Customer Reviews

The Thin Blue Line: An Errol Morris Film

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the only Glass CD I have that I don't listen to on a regular basis. This is the worst possible way to make a soundtrack album. The film is brilliant, the music is brilliant, but the album is like someone shortened the film down and laid down the entire audio track. I hate soundtracks like this and only give it as many stars as I do because of how much I like the music and film. Only the opening titlte is only music, and some tracks have no music at all. If this were reissued without the dialogue and sound FX, I would but it in a heartbeat and sell this one off. Morris's non-fiction films are too stylish to want to hear the dialogue without the visuals, and Glass's music is too good not to be able to hear it apart from the rest of the audio track. If the spoken word were done poetically like in _Einstein on the Beach_ or _Hydrogen Jukebox_, I would recommend it, but because it isn't, I can't.

Just so you know: This CD consists almost entirely of dialogue from the movie, with Philip Glass's music in the background. If you don't go for that sort of thing, then don't buy it. For true Glass fans, though, it's worth it.

Be aware that this is not your typical soundtrack album, and those looking for Phillip Glass' isolated score will not find it here.

Rather, this is 30+ track disc that plays like an encapsulated version of the film for your ears. Nearly every single track has dialogue and sound effects from the film, with Glass' subtle, minimalistic, menacing and hopeful music all around.

The Thin Blue Line is far from your typical documentary, and the dramatization of some events and the use of music throughout are part of what separates it from the rest of the pack. The film is the true story of the murder of a Dallas police officer in 1976 and the rapid railroading of a 28 year-old drifter named Randall Adams through the court and onto Death Row.

The film helped overturn Adams' conviction in the late 1980s. The other main player in the case, lifelong criminal David Harris (just 16 at the time of the shooting) is interviewed throughout, and his chilling statements at the end were disturbing at the time the film appeared (since the 'truth' is finally revealed). Today Adams is free and Harris sits on Death Row for crimes other than those depicted in The Thin Blue Line.

You can actually listen to this whole disc without having seen the film, but you would be doing yourself a severe injustice. When you put faces to voices and see the reenactments and get a sense of the situation Adams was in, the whole picture opens up.

Unless you really hate soundtracks with heavy dialogue and sound bites from the film, this is a highly recommended disc for Glass fans and fans of the great film.

I'm a huge fan of Philip Glass and have collected many of his works, listening to them frequently. As a writer by trade, I generally find his compositions unobtrusive (and often complementary) to my working process. However, I was sincerely disappointed when this arrived in the mail. I had thought I was purchasing an album containing music and nothing else, when in fact it is essentially an abridged version of the film in an audio format.

I guess I should have listened to the sample audio on the page. But I was fooled by the word "soundtrack"--in the Amazon title. Isn't a soundtrack usually music from a film?

The music is certainly there and it's wonderful (if you're a Glass fan), but throughout the entire CD it plays exclusively--except for one two-minute track--as background to the voices of those being interviewed.

I should state that I have seen the film at least twice and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in documentaries or the works of Errol Morris. It is an important and fascinating work by a talented filmmaker, and it won many deserved awards when the film was released in the late eighties. However, I would have thought that its soundtrack would have left the interviews to the film and focused 100 percent on the music.

I must admit when I first purchased this many years ago I was expecting solely Glass' music. I quickly found out there was mostly dialogue from the film with the music as a background (like the film obviously). I wasn't pleased because in the film you get the music as background and I was hoping to get the music as the main focus. However, it has grown on me and like the film, the dialogue, music, and sound effects blend so well that it works! I would urge people to see the film as well but regardless, listening to the dialogue and music is captivating even without the visuals. Look to other Glass titles if you want only music but if a unique and captivating blend of spoken word, storytelling AND Glass music appeals to you, this is good stuff!

Mere words, like the unsupported testimony that convicted Randall Adams, are the focus of this soundtrack, but with a spare, understated score by Philip Glass lending a sense of gravity to the dialogue taken from the film. The result is that each remark, however insignificant on the surface, is made profound and meaningful. Listening to this work is like listening to an old radio drama, but without the artifice of a narrator telling us what to think. It is utterly compelling and truly demonstrates the power of the spoken word and the power of music.