What The Film ‘The Thin Blue Line’ Says About Texas History
A Texan Talks Errol Morris’ 1988 Documentary ‘The Thin Blue Line’
“Dallas is a city that shouldn’t exist.” This is a common refrain among Dallasites and historians alike. The Trinity River was never much more than a creek prone to flooding. The soil is rocky. The land is flat. And yet, somehow, the city seems to have risen from nothing.
But it’s true. If it weren’t for the oddballs and heroes and industrialists and frontiersmen and wildcatters — Dallas really wouldn’t exist. It is a place that is built solely as a result of man’s ingenuity. An Apollonian desire for greatness.
That also means it’s a perfect place from which to paint the picture you would like to paint — a sort of blank psychological canvas so to speak — eager for someone to finally figure it out.
That’s what Errol Morris’ 1988 documentary ‘The Thin Blue Line’ endeavors to do, just as one of the most popular books about the city, Warren Leslie’s “Dallas Public and Private,” tried to do a quarter-century before.
