12 ANGRY MEN (1957)

Ira says

Beyond a reasonable doubt. Is there such a thing at all? Nothing will make you struggle with that question or the existing reality of that idea more than SIDNEY LUMET’s powerful, penetrative and evocative, debut film, 12 Angry Men. This is a film that holds you by the knot in your tummy and raises questions about some of the most fundamental areas of human civilization –society, law, politics, governance, economic classes, values, beliefs, race, culture, psychology, and human behaviour. Shot in a clean 17 days, within a modest budget, predominantly in a single space ie a jury room, with just 12 characters, and adapted from the stage play which is a startlingly dense work of writing, 12 Angry Men is a stark, unforgettable film.

Renowned to be an ‘actors director’ (hey, an actors dream director more like it, anyone wants to introduce me?), known for his ability to treat a film as a meticulous art, to go through intensive rehearsals, use one or two takes at the most per scene, be involved with themes of social realism, justice and morality and synonymous for making ‘problem films’ that stir you and make you think, according to me, Lumet is in fact, one of the finest directors Hollywood has ever produced. His Dog Day Afternoon and a A Long Day’s Journey into Night ( the latter adapted from a Eugine O’Neill play and starring Katherine Hepburn in an Oscar nominated role so different from what we just saw in BRINGING UP BABY!) are amongst my favourite films of all time, and I think 12 Angry Men should be way up there in the AFI list. I’m especially impressed at how well Lumet has been able to translate theatrical plays into film. And as a filmmaker, he has the uncanny ability to take you in to his story with a steady, unsettling, unobtrusive, firm authority letting his camera be a looming observer and a potent mirror at the same time. In 12 Angry Men, that long take that opens the film, up to the courtroom door with the grave, weighty, half erased writing saying, ‘ROOM 228’ is a work of genius in itself. The camera pans upwards along the imposing outer façade of a courthouse, moves at an even pace into the building as characters walk in and out of its unwavering path along a corridor, only to end on an image of faded lettering; an immediate reminder of the nature of truth, its elusiveness and uncertainty, and the ‘facts or fancy’ that can be inevitably blurred and misunderstood.

The screenplay, which is written by the author of the play, Reginald Rose, is brilliant. Fascinatingly wrought, layered and shocking in its fearlessness to constantly unravel, hit home, forge a point against another, and expose a man and his sometimes most private, most shameful, most well hidden motives, desires, and means. The extremely talented Henry Fonda as juror #8 is mesmerizing. Steering the narrative around with his immaculate suit and assured strong, lean gait, his naturalistic style, careful, clear delivery (hallelujah for the great diction all around and no subtitles!), and intense, piercing eyes, increasingly surrounded by glistening beads of sweat, you can almost feel the real, true arc that his character goes through. But the entire cast is outstanding here. Be it Jack Warden as the oscillating, indifferent salesman who is more concerned with the baseball game he’s missing than with all that ‘talking’, the excitable Robert Webber as the ad man always looking for a light little joke to crack and who’s completely unable to make a choice, Martin Balsam as the foreman who wants to be in charge and acts as mediator, the wonderful Joseph Sweeney as the wise, funny old man who’s Fonda’s first comrade, or the unflinching Lee J Cobb as the inionated, stubborn, aggressive businessman who wants to punish an unknown boy for his own sons disappearance and his own personal failing.

I kept thinking of Golding’s boys in Lord of The Flies, of how these characters though diverse socio-cultural types, are uniform as jurors, and symbolic of humanity and its condition in so many ways. When the vote has become 9 to 3 favouring the accused as not guilty, Ed Begley, the prejudiced bigot of the lot starts ranting on about how poverty, criminal activity and violence are inherently correlated, squarely sticking to his belief that the boy, a ‘born liar’, is guilty. Lumet has his actors isolate him, turn away, stand up, and face the wall, using one of the very few wide shots he employs. In that moment, as Begley ends his speech, desperately pleading with the others to listen to him, to see how dangerous the ‘accused’ and ‘people like him’ are, how ‘wild’ they can be, a brief silence fills the air. And you suddenly know the tables have turned; it’s these men themselves who are the ‘wilder’, more reprehensible in their own ways, the more questionable, and fallible, and its frightening.

Watching Fonda provide counter arguments, force the others to remember their moral duties and responsibilities, loopholes begin to emerge in testimonies and convictions and the plot and the vote slowly, logically, convincingly, turn around. But what’s amazing to see is how even through his incredibly focused, minimal storytelling and while navigating through a rich, complex narrative Lumet is able to constantly strip, expose, and dig deep. The relief you should feel when a potentially innocent mans life is being saved from execution begins rather to turn into a growing unease and you find yourself seeing layers being peeled away with an uncompromising, at times aggressive honesty.

Is the boy guilty? Will we ever know? There are no certainties, and is any jury finally trustworthy? These are the overriding questions here but as long takes turn to shorter ones, a slowly moving camera becomes stiller, close-ups move to extreme close-ups, and the tension soaked atmosphere and riveting performances build to a boiling point, you realize that its not just the ‘systems’ larger values and norms that are being questioned. Its ours. Because as much as the film raises questions about democracy, the law and the nature of truth, it also breaks down each of these men; these 12 very angry, very human, very real men, who have shades of things we have ourselves or have seen in people we know. Made by a consistently thought-provoking, hard-hitting and powerful storyteller who showed us how its done with small budgets, big actors, and great ideas in his first film alone, 12 Angry Men is an engaging film at every level and each time you watch it, and one to own and treasure.

Neha says

I’m such a sucker for intelligent and perceptive crime thrillers. Maybe it’s the dissection of a crime, the intimidating legal jargon, the layers of clever story twists that change the game, the suspense of what’s to come or that dramatic face-off where either the prosecutor or the defense attorney smugly and shrewdly uses a big lie to reveal a greater truth and the way in which it all comes together that has one on tender hooks each step of the way. Be that as it may there is a formula within which the genre more or less tends to operate. The premise and motivations for the crime may vary-you could have a marine, corporate or crime of passion, setting up the dynamics for a court room saga but just give me an intriguing hook and I’ll come running. 12 Angry Men is in many ways genre defying. It takes the skeleton of the formula, inverts and reinvents it to give us a third person jury account of a crime. It gives us one of the most intelligently envisioned crime thrillers I’ve see but it also comments on and critiques the justice system.

Apart from the opening and closing sequence of the film, shot in the exterior of the court room, the film finds itself enclosed in a single, isolated room where the jury convenes to mutually arrive at a “guilty or not” verdict. But through the characterizations of the jury members, dialogue and camera angles that manage to occasionally capture the exterior landscape from a window in the pigeon-hole room we get a keen sense of the life awaiting the jury outside, and in contrast the claustrophobia inside feels more exaggerated, creating a kinetic tension for the film even before the conflict kicks into gear.

Except for Jury No. 8, the truth seeker of the story played by Henry Fonda, the 11 others encapsulate a certain dynamic of what I like to call the fight and flight principle. They all seek flight; they want to return to their lives as soon as possible and are quick to vote “guilty” – after all an eyewitness, murder weapon, a flimsy motive and a weak defense should make the accused young boy’s crime of passion an open and shut case. Some just want to agree for the sake of following the herd. But they also want to fight for their stand; they don’t want their reputations as moral messiah’s to be doubted and they don’t want to concede to how their personal prejudices could influence their objectivity and judgment. So for the psychology class room, being a student of the subject myself, 12 Angry Men gives you a compelling insight into the human psyche and behavioral patterns of a bunch of middle-class, middle-aged, frustrated, closely cocooned men.

The film also points out how external forces can influence decision making. Notice how it’s a furnace hot day and as time passes, the characters get hot under the collar, literally and metaphorically!! So if there are internal and external influences at work-how then can we trust a bunch of reluctant and biased jury members to deliver an impartial verdict? And if one man can influence the entire jury however genuine his motive then that too is a cause for concern. What if his motives aren’t philanthropic like in the case of John Cussack in Runaway Jury? With the foundations of the judicial system being fundamentally weak, how then can justice be truly and irrevocably served? A relevant question even today given the times we live in.

Interestingly the film doesn’t shy away from revealing within the first ten minutes what’s going to happen at the end. We know that one by one, each of the eleven will come around to Henry Fonda’s point of view that there is simply not enough concrete evidence to believe the accused is guilty “beyond reasonable doubt.” The key lies in how the plot, on one set i.e. one room unravels. Henry Fonda’s character gets into detective mode but the beauty lies in how he does it. His character never gets dogmatic or belittling instead gently needles the jury members to cross examine and substantiate their stands, putting them in the witness box so to speak. The dialogues are sharp, descriptive, rich and visual enough to allow us to recreate the crime scene in our own minds without the crutch of a physical image to transport us. The camera uses traditional close-ups, mid-shots and the long shot in the most mesmerizing way, holding on to moments and reactions long enough to create an intimate intensity and contrasting magnitudes frequently enough to create a movement and energy within the space.

Performances need equal mention. Henry Fonda’s (Jury No.8) quiet and penetrative resilience, Lee J. Cobb’s (Jury No.3) passionate resistance, Jack Warden’s (Jury No. 7) irritating, cavalier attitude as all he wants to do is catch a baseball game, Joseph Sweeney’s (Jury No. 9) compassion and Ed Begley’s (Jury No.10) spitefulness and conviction that anyone with the boy’s socio-economic background is a criminal are ones that stand out.

The brilliant writing, vivid characterizations and piercing performances had me completely immersed. So much so I didn’t even realize till the end that the characters’ names were withheld! There was a one week time lag between the time I saw the film and wrote this review but on putting pen to paper it felt like I had only seen it yesterday. That’s the mark of a really good film- When you can replay the entire film, scene by scene, character by character in your mind in vivid detail.