I, like many people from my generation, was first introduced to 12 Angry Men through a high school English class. We were learning about character studies and had to dissect the various personalities, worldviews, and traits of the twelve jurors based solely on the details revealed in the stage direction given by Reginald Rose’s teleplay. This wasn’t history class, and we learned of none of the McCarthyism embedded in that teleplay. All we were interested in was character development. It was an eye-opening lesson that, alongside our dissection of The Breakfast Club, gave me a better understanding of how to differentiate characters in groups. Even today, while I was rewatching this wonderful film, I could not keep track of which number represents which juror, but I can tell you a lot about each man just by looking at an image of them. They are so well developed as characters, even though we get little of their backstories.
While much of that is accredited to the writing, I would be amiss not to include the many fine actors on screen selling these character traits. One needs only look at the 1997 television remake to see that. That film is not a bad adaptation of the teleplay, far from it, but it is lacking something that the 1957 film has. It’s mostly the same dialogue, the same layout, the same finale, yet it is not quite the same. The acting isn’t on par with the original film, and it doesn’t have the finesse that director Sidney Lumet, the greatest director to have never won an Oscar, brings to the literal table.
The setup is very simple: a young man has been accused of murdering his father. There are two witnesses who claim to have seen him do it. The evidence is damning, if mostly superficial. A trial took place where the defense did very little to win, and the judge appears bored with the proceedings, going through the motions when addressing the jury about their duties. The jury is sent to deliberate the facts as presented by the trial and come back with a unanimous decision. A guilty verdict means the death penalty. The first jury vote is cast, and one juror, Juror #8 (Henry Fonda), is the sole not-guilty vote. The remainder of the film is him going through the evidence and witness statements one by one, changing the minds of his fellow jurors as he shows them what they initially felt was an airtight case is anything but.
As I mentioned earlier, I have a hard time identifying these men by their juror numbers and, as we are never told their actual names, outside a brief scene right at the end between Henry Fonda and Joseph Sweeney, it is easier for me to discuss this film using the actors’ names rather than their juror number. The film is titled 12 Angry Men, yet are they all angry? To a more-or-less extent, the answer is yes, but not always in obvious ways. They are tasked with possibly sending a young boy to the electric chair and are locked into a hot room with no working fan to hammer out the decision. Most of the men would rather decide this case quickly and get on their way, putting it behind them. They have been convinced of the facts without any serious thought about what they all heard in court. Even Fonda is uncertain whether the boy is guilty or not; he wants to talk it out rather than turn out a quick decision, especially since the boy’s life is at stake.
It is rightfully pointed out to Fonda that he may very well convince everyone else in the room that the boy is not guilty only to have been wrong. This is an argument that many have debated over the years about this movie. There is a difference between not guilty and innocent. Some have interpreted this teleplay to be an example of the legal difference between those two concepts and that the boy did indeed kill his father. This interpretation is not spelled out in the film and can be argued in both directions successfully. We all know famous murder trials where everybody “knew” the defendant was guilty yet was freed when a jury came back with a not guilty vote. Reasonable doubt is all it takes to make it happen. As I write this, there is a famous trial getting ready to begin where the accused is facing the death penalty in Idaho for the murder of four college students. Everyone here “knows” he is guilty, yet there is the very real chance a not guilty verdict will come in because of reasonable doubt. That’s the justice system in the United States, and that is what we see in this film.
While most of the jurors are depicted as reasonable men, able to be swayed by a convincing argument, there are two that stand out among the crowd. These are juror #10 (Ed Begley) and #3 (Lee J. Cobb). Both of these men are loud and bullying, but Begley’s character comes across the most despicable. He is constantly going off on the type of person the accused is, lumping all boys from the slums into the same generic stereotype. Eventually, his racist and narrow-minded views come to a head, and the rest of the jurors, including Cobb, turn their backs on him. It is perhaps the most powerful moment in the entire picture because it is one of the few moments when everyone else in the picture is unified against what they are hearing. It also sends a clear message to Begley that he has some pretty bad views on a certain group of people. His constant use of the term “those people” shows just how biased he is in this case.
Cobb, on the other hand, is the most vocal of the group and the most hot-headed. His relationship with his own son has eroded over the years to the point that he never sees him anymore. This has made him bitter and angry against the younger generation, and that has transferred to his views of the accused. His vote is the hardest to sway because his emotions are very much at play in his worldview. This is not mere racism, as it is with Begley. What makes Cobb’s argument so difficult to alter is that, aside from his emotional investment, he also has a point for every piece of evidence that has to be challenged.
Cobb and Begley represent the vocal minority, the bullies. Just as interesting, though, are the meeker characters. Joseph Sweeney is playing juror #9, an older gentleman who is very observant, noticing many little details that he doesn’t realize are important until they come into question. He observed the first witness, an elderly man, as having to struggle to walk when he took the stand to testify. He also noticed the second witness showed definite signs of needing glasses. Both observations call into question their testimonies upon which the brunt of the prosecution’s case was based. When describing the first witness, Sidney Lumet lets the camera stay fixed on Sweeney’s face, allowing him to give an amazing monologue that betrays that his description of the old man as being someone who has gone his whole life not really mattering to anyone applies to himself, too. Sweeney is the first to change his vote to not guilty, his observations being key to dismantling the witnesses’ testimonies.
John Fiedler as Juror #2 is another meek man. He is soft-spoken and easily flustered. He’s also eager to please, jumping up at one point to offer his cough drops to anyone in the room who needs them. At first, he is a go-with-the-flow type of guy, but eventually, he finds his voice and stands up for himself against the much more brash Cobb and Begley. Fiedler’s natural speaking voice lent to him being typecast in these types of roles, including his voice-work for Disney, where he was famously the voice of Piglet in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Fiedler and Sweeney represent the population who feel they don’t really have a voice in this world and that whatever they say doesn’t really matter. They often fail to speak up and allow the vocal minority rule the day, often to the detriment of the world.
I could go on and on about each of the other jurors; they all have important parts in this film. Instead, I will focus on just one other: Henry Fonda’s Juror #8. It’s not easy to speak up when in the minority, especially when you are not certain you know the truth, yourself. At first, Fonda speaks up because he doesn’t feel that such an impactful decision should be made hastily. He readily admits he doesn’t know for sure one way or the other. He also admits that it’s possible by persuading the others to change their votes he could be putting a murderer back on the streets. He also starts out willing to alter his vote if no one else will side with him, not willing to end this trial on a hung jury. This last little bit is an interesting character note that shows just how undecided he really is this early on. Later in the film, he will be more certain of his stance on the case and could no longer in good conscience make that bargain.
12 Angry Men has been aped, copied, parodied, and remade many times over the years. Everyone from Happy Days to The Simpsons has done their version of this story. There is even a Japanese film that takes the opposite approach, where the lone holdout is voting guilty and has to persuade everyone else of the accused’s guilt. This is a testament to just how well-written this story is. Reginald Rose wrote the original as a one-hour teleplay and successfully expanded it to a feature-length picture without making it feel bloated. He also successfully wrote a story that virtually takes place in a single room, taking advantage of the claustrophobia that that brings with it. This feels like a stage play adapted to the screen, but not in a negative way. It works on that level, too, and has indeed been adapted to the stage in the years since. 12 Angry Men may not accurately depict the jury experience — there are things Fonda does that would get him disqualified from the jury — but it replicates the experience of having people from different walks of life have to band together to make an important decision. For that reason, this film still resonates with audiences nearly seventy years later.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Henry Fonda and Reginald Rose
Best Director: Sidney Lumet
Best Adapted Screenplay: Reginald Rose
____________________________________________________
Release Date: April 10, 1957
Running Time: 96 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Joseph Sweeney, George Voskovec, and Robert Webber
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
Comments
Post a Comment