In the trivia it says after Adams was released he sued Morris. Really? What a douche.
He may not have done it, but something about him seemed fishy. It seemed like he was trying to come across as perfect, with the whole thing about not liking R-rated movies and not admitting to smoking pot...judging by the way he looked, he probably smoked pot.
Adams was concerned about who had the rights to his life story. I imagine after all those years on death row he was extraordinarily mistrustful of people, even Morris. Morris, for his part, seemed sympathetic to the lawsuit and settled out of court. The word "lawsuit" doesn't always imply a malicious intent or character - many are handled cordially. Once Adams was freed I'm sure the one thing he wanted was control over the future of his own life. If Morris disagreed with that he would have fought him in court, but the suit didn't get that far.
You also wrote: ..."but something about him seemed fishy. It seemed like he was trying to come across as perfect, with the whole thing about not liking R-rated movies and not admitting to smoking pot...judging by the way he looked, he probably smoked pot."
*You know, I really think you're off on a tangent here. So WHAT if he 'seemed fishy' - he didn't kill the guy!!! That's all that matters here! I also don't think he was trying to 'come off as perfect' - what difference does it make as to whether he liked the cheerleader movie? It was descriptive to call it "R-rated", not judgmental. And finally, he never denied smoking pot! Really.....you have to consider what Morris was going after here - that someone, a drifter like Adams, who "looked like he smoked pot"....that was precisely what the DA was trying to hook into the jury - a sense of who this guy's character was - NOT BASED ON THE EVIDENCE. And besides, why shouldn't Adams stick up for himself in a documentary? Should he say, "Yeah, I'm a real toker, dude. I also love R-rated cheerleader movies, heh heh." If presented with your life mirrored back at you, you'd probably want to throw all kinds of qualifiers out there in order to explain to the entire world why you were doing what you were doing. When it suddenly becomes public knowledge, I don't doubt you'd want to put it all in a larger context in order for people to understand the facets to your character.
"There is no inner peace. There is only nervousness and death." - Fran Lebowitz
Great reply on all counts -- thank you.
"In the trivia it says after Adams was released he sued Morris. Really? What a douche."
Wow. The depth of your insight is remarkable. Do you have any idea of the details of the lawsuit? Do you have any clue about what you're writing?
From Wiki:
After Adams's release from prison, he ended up in a legal battle with Morris concerning the rights to his story. The matter was settled out of court after Adams was granted sole use of anything written or made on the subject of his life.[33] Adams himself said of the matter: "Mr. Morris felt he had the exclusive rights to my life story. I did not sue Errol Morris for any money or any percentages of The Thin Blue Line, though the media portrayed it that way."[34]
Morris, for his part, remembers: "When he got out, he became very angry at the fact that he had signed a release giving me rights to his life story. And he felt as though I had stolen something from him. Maybe I had, maybe I just don't understand what it's like to be in prison for that long, for a crime you hadn't committed. In a certain sense, the whole crazy deal with the release was fueled by my relationship with his attorney. And it's a long, complicated story, but I guess when people are involved, there's always a mess somewhere."[35]