Film Review : Film 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.

This essay will compare & contrast the protagonist/antagonist's relationship with each other and the other jurors in the play and in the movie versions of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men. There aren't any changes made to the key part of the story but yet the minor changes made in making the movie adaptation produce a different picture than what one imagines when reading the drama in the form of a play.

A boy may die,” and changes his vote to “not guilty” which is another instance where the boy gets a fair trial. The 12th and 7th juror find it difficult to decide on which way to vote and therefore vote “not guilty” so that the boy is not “sent off to die.” The 12th juror’s lack of a defined and consistent point of view reflects America’s post war materialism. The 4th juror believed that the defendant was guilty for most of the play but then was the 2nd last juror to change his vote and admitted that he had a “reasonable doubt.” Although the audience never finds out whether the defendant was “guilty” or “not guilty” the jurors give the “kid from the slums” an honest trial.

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.

We are presented in both ‘Twelve Angry Men’ and ‘On The Waterfront’ with environments that represent the tensions between characters and their ability to overcome conflict and prove justice. In ‘Twelve Angry Men’ the jury room is described as “a large, drab, bare room in need of painting, with three windows in the back wall through which can be seen the New York skyline.” The way, in which the jurors are seated facing each other, on the long scarred table that represents the previous troubles and journeys of the jury room, inspires truth and transparency and allows for confrontation between the jurors. In contrast to when Terry Malloy stands in front of the foggy church elaborating he is unclear and still on the pathway to finding himself,

Reginald Rose’s ’12 Angry Men’ brings 12 jurors together in a room to decide whether a young foreign boy is guilty of killing his father. The play is interwoven with dynamic characterisation, striking symbolism and intense moments of drama. Although Rose positions Juror 8 as the hero, the strongest character is in fact Juror 4, who is an independent thinker, rational and calm even as tension begins to build. Although Juror 4 initially votes guilty, he is able to admit his fault and change his vote.

Unlike the defendant in the short story “A Jury of Her Peers”, the young boy did not have a jury of his peers. In the short story, the defendant had women equal to her and on her side doing things in their best hopes to save their peer. But in the film “12 Angry Men” it was the opposite, a younger man with his life in the hands of much older “angrier” men. But regardless of the jury not being his peers, they still were able to remove social conditions and other inequality beliefs off the table to give a fair decision.

12 Angry Men is a movie centered around a murder case and the 12 men that are in charge of providing a verdict for a kid charged of first degree murder of his own father. In this movie, the characters have to face a long and grueling procedure of figuring out how to charge the kid after a six day long trial and hours long deliberation between the jurors. The film of 12 Angry Men has several key psychological aspects to it that can be accurately and summarily described.

This technique dehumanises them so the only way to characterise them is by their personalities and reactions to the evidence of the murder case. Only after the first vote for guilty or not guilty with a tally of 11 for guilty and 1 for not guilty is the personalities of the jurors shown. The only person to vote not guilty is the 8th juror. He is immediately criticised by his fellow jurors but he holds his ground as he thought there were too many holes in the evidence. "8th juror well I guess we talk " "10th juror boy-boy!" " 3rd juror the man's a killer" These quotes tell us that the 10th is rude and the 3rd juror is stubborn. But the personalities of all the jurors are shown when all the jurors are questioned for why they chose guilty or not guilty. The playwright has intended to have many different people with various past experiences placed on a range for justice or personal needs so that when they clash, all the human emotions are portrayed in a striking way.

12 Angry Men Summary Fucking hot in the room…say something about the environment Coach -sets the stage for the negotiation by assigning seats based on juror number -said “you fellas can handle this any way you want to, im not going to make any rules”…he should have assumed more of a leadership role from the start -showed signs of becoming a good mediator by redirecting Advertising man’s attention back to the discussion. But then, he said to HF “and we might be able to show you were you were mixed up.” -Coach offered to hand control to GO after GO called Coach a kid…caused a confrontation should have separated people from problem. Took shit too personally -did nothing when Ad man and MSO played TTT…gave up leadership role to HF

The film starts in the courtroom as there was a hearing going on for a murder. The members of the jury were asked by the judge to make an unanimous decision about whether the 18 year old teen is guilty of killing his father, or not. All evidence pointed towards the direction of him committing the crime; eye witness testimony, his neighbours and the murder weapon. So naturally it seemed like an open and shut case to everyone including the jurors, except one. Juror No 8; played by Henry Fonda holds a reasonable doubt about the Puerto-Rican boy being not guilty and he stands alone against all the jury members who already condemned the boy to be guilty. That’s when the story actually starts; the process of

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.

According the five Methods for Influencing Other Group Members - use of reason, assertiveness, coalition building, higher values, and bargaining - when Juror Eight said: “we are talking about somebody life here, we can’t just decide within five minutes, suppose we are wrong”, he used the youth human-being life’s important and the danger of a false decision as good reasons to force other jurors in analyzing the facts carefully. He then talks about the boy’s backgrounds for appealing to logic and rational thinking of other jurors. Juror Three was overt prejudice, hostility, and used “assertiveness” to influence the other ten jurors of jury provided an antagonist for juror Eight. Juror eight used “coalition building” method to seek alignment with other group members. He never says that he believes the defendant is innocent but his mantra throughout the movie was “it’s possible!” referring to the reasonable doubt, which he convinced others’ thought. Juror Eight continued to appeal other eleven juror’s higher values by repeatedly reinforcing their moral and judicial obligation to convict only if there was no reasonable doubt. He challenged each juror to look at the facts more thoughtfully. “Bargaining” is offering an instrument exchange. Juror 8 used this method when he said: “I want to call for another vote… If there are 11 votes for guilty, I won’t stand alone… But if anyone votes not guilty, we stay here and talk it out.”

Summary: Reviews the film Twelve Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet. Discusses the director's use of cinematic techniques, including lighting, music,and set design, to reinforce the themes of the story.

12 Angry Men is a 1957 American courtroom drama film adapted from a teleplay of the same name by Reginald Rose. Written and co-produced by Rose himself and directed by Sidney Lumet, this trial film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or acquittal of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt, forcing the jurors to question their morals and values. In the United States, a verdict in most criminal trials by jury must be unanimous. The film is notable for its almost exclusive use of one set: out of 96 minutes of run time, only three minutes take place outside of the jury room.