse. Autor definuje hlas jako něco, co přesahuje vyprávění nebo styl filmuje to estetická forma a reakce nebo atmosféra, kterou dokument u diváků vyvolává. Paradise

Lost, který je tvořený skutečnými záběry ze soudů, skrývá svou manipulaci za autentičnost a sentimentálnost snímků. Zatímco The Thin Blue Line, tvořený hranými rekonstrukcemi, manipuluje divákovu percepci skrz zatajování informací a kontrastní spojování scén.

Logika a formulace hlasu u těchto dokumentárních filmů se zdá být objektivní, avšak výsledný hlas je silně subjektivní. Tato teze dokazuje, že texty dokumentárních

žánrů jsou vždy pouze upravenou pravdou o historické události už kvůli samotné přítomnosti filmového štábu a kamerové technologie. Volba střihu, nasvícení scén i způsobu narace je navíc vždy ovlivněna pozicí tvůrce, který manipuluje divákovo vnímaní.

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