12 Angry Men (2024)

12 Angry Men

“12 Angry Men” is one of the greatest American movies ever made, and over half a century later, its story still remains strong enough to inspire this Russian “Twelve.” The Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov was inspired by “12 Angry men” when making his own film.

You are familiar with the story. A jury is sequestered. It is hot; they are tired and anxious to leave for their homes. The defendant, an alleged killer is considered guilty. One vote is called hurriedly. Eleven hands go up for conviction while one hand goes up against it. This unleashes a lengthy battle which raises questions about justice itself.

Maybe Russia caught the movie at the right time. Reginald Rose wrote the original screenplay of this play for CBS drama series “Studio One” in 1954 when it was presented live (Ford). Franklin Schaffner was then directing it before he also directed Patton (1970) film starring George C. Scott. This telecast occurred toward the end of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hearings. At that time CBS also broadcasted hearings on Army McCarthy hearings or Edward R. Murrow’s historic denouncing of McCarthy; both were alcoholic witch hunts. Trivia: Sidney Lumet’s masterpiece from 1957 now holds 9 slot in IMDb all time greatest poll ahead of “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Casablanca.”

If the original story raised arguments for having fair trial rights during McCarthy’s character assassinations era then Russian version comes when nation has adopted jury system after Stalinist purges and communist party trials on masses being held accountable for treasons crimes etc. It too suggests Anti-Semitism as well as xenophobic feelings towards Chechens while the young man on trial has just recently come to Moscow. Whereas some jurors may wonder about why they exist overnight millionaires in a country where there are so many poor people?

No juror has a name, but director Mikhalkov plays the role of jury foreman himself. In turn every character among the jurors tells a story or a secret. They persuade other jurors to change their votes through their dramatic monologues; however, they are powerful enough to stand on themselves as if they were one-man shows.

Apart from that, there is no weak actor in the whole cast and what’s more, for such a long duration of two and half hours it doesn’t seem overburdened. The courtroom next door is situated within its neighbor school gymnasium where jurors have been kept all along inside it while undergoing trial with their various stories enacted so skillfully in our minds making these similar audio dramas.

Lumet famously begins his film with the camera above eye level, gradually lowering it as the characters loom above it at the conclusion of the story. Instead, Mikhalkov circles around this makeshift table using his single available space to maneuver through camera placement and movement following jurors who drift across the room (Dunning 3). At one point during deliberations a sparrow flies into the window and flutters about chirping constantly thus signifying that even members of juries feel restricted by conditions under which they operate

I knew the beginning, the middle and the end of the story. Mikhalkov has kept that (the writer Rose also shares a screen credit), but in fact, this is a new film with its own original characters and stories. However, it’s not how a film ends, but how it goes to the end of the road.

In form, the movie “12 Angry Men” is a courtroom drama. In purpose, it is a fast course on the Constitution’s constitutional provisions for equal justice and presumption of innocence. It has something of pure simplicity: except for a brief introduction and equally shorter epilogue, all the action happens in a small New York City jury room on ‘the hottest day of the year,’ where twelve men are deciding the fate of an 18-year-old accused of killing his father.

The film does not present us anything about the trial itself except for judge’s bored, uninterested request to jurors. His voice indicates that there’s already an opinion towards verdict. We do not hear any prosecutor or defense attorney while information about proofs comes from jurors’ mouths. Other courtroom dramas tend to resolve into neat convictions but this film never makes clear if he is guilty or not guilty. The doubt is on whether a jury holds reasonable doubts regarding this person’s guilt.

Reasonable doubt as well as belief in the innocence until proven guilty by law stands among most enlightened parts of our constitution yet many Americans have found it difficult to understand it (“12 Angry Men”). They smother out Juror No.3 (Lee J. Cobb) curtly stating that “he did it” as soon as they crowd together at their small, stifling enclosure (“12 Angry Men”). When first votes are counted, 10 more jurors join him in agreement with only one holdout Juror No.8(Henry Fonda).

Tension in this film arises from personality clashes rather than action; dialogue and body language rather than movement; where defendant was seen only in one quick frame; where logic, emotion and prejudice contesting each other for sway over human minds… This is realistic cinema at its best realism achieved through stylization wherein every edit and camera angle forms some kind of comment on material aspects underlying it all (“12 Angry Men”).

Released in 1957, when Technicolor and lush production values were common, “12 Angry Men” was lean and mean. Although it received rave reviews and a photo spread in Life magazine the film disappointed at the box office (Ebert 4). Nonetheless, over the years it has found its audience and took 23rd place in readers’ poll conducted by Internet Movie Data Base in 2002.

The story was based on Reginald Rose’s television play later made into a Sidney Lumet film with Rose and Henry Fonda acting as co-producers who put their own money up to make it. This was Lumet’s first feature after directing numerous TV shows but Boris Kaufman, whose credits (“On the Waterfront,” “Long Day’s Journey into Night”) demonstrate an ability to raise dialogue exchanges’ tension with cinematography; filmed it.

There is just one star of the movie, Fonda; however among other eleven there were some of the leading actors working in New York at that time including Martin Balsam, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, Ed Begley and Robert Webber who smoke, sweat they swear they sprawl they stalk they get angry

In only 95 minutes (sometimes, it looks like the entire movie was shot in real time) the jurors are characterized by their personalities, backgrounds, occupations, prejudices and emotional tilts. This evidence is so debated that we feel like we know what is going on as much as the jury does especially about the old man who testifies to having heard the murder and seen the suspect run away; and about a lady across the street of a moving L train saying that she witnessed it happening through her window.

We see the murder weapon which is a switch-blade knife, while hearing jurors arguing about how it got lodged in. Fonda’s imitation of an old man with stroke symptoms shuffling across cuts back to show us if he too could have gotten to witness while seeing this murderer running away from there or not. As opposed to this kind of linearity in detective fiction where each piece fits into another within logical dependency this film brings together pieces of contradictory evidence.

However, unraveling a crime doesn’t feature in “12 Angry Men”. It involves convicting an innocent youth. The fact that many Death Row convictions have been based on contaminated evidence recent reports make this movie timely. “We’re talking about somebody’s life here,” says Henry fondly. “We can’t decide in five minutes. Suppose we are wrong?”

When his face comes into view, he seems label-less ‘ethnic’. He could be Turkish, Indian Italian or Jewish among others. The defendant’s eyes are encircled with dark rings signifying exhaustion and frightfulness because he has hardly had any sleep during his trial times. A few jurors use coded language such as “those people” inside that room referring to him as they discuss racism indirectly.

Juror No 10 (Ed Begley) begins spewing out racist comments (“You know how these people lie. It’s born in them”), adding on “And let me tell you: they don’t need any real big reason to kill someone, either.” Other jurors rise from their chairs one after the other without looking back and taking a leave of absence from the table. Not even those who still believe in the defendant’s guilt can tolerate listening to Begley. This is one of the most poignant scenes in the film.

The vote begins with 11-to-1, but gradually shifts. Not all of those who vote “guilty” are portrayed negatively, though the movie certainly supports Fonda’s position. One of the key characters among them is Juror No. 4 (E. G. Marshall), a trader in stocks wearing rimless glasses, that is relying only on rationality and attempts to ignore emotions at all costs. A second example is Juror No.7 who had tickets for baseball games decided to change his vote so as to end everything quickly. He then made a comment concerning this: “Who tells you that you have the right to play like this with a man’s life?” Beforehand, he had been attacked as being foreigner: “They come over and in no time at all they’re telling us how to run the show.”

Lumet talks about the visual strategy of the film in Making Movies; one of cinema’s most intelligent and revealing destinations that would ever be put into writing. In considering what kind of movie he wanted it to be, he calls it a “lens plot”: As the story unfolded, Lumet started using lenses of longer focal lengths that helped him make space look smaller by bringing backgrounds closer towards characters.

“Furthermore,” he says, “I shot the first third of the picture above eye level, shot the second third at eye level and last third from below eye level”. That way even before we reached there was always something overhead which appeared most clearly near its conclusion when walls seemed closing in from each side and ceiling also began getting lower thus making claustrophobia grow which eventually provided tension for final part.” And finally, in his last picture Lumet employed a wide-angle lens because “to let us finally breathe”.

Like any textbook for directors concerned with mood raised by different lenses choices can be said about our film. Another concept brought out by Lumet through lowering his camera is composition: A higher this camera the more dominant it is, whereas a lower one is ruled by something. Initially, we are looking down on the characters; thus, angles suggest that they should be completely understood and controlled.

However, as the movie moves to its end, they tower above us as audience overwhelmed by their passion’s force. Lumet rarely uses close-ups but when he does it effectively: The shot of Juror No. 9 (Joseph Sweeney), who happens to be the oldest man in the jury are often full-frame since he has a way of getting right to the point and telling everyone what they refused to see.

For Sidney Lumet (born 1924), however, “12 Angry Men” was only his first film in a career which has frequently sought out controversial issues.” Among his forty-three movies consider these titles: “The Pawnbroker” (the Holocaust), “Fail Safe” (accidental nuclear war), “Serpico” (police corruption), “Dog Day Afternoon” (homosexuality), “Network” (the decay of TV news), “The Verdict” (alcoholism and malpractice), “Daniel” (a son punished for the sins of his parents), “Running on Empty” (radical fugitives) and “Critical Care”(health care). There are also comedies and a musical (“The Wiz”). He cannot be said to be among America’s most famous directors because of breadth ranging so far that he defies classification.

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