Analysis Of 12 Angry Men

Recently in my AP English class, we watched The film “Twelve Angry Men”. The film was unique in the fact that it only had one setting, the Jury Room. The film showed no one else but the jurors and the warden, who all remained completely nameless throughout the entire movie and we're only identified by their juror numbers. The jurors were drastically different which I believe added more diversity and made the plot more complex and intriguing to the audience. I don't believe the film had a specific intended audience, I believe that this show can be appreciated by all audiences because it shows that reasonable doubt is a much easier state of mind then certainty.

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 movie “12 Angry Men” examines the dynamics at play in a United States jury room in the 1950’s. It revolves around the opinions and mindsets of twelve diverse characters that are tasked with pronouncing the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of patricide. The extraordinary element is that their finding will determine his life or death. This play was made into a movie in 1957, produced by Henry Fonda who played the lead role, Juror #8, and Reginald Rose who wrote the original screenplay. This essay will explore some of the critical thinking elements found within the context of this movie, and will show that rational reason and logic when used effectively can overcome the mostly ineffective rush to judgment that can be prevalent in

Henry Fonda plays the role of jury member number eight, also known as Mr. Davis.

Reginald Rose’s text, Twelve Angry Men, follows the jury deliberation of a small murder case, with a cast of twelve jury men discussing the evidence presented in court to decide whether the defendant is innocent or guilty. Over the course of the play, led primarily by moral compass jury number 8, the verdict is changed from eleven to one to acquittal, as the men are persuaded and subject to constant distractions, prejudice, bullying, and discussions of unreliable witness testimonies and lawyers, thus exploring issues about the validity of the justice system in magnitude.

The classic 1957 movie 12 Angry Men delves in to a panel of twelve jurors who are deciding the life or death fate of an eighteen year old italian boy accused of stabbing his father to death. The twelve men selected as jurors are a diverse group, each coming to the table with their own socioeconomic backgrounds, personal experiences, prejudice’s, and all of this plays a role in the jurors attitudes and/or misconceptions of the accused young man. How each of the jurors, all but Juror Eight played by Henry Fonda, experiences and personalities impact their original vote of guilty is clear at the beginning of the movie with the first vote. However, from the start, Juror Eight displays confidence, and demonstrates leadership abilities utilizing

I believe the ideological message this film conveys is that our criminal justice system needs to do a better job instilling fairness and justice in the court system. Therefore, social status or social conditions will not be the determining factor for conviction based on inequality beliefs. I think this film being made in the early 50’s, is still in line with the issue of race relations as we encounter discrimination even today.

12 Angry Men is a wonderful film that sheds light upon both the greatness and the weakness of the Jury system. It dramatizes the flaws inherent in the Jury system with élan and at the same time, it brings out a sense of positivism about the same. It puts forth the idea that while humans do not work on pure logic and are primarily governed by emotion, justice can still prevail by a careful conglomeration of the two. The film commences with eleven out of twelve jurors convinced that the accused ought to be convicted without having discussed any of the evidence put forth in the proceedings of the case and only one juror arguing that they ought to discuss the case further to arrive at a conclusion whose consequences are of that enormity.

When someone is on trial for murder, it can be difficult for a stranger to realize that the person on trial’s life is in the hands of a small group of people. Therefore, due to jurors often being strangers, it can be significantly difficult to put aside their biases and come to a proper consensus. In the film 12 Angry Men, the process of coming to a consensus was troubling due to Juror Three’s personal bias towards the topic. Unlike looking at the situation rationally as Juror Eight did, Juror Three brought his emotions, personal experiences, and bias into his fallacy-riddled argument.

As a community, we live in a dangerous and unpredictable world where bad, if not horrible, crimes can occur at any given moment, to anybody. Crime rates continue to grow over the years and one of the largest and fastest-growing crimes, is murder. Offenders of this horrendous crime face several possibilities and severe consequences are held in place for the accused. All murder cases are viewed carefully and repeatedly under microscopic detail and facts are gathered and presented before the court. In the 1957 movie,“12 Angry Men”, the criminal case of an eighteen year old boy who was accused of first degree murder of his father was analyzed, where twelve jurors were summoned to the courthouse and listened to the evidence presented by the prosecution and heard the defensive from the boy’s public attorney. Twelve complete strangers held this boy’s fate. The purpose of this film’s analysis is to examine the relationship and communication between these twelve jurors and what factors led the men to change their verdicts. The concepts of critical thinking, decision-making, and problem solving were crucial in this film and were unique in every juror, and this uniqueness is what created great conflict between the jurors

A normal jury room consists of twelve jurors discussing, and colliding opinions about a particular case. In the play; Twelve Angry Men twelve jurors were placed in a room doing just that to determine exactly how innocent a 16 year old boy is after being the blame for his father’s death. However, to begin with eleven of the twelve jurors felt as if the young man was guilty supporting the disciplinary sentence of a 1st degree murder charge that results in an automatic death penalty. Surprisingly, the 8th juror did whatever it took to discuss the evidence and determine if reasonable doubt was a possibility, while the others locked in their vote without analyzing and

The movie, ’12 Angry Men’ showcases the trial of a young boy, who is accused of stabbing his father and causing him death. Throughout the play, the jury is able to follow through the actions of 12 men, who compose the jury. All of these men come from different backgrounds and the most astounding feature of the movie is in the manner that the experiences and personalities of these members of the jury influences their initial perception of the case. The personal bias and past experiences of the juror’s number 10, 11, and 3 are brought on focus, as they serve to inform the biased notions they have toward the accused. The film is an expose and indictment of the American jury system, which purports to uphold a strong sense of lack of bias and infallibility.

The year is 1984 and Darryl Hunt has just been sentenced a life in prison for the alleged rape and slaughter of Deborah Sykes. In 2004, he was set free after nearly 20 years behind bars because he was wrongly convicted based off false eye witness testimonies given during the trial (Blau, 2016). There was no physical evidence that connected him to the crime, yet, but based on the eye witness testimonies he was sentenced to a life behind bars for a crime he never committed. A somewhat similar scenario plays out in the film 12 Angry Men, when a jury is forced to deliberate on a life or death sentence for a boy who allegedly killed his own father. While this case has the evidence stacked against the accused boy, a lone member of the jury is not convinced and takes it upon himself to play devil’s advocate on behalf of the boy in the hopes of saving him from certain death. This becomes a high stakes battle of wits, when the juror meets opposition from the eleven other members of the jury, and is forced to bring the other jurors in opposition of the prosecution’s case against the boy.

Consider the scenario of the movie “12 Angry Men”, eleven jurors vote in favor of convicting the accused without even discussing a single shred of evidence that was presented at the trial. In the movie, if Henry Fonda wasn’t part of the jury, the boy would have been declared guilty and would have died (1957). However, Fonda decided to continue investigating and finally got to the bottom of the mystery. The boy was declared not guilty, but neither the play nor the movie tells us whether they saved an innocent man from death or whether they let a guilty man walk free. The movie emphasizes how important our judicial system is, and how much responsibility we have as citizens to become a jury of our peers and not rush into judgment, because as seen in the movie, jurors judged the accused based on their personal life

Cinema is a canvas that enables the director to address very different and often touchy subjects in a unique light. In this movie the audience is faced with 12 jurors who hold the fate of a young man on trial for murder in their hands. It is supposed to be that one is innocent until proven guilty; however that is not the case in this movie. The Jurors are very prejudiced and closed minded throughout most of the movie for the most part. However, the one juror who is not that way is number 8. In the 1957 MGM film 12 Angry Men Juror number 8 relies primarily on his core values of honesty, reason, and his leadership skills to talk about the case and eventually acquit the young man of murder.