12 Angry Men Analysis

People's bias and predispositions can affect their opinion of different circumstances and different people. This is very evident throughout the play. After the first group vote and juror 8 votes not guilty, a discussion ensues. It is there that

The film uses juror three to demonstrate how past experiences can influence ones prejudice in decision making. Juror 3, who has a prejudice against the accused, and thinks the kid is under-privileged and doesn’t deserve a second chance, which is reason enough for him to conclude the accused is guilty. As the discussion continues as to the verdict of the trial, juror three grows frustrated and angrily refutes, “What is this? Love your under- privileged bother week or something? (12 Angry Men). Due to his past experiences with young men, he is ready to sentence the defendant to death with weak circumstantial evidence, grows angry as the other jurors question what he refers to as “facts” and claims “You can’t refute facts” (12 Angry Men) As all the Jurors except juror twelve get more and more frustrated by the slowed process, juror three begins to see through his prejudice, and disperses the other jurors interruptions by saying “Be quiet, we’ll all get a turn”(12 Angry Men). It finally becomes clear, he sees similarities with his son he had a falling out with several years ago, and puts this prejudice aside and excepts that the evidence is too circumstantial to convict a kid for murder, and sentence him to death.

The last major fact that influences the juries agreement that the accused is not guilty are doubts of another witness’s testimony; the lady across the street who supposedly saw the accused young man stab his father. The jurors started talking about needing glasses to read the clock when Juror 8 realizes that the lady used very strong glasses and it is not possible that she could have had time to put them on and see the young man clearly stab his father. Juror 8 says,

Angry! Hostile!” This causes him to not listen to the other jurors opinions and block out any idea of the defendant being innocent. His prejudice is further understood when he says “this kid is guilty. He’s got to burn. We’re letting him slip through our fingers here.” Juror #3 is only able to see the young boy on trial as a symbol of his own son and is therefore unable to look past his own anger towards his son and see the case for what it really is. It is only through the help of juror #8 does juror #3 finally let go of his personal prejudice and sees the truth about the case and changes his vote to not guilty.

Each juror tries bending their ideas, attitudes, and beliefs in order to cope with one another, in the attempt of finding out who is guilty of this murder. During different points of the story, each juror eventually becomes furious at someone else for a particular reason, some believing that “there is something personal”(Rose 8). Although part of being a juror is arguing for what they believe, these people have to think about what they’re gonna say, as others may get insulted. The only way to move on from these terrible problems is going to be listening to each other and their beliefs. An important part to reaching the next stage is going to be accepting the thoughts of the different jurors, so that they can use it as valid evidence for the case. One turning point of the story was when the juror explained that “the woman saw the killing through the windows of a moving elevated train” and that “she remembers the most insignificant details”(Rose 13). This changed the view of some people, as it shows that the woman, one of the most important pieces of evidence, has no credibility. Stage two is one of the more significant ones as it brings out new evidence and different perspectives on the

You will see a lot of psychological phenomena exhibited in the movie 12 Angry Men. Many of these phenomena are listed in the boxes on the next page. Your task for this assignment is to watch the movie, take note of these various psychological phenomena, and then write a cohesive 2-3 page paper discussing these themes.

With a trial involving a murder suspect and possible death penalty verdict is something we can’t predict on how the jury is going to respond. We are all different in many ways and thinking is one of them. If we see an adult being accused for murder, we would pretty much in our brains say they have the right guy because of a crime so gruesome they can’t be wrong but that’s not always true. But if we see a young kid just like the buy in the movie we think innocent and that common. In the movie one of the jury me thinks he’s guilty because he’s a bad kid been out of juvie as a kid he must be the one who killed his own father even without looking at the evidence.

A great example of how peoples beliefs can influence the way they think about other people.The juror number 11 sees the young man as still a child and in the men’s eyes all children are born as liars. They are incapable of telling the truth and therefore the boy would have had to kill his father and didn’t go to the movies that night during the murder like he said. This is backed up by juror number 4 who says that the boy couldn’t seem to remember the movie he saw or the actors that stared in the film. If he couldn’t remember that the movie then he must be lying about seeing the movie. But juror number 8 proves that not everyone can remember every little fact about every movie. The boy had just gone to the movies and came back to find his father dead on the floor and police arresting him. It is very unlikely that someone who went

The first difficult conversation centered on Juror 8 voting not guilty, while the other 11 jurors voted guilty. Juror 8’s profession was an architect, who analyzed the case by examples. During the jury deliberations he presented an identical knife to the one of the defendant to show the shadiness of the circumstance. He wanted there to be a fair deliberation and he questioned the accuracy and reliability of the evidence shown by the two witnesses.

First, accepting the facts even though they are against your own beliefs is one of the hardest thing to do because our beliefs are our core system. Without our beliefs we do not know how to make sense of the world. However, accepting the facts as true even though it's in contrast with your beliefs is a step towards ethical literacy. Secondly, empathizing is a big lesson that the film brought forth. Without the empathy of Juror 8, it is safe to say that the young man would have been sentenced to the electric chair within the first 30 minutes of deliberation.

This essay will explore the Oscar-winning United artist film 12 Angry Men directed by Sydney Lumet; with a thorough evaluation of how successfully the narrative reflects tensions in 1950s America. 12 Angry Men is renowned for its strong linear narrative and the ability to obtain the attention of the audience with the use of only one mise-en-scene. The 1957 courtroom drama was established around the key theme of Politics and the battle between communism and capitalism in 1950s America; with a traditional Hollywood Narrative being sustained throughout, enabling a powerful and persuasive style. 12 angry men initiate with an introductory scene, displaying external architecture of the New York County Courthouse which sets the scene for the rest of the film by highlighting the importance of the location. When brought inside, the audience is introduced to the 12 jurors, through a camera ‘pan’ from right to left, to show their importance as they remain the key focus for the entirety of the film. With a high camera angle introduction of the main suspect, a young underprivileged Hispanic boy, whose life depends on the white men who sit before him.

Then halfway through the movie, juror number seven then changes his vote from guilty to not guilty because he was tired and had things to do. He said this after the non-guilty verdicts went from one to seven (Fonda, Justin, Rose, & Lumet, 1957). This also shows groupthink the reason why is that some men like the one that said pass, and the one that changed his vote because he had things to do casted their vote in accordance with the others in the group. This shows how in groups the tendency to be concerned with group solidarity is more important than to critically and realistically evaluate decisions and assumptions (Won-Woo, 1990). The two men had decided their verdict because of others and their decisions as opposed to the evidence and their own personal belief. Authority was used when juror number eight who said not guilty from the beginning went through each piece of evidence proving the boys innocence. Through each bit of evidence that he disproves the other jurors then they begin to see him as credible and switch their vote where he then becomes the majority influence.

influence our ultimate decision. The film, 12 Angry Men, reflected a lot about how a

Jury is a group that in this case is designed to come up with carefully made decisions that have considerations of all viewpoints. This means that the decision finally arrived at by the jury not only depends on the evidence presented but also has some social influence. In order to better understand the jury we have look at the group member’s roles and characters. Some of the most important characters among the jurors in this case include; juror eight or Davis who is the initiator of the discussion. He decides to stand against the rest of the jurors in order to more carefully analyze the dynamics of the case (Forsyth, 2014). He is a critical thinker who takes into consideration what the verdict meant for the accused. He plays a major role towards completing the task in the best way possible. Other characters play self-centered roles such as juror three or the angry man and juror six or the baseball guy. Juror three is disagreeable on almost everything and does not compromise other people’s opinion. He prevents the participation of the others and forces his own ideas. On the other hand, juror six is not a serious member of the group. He constantly engages in inappropriate jokes and commentary which often distracts the group from what they were discussing. This character also details the

He often asked for other jurors to explain their point of view and elaborate on why they think that the kid is guilty. He wanted them to confirm that their decision was not based on individual motives. It turned out that this method was how Juror’s three and ten were influenced to change their votes from guilty to not guilty. Those two jurors subconsciously had individual motives to why they believed the boy was guilty. Juror number ten was prejudice against kids and people in general from the slums for whatever reason. His assertiveness peaked when he went into a rage that caused other jurors to see his true colors. After this tyrant, it was clear to everyone that he was prejudice. He also realized for himself that he was subconsciously prejudice and it wasn’t a good reason for him to vote guilty. Juror number three was just upset because he raised a son who he hasn’t seen in two years. Apparently, his son ended up becoming ungrateful to his father and hasn’t cared to see the father for at least two years. So, juror three was taking out the rage and anger that he had for his son out on the boy on trial. He was the last one to alter his vote from not guilty. All juror number eight did was use the higher value method of influence and asked the messenger service owner to explain why guilty was the correct vote. He went into a tyrant rage and realized for himself that he was not voting on personal feelings and not on the evidence or lack