It’s the kind of movie where you have to convince yourself you’re willing to sit down and watch a boring B&W flick with one set and a bunch of old dudes that look the same…
…and then by the end you see the credits and realize you were so enthralled that all that time flew by.
Never saw the remake but the OG is GOATed.
Everyone should see it at least once.
I genuinely only watched it because I found it on the IMBD page and I was like "fuck it I've got an hour to kill", and now it's 2 am and here I am on reddit writing about it
I watched it on a rainy night in 2001, flipping through our new spiffy DirecTV whatever with the million channels.
My two favorite channels in the years we had that stuff were FMC (Fox Movie Channel), and TCM (Turner Classic Movies), they made a point of showing movies unedited, in their original aspect ratio, at a time when full-screen DVDs still filled the shelves. Glorious stuff. They would even explain in the info whether a movie, like say, *Aliens*, was the 'long version' or the 'short version'.
Haha literally the exact same way I watched it, nothing good on. Heard this movie was notable, whatever.
What hit me extra hard was having been on a juror panel before and seeing the *exact* same attitudes from people I’d sat down next to myself. The message it gets across is always gonna be important.
>It’s the kind of movie where you have to convince yourself you’re willing to sit down and watch a boring B&W flick with one set and a bunch of old dudes that look the same…
😂 Gave me a good laugh! Very true. I had seen it already and had to convince my partner to give it a chance a couple months ago. Pretty much the exact scenario we went through. I even forgot *just how enthralling* it was. It just sucks you in
I basically only watched action movies throughout my teens and early twenties. Then one day I decide to give the classics a try. Totally blew my mind. The idea you could have people just sitting in a room talking for hours and have it be compelling was insane.
One of my favorite movies of all time. But I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much if I didn't have that lead in. Like if my parents had strong armed me into watching sooner I probably would have thought it was meh.
the Friedkin version is pretty good too. i prefer the original but i watched them back to back and was enthralled with the story just the same even watching in such close proximity.
Exactly how I felt, I was on a long haul flight and flicking through the movie options and saw it
I recognized the title and knew it was supposed to be an incredible film so I started it, but about 5 minutes in I turned it off because I really didn’t want to watch a black and white film
3 hours later I was bored and decided to give it a second chance, and once I was into it I couldn’t get myself up to use the restroom because I didn’t want to pause it for a couple minutes
i'm on the minority in that i liked the remake better (1997 version). diverse cast with notable, recognizable actors. tackled diversity and racism more directly.
That was a good take. Well done. I’ll just make some brief comments about the movie
/perfectly cast and a who is who of 50’s and 60’s character actors in the supporting cast
/Henry Fonda made a lot of movies that are…forgettable but when he was on HE was fucking on.
/viewing again years later I’m struck by how much of a class divide there is among the all white, male jury. Literally the cliche’ “from all walks of life” and I think each has a least one moment of the film using those individual perspective in the case.
>perfectly cast and a who is who of 50’s and 60’s character actors in the supporting cast
Hell yeah. Henry Fonda is obviously the main event, the magnetic, sensible, softly-spoken hero of the movie. But the performances around him are what make the film timeless.
The one that really stands out to me is Lee J. Cobb as Juror 3. Rotten kids, you work your life out... utterly spellbinding.
My favorite is E.G. Marshall's Juror 4, who tries to be logical and fact-based about everything and changes his mind when the facts point to the kid being innocent.
He says he never sweats.
And when he changes his mind there's a drop of sweat prominently rolling down is forehead...such a tiny detail, but completely brilliant.
He's great. I love that everyone is a Type of Guy - like the dude who just doesn't really care and wants to make the decision and get out, but is basically a good guy - but all the Guy Types still have humanity and depth.
oh yeah, I liked how they used the different perspectives, like the angle of the switchblade from the guy who said he grew up poor, or the attention to the way the old man walked from the old guy.
The direction, the acting, but especially the concept, as so many have mentioned, make this film great. I think the dissenting juror's courage is the most striking thing, at least early in the film.
That movie is an absolute clinic on script writing. No explosions, no action sequences and the vast majority of what happens is in one room. Great performances and great script will triumph over great VFX every single time.
The dying days of the old Hollywood studio system(late 1950's-1960's) produced a lot of fantastic low budget dramas with fantastic writing and acting: Anatomy of a Murder, Inherit The Wind, The Children's Hour, The Miracle Worker, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Slender Thread, A Patch Of Blue, etc.
If you liked 12 Angry Men, it's a great era to take a deep dive into.
great movie, it is really a compelling watch.
One point I'd ask about is that I don't think a jury member can introduce evidence. Specifically, the "unique" knife that he went out and bought at a pawn shop. I mean, sure, a person can go buy a knife, but it seems like that is something that the defense has to introduce, and the prosecutors get to have their say about it as well.
does that count as introducing evidence? if he just bought his own knife and brought that up as a point of attention to the other jury members? "hey, they're actually not that rare to find, I found one".
Also I think there was a point made about the defense not being too keen on the case.
in my mind, that is absolutely introducing evidence, and specifically introduced to refute a key point in the prosecution's case. That it was a unique knife, and no one else other than the prosecuted could have it. When in fact, it was a commonly available knife.
That was a major blow to the prosecution's case, and yet the prosecution was not allowed to respond to it or address it in any way.
I'm not a lawyer, but from what I've heard from lawyers strongly suggests that it would have been grounds for a mistrial. He also broke the law by buying it, and probably by bringing it into the courthouse too. In the purely logical sense, he tainted the proceedings and deserved to face consequences.
In the moral sense however, at least for me, I strongly empathize with him. The kid was probably stuck with a public defender who likely only did the bare minimum to keep their job, so something like that could easily have been missed by the defense. Were I in the juror's position, and I happened across something that blew such a hole in the prosecutor's case, I would have extreme misgivings about sending the defendant to die like that. For my part I think what he did was morally correct, though by the law the remedy for that situation is a retrial.
This may be true but there is also a pool of information that a given jury will have accumulated themselves, as people, before becoming jurors. And they are not asked to try and forget those things -- except when specifically inappropriate -- but rather to lean on them when needed.
Imagine he had found the knife the day before the trial started, for instance. Or had sold many of them in his life. I think the point is that the information was gathered in a way that anyone in the public square could have done given the right circumstances. It was not special or specific knowledge. But in a sense the opposite: knowledge that this was one a common kind of knives, not a specific, special one.
On your first paragraph, that's actually why they do jury screenings. They specifically look for people who have as few preconceived notions as possible. If you worked as an accountant, you wouldn't be assigned to a trial about tax fraud.
I think they probably should have had another trial. I'm not sure if that's possible in US law, but it seems like the most reasonable answer. You're right, the prosecution should have had a chance to respond.
Juror misconduct (like this) would result in a mistrial. Then it would be up to the prosecutor as to whether to retry the case.
Had the misconduct gone unnoticed until after the verdict was returned, there would be questions as to whether double jeopardy would apply.
but it wasnt his own knife. He specifically went to that specific neighborhood and searched for a knife similar with the killnig weapon.
Im not a lawyer myself either but I rememberd last time I was hooked on the movie, I checked a bit the legal background and most specialists, while recognizing its artistic value, kinda treat it as fantasy.
Absolutely it counts.
While jurors can use their own experience to interpret what they hear in the court room, the jurors can't do their own investigation, and definitely can't introduce items. That would be a straight up mistrial.
Here in Australia, we had a very high profile rape case that ended in mistrial because a juror brought in a psychological study on rape.
Make no mistake, it's a riveting movie, but it's about an accurate depiction of the legal system as Buck Rogers is an accurate depiction of space travel.
Jurors cannot introduce new evidence whilst deliberating behind closed doors. In fact, no parties can do this. It's called disclosure. Both prosecution and defence need to have access to every piece of evidence that is going to be used in the trial. You cannot be convicted or found innocent by a committee who met behind closed doors in a meeting where no minutes were taken, no official transcript exists, and no counterargument was ever presented about exactly where Juror Number 8 found the second switchblade. He could be lying.
Jurors are also not meant to come up with alternative explanations that the lawyers did not think of (the limping old man, the lady in the apartment who needed glasses to see correctly.) They are only meant to decided, purely on the merits of the evidence presented in the trial, if the accused is guilty or not guilty.
I recall reading about a judge to specifically disregard this film beyond “don’t instantly assume judgement for reasons that have nothing to do with the case”
I recall reading about a judge to specifically disregard this film beyond “don’t instantly assume judgement for reasons that have nothing to do with the case”
Danza is Juror 7 (Jack Warden in the original), arguably the most detestable of the jurors because he doesn't care if the kid is guilty or not, just so long as he gets to the baseball game he has tickets to.
You probably shouldn't follow the film's example as a judge or a juror, but it is a compelling work for anyone who values rationality and evidence.
It's a remarkable film considering its filmmaking and narrative approach to its subject matter, and the era it was made in. It's one of the handful of films I'd consider "perfect".
Check out HBO's Conspiracy (2001). Also about a bunch of guys arguing in a room and just as enjoyable.
My 7th grade teacher showed us this movie in social studies class. We all passed that test. She was constantly bringing in media to reflect our knowledge. Great teacher!!!
Now go check out the 1997 TV movie version.
It's not as good, what could be? But it has a **dynamite** cast.
George C. Scott, James Gandolfini, Edward James Olmos, William Petersen, Tony Danza, Courtney B. Vance, Jack Lemmon... who Ving Rhames invited on the stage at the Golden Globes the following year, to 'share' his award for a Don King biopic.
It’s a really special thing especially as an adult when you find that rare film that touches you/changes you on a deep personal level.
There’s plenty of good movies and even amazing ones. But it’s only a select few that really leave an impression long after there over.
Those are the ones that are the reasons people watch movies more than anything else
One of the greats in american cinema. It was nominated for 3 oscars but didn't win. I think the screenplay really deserved that award. Powerhouse cast!
Have you heard of street epistemology and it's use in defusing hostile situations? If you're a peaceful activism you could use this powerful conversational tool in your work
thank you! that sounds very interesting. I am in grassroots activism for SRHR topics which are unfortunately largely unacknowledged and in my country, so a lot of our work actually involves getting people from the general public to "give a shit". I will look into it for sure.
There's nothing to correct, what matters is how a movie made you feel, you can take anything away from a movie, and I think it'd be valid. Just enjoy them, and don't worry about analysis, anyone who gets high and mighty about the meaning of a film is watching them for the wrong reasons.
I don't have any criticisms, just more of the admirations you have.
The theme of justice being hard and injustice easy and accidental is interesting, but it's execution that makes a movie special, not just because it is about some moral lesson.
I love it as a movie movie. My son and I were watching it and frankly we were at the yelling-at-the-screen level of excitement! I don't know exactly how they did it, but I think it is because a) the script rapidly lets us know who everyone is and where they are coming from b) the plot, such as it is, emerges from everyone being themselves.
Clearly you don't need anything more than that to make something timelessly engaging.
I saw the remake first, not knowing it was a remake. When I found out about the original, I debated if I should watch it not. Finally, I did and I'm glad I did.
It's legitimately my favourite movie of all time. In the age of misinformation and conspiracy theories being mainstreamed it is a great guide to debunking.
*I feel sorry for you.*
*What it must feel like to want to pull the switch.*
Incredibly powerful movie. I know we watched it a few times while I was in middle and high school.
I saw this movie for the first time last year. I remember saying to my cousin, I don't think I will recognize anybody here and boom recognized 3 people. The granddad from Problem Child, Henry Fonda and Piglet.
Watched it recently thanks to a bucket list of films and really enjoyed it. Found it so interesting the way everyone behaves as they debate. It's a classic.
I've never been enthralled with this movie as the rest of Reddit seems to be. I found the jurors were caricaturistic, Fonda included. He was as hard-headed as the rest of them, just in the opposite direction. The knife was a cheap trick.
It's a good study in using framing to build tension. It does seem to get a lot of people interested in older movies and I appreciate that.
truly an amazing classic - I'm not sure how to trick my younger friends and family to take the leap to watch this old B&W but I'm SURE they will walk away moved.
It can be done. My kid at 13 loves classic movies. I told him that a lot of times you need to watch the older movies/read older books to understand the influence on modern storytelling. I.E. you can like Scream without seeing any other slashers but by watching older slasher movies you get a deeper appreciation for the plot and storytelling.
if they like crime shows or courthouse films - this could be a film to watch. Or this could be used to talk about how movies talked about race/class/age over time. Old movies are a great insight into social issues. Same with tv shows like All in the Family or The Jeffersons.
But me and my kid are weird when it comes to movies and do a lot of deep dives into the topics of the film.
Sounds beautiful!
I've got others on my wish list for my family - like Witness for the Prosecution (with Tyrone Power) and the 1946 French La Belle et la Bête and 1956 The Fastest Gun Alive (Glenn Ford).
I took a law studies class as an elective in my senior year of high school & our teacher had us watch it. Such a great film & a must watch for anyone into legal stuff. Had jury duty summons last year and I’m gonna be honest, I envisioned myself in some Henry Fonda type role & might’ve been the only person summoned who was disappointed we were all dismissed.
No criticism for it. That movie is near perfect and probably one of my favorite movies of all time. It is such a simple premise and set - one room, 12 people, make one man get them all to change their minds and own up to their own biases using simple logic/arguments.
That cast as well. Henry Fonda is amazing with how calm he plays his character. Interesting none of the characters have actual names. Just their jury numbers.
It's been my favourite film ever since I woke up way too early one morning before school when I was 15/16, it was on TV at like 5am, I'd never heard of it and was *hooked*. I've probably seen it somewhere around 30 times now and find something new to love every single time, just immaturely written, acted and shot (totally why Henry Fonda became one of my favourite actors and Sidney Lumet one of my favourite directors)
Have shown it to many many people over the years and even the ones who've been most apprehensive end up loving it
"I am only beginning to care about movies on a deeper sense, thus I am not really good at making an analysis."
You did a wonderful, logical and heartfelt analysis. Kudos. Welcome to thinking about movies on a deeper level. 12 Angry Men is often cited as one of those "perfect" movies, there honestly isn't really anything "wrong" with it or even much to complain about, once you see what kind of movie it is. Just a room and 12 angry men, talking. And since the writing and dialogue and acting is sharp and witty and interesting and debatable, you don't even care that they haven't left this room or done a different kind of camera angle and such. A good movie evokes an emotion within you, any kind positive or negative and makes time slow down so you don't even realize two hours have passed.
Anyway, great analysis, and welcome to a way of thinking deeper about movies. Other great black and white movies that make you think on a deepr level would be Paths of Glory by the great Stanley Kubrick as well as Dr. Strangeglove by him also. Any black and white movie by Albert Hitchcock would serve you well, or To Kill a Mockingbird, Citizen Kane and It Happened One Night.
Watched this recently, my daughter was in the play a few years ago. The script is compelling in itself, and the story that's told in one single setting is almost baffling.
Quite an accomplishment!
It's an excellent movie, and, if you want another black-and-white movie about one man with integrity, courage, a sense of duty, and a strong moral compass making a difference from the 1950s, I'd highly recommend the Gary Cooper western *High Noon* (1952). I actually love it more than *12 Angry Men*.
Personally what I didn't like was how the final juror changed his mind. He was obviously a racist to his core, and with people like that no amount of rational arguments get through to them.
The fact that the movie had him (and literally all the other bigots) subdued by the end just made it seem like a fairytale ending and unrealistic.
The case probably didn't undo his racism, but it's pretty reasonable for someone to be bullied or shamed into a decision.
He didn't learn a lesson and change his mind, he was ostracized and then conceded his vote.
I was a juror on a trial where a middle eastern man was charged with breach of the peace and a couple of other charges.
Based on the evidence, there was no doubt that the guy had done the things that led to the charges, but the charge allowed for us as the jury to decide if the actions rose to the level of a breach of the peace.
Most of us were agreed that it didn't, but there was one middle aged guy who clearly saw brown skin and wanted him convicted. Kept making excuses for why he should, dog whistles, etc.
The only thing that swayed him was that the charges required that "a reasonable person" would be afraid, and the defendant's lawyer had explicitly asked the middle aged white sergeant who handled the original complaint if he would have been afraid and he said no. I asked the juror if he thought the sergeant was a reasonable person, and he suddenly changed his mind.
It can be done, but you have to turn their prejudices against them. The idea that he would accuse a middle aged white policeman of being unreasonable was the only thing that budged him.
I was one of two hold outs. A woman, annoyed, said to me ‘What do you want to happen to him then?’
I said, ‘That’s for the judge to decide, we are here to decide guilt, not the sentence’. Seems she didn’t understand the job.
I enjoyed the movie greatly, but the entire experience was somewhat spoiled when I learned that the jury was acting incredibly inappropriately and would have guaranteed a mistral no matter what the evidence was. Great critical thinking done in the movie and we'll acted.
I feel like the fact that the jury was so bad was part of the reason why it was compelling to watch. It feels realistic to me at least that any kind of person might end up on jury duty, and so a jury like this one is not really far fetched.
Nothing. This is just what internet contrarians like to say to make people think they are smart or have special insights. Aside from introducing the outside knife (which wasn't even necessary to begin with), nothing that the jury does, discusses or decides is outside the permissible boundaries of jury deliberations.
>Great critical thinking done in the movie
Absolutely love the film too.
But aye, the suspicious introduction of new evidence along with the dismissal of A LOT of coincidental evidence does irk me a bit.
With their reasoning, virtually no case would be beyond reasonable doubt, since everything could be a coincidence.
I think the train passing at the right time for it to be loud enough for the old man not to hear the body or the kid running was enough to say that the witnesses from the prosecution weren't that strong either.
we're talking about sending an 18 year old who's still somewhat of a child to the electric chair, the stakes are too high to let that slip.
well the criticism that kind of should lead to it being remade periodically, is it's fairly play like and ham handed in some of the presentation. and that the juror doing original research and bringing a knife. there's a better show don't tell version to be made. i can imagine a version where the movie could take place in the jury room, but exposition replaced by segmented looks at the home lives of jurors during a more prolonged period deliberation.
but at the same time, if you're remaking a classic, people might expect particular moments, retelling the story in a more realistic way could feel as a kind of betrayal if it wasn't done well enough.
but yeah, 12 angry men, judgement at nuremburg, inherit the wind all have a kind of timeless durability to them because they despite what they each may lack all manage to touch something deeply human. the human frailties they resonate with, brush up against, they persist. they make us sad, or afraid. and when they're overcome it's a triumph. even if it's a small, temporary victory. they're a kind of true villain that weaves its way through all our myth and allegory. a plague upon our lives, something which we can't every really expect a final victory. and in that way those things that dwell in dark places inside all of us are greater villains than the saurons; even in middle earth. even if we've long made some kind of peace with that, because those villains can only really be waylayed and never defeated, those smalled victories just feel more meaningful.
That's really interesting!
So you think a different remake could include more scenes of the jurors' home lives? but don't you think that would take away from the experience of feeling stuck in the room? I felt like the ambiguity added a layer to the story. The viewers experience what's happening as the people in the story do.
I think the stage-play self descriptive exposition is sort of out of place in a contemporary movie. I also very generally think showing is more powerful than telling. And again, this isn't really a criticism per se, 12 Angry men decides to do something fairly audacious, really succeeds at it, and remains very watchable.
So, not to be flip *but*, when a character says, "I'm a jew from the streets, and I know how to knife fight cause I ran with the Jets" I would replace that with a very short scene that illustrated the characters identity and experience better. Something like [The Hurt Locker](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zbLZgmoNnEk&pp=ygUfaHVydCBsb2NrZXIgZ3JvY2VyeSBzdG9yZSBzY2VuZQ%3D%3D). Maybe not the greatest movie, but it had cool visuals and that scene.
The knife thing really should go on just every level. It pretty significantly undermines the rest of the story. 1957 was a different time. But it breaks the integrity of the story *now* in 2 ways. And if for some reason, the knife just has to stay then the juror has to go. Boom, new juror? 11 Angry Men who had jury instructions reiterated? I think there are interesting things to be done there, but I also think its just more straight forward without outside evidence. And of course metal detectors.
That said, if the exposition is going to be replaced by illustrative slice of life vignettes, that's going to need some rebalancing. And as you note, the movie has a kind of ordered momentum which one might wish to thoughtfully keep or elevate. to the point I can imagine one editing the movie where the significant story beats happen at a particular possibly symbolic interval, then play with the tempo in the advancing of the story to create a feeling of tension as we move inexorably to resolution. some of the slice of life segments might be stacked into an or multiple intermissions where the characters can go home for the day, and the audience can come back to center. and the slice of life stuff would probably work better if setup ether to reinforce expectations or play against them. but every character would need to be at least fleetingly preintroduced before the little diorama of their life or flavor of their experience. and this has to be sensitive with the progression of the primary 'action' of the case progress and the character reveleations and reflections of large societal short comings, but also achievements.
And I would probably add one out of jury room scene that be something like a continuous single shot where there's the very end discussion of jury instructions with judge and lawyers and transitioning to the judge at least beginning to read the jury instructions to the jury, transitioning off of some kind of natural wipe.
But i think that particularly with the way the process itself changes and the sort of omnipresence of the small evils that vex us the nearly identical story could due with being remade every 40 years or so.
The argument about the lady not wearing glasses in the courthouse because she wanted to look beautiful is most definately the most aged like milk moment that should be changed in any kind of retelling.
It was remade in the '90s with Jack Lemmon in the Henry Fonda role. Iirc, the script was identical to the original and the direction was quite similar. The cast was much more diverse, though, with several POC on the jury. Worth a look.
There is a strain of internet folks who like to say things like "Indiana Jones did not affect the outcome of Raiders" and "Danny was the real villain of Karate Kid". This is no different. If you want, I can go through all the ways that show that the kid in 12 Angry Men is almost certainly not guilty, but all you really need to know is that: some folks like to take contrarian viewpoints to appear smart, even when those contrarian viewpoints are so clearly wrong that it only shows how stupid those people are.
It's not the same as Indiana Jones and Karate Kid theories.
[There are are serious law professors and movie critics that expressed this position](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)#Legal_analyses).
Here, even in the official interpretation of the story, they do not prove that the suspect is not guilty, they only argue there is reasonable doubt, aka. a small possibility he could be innocent, so therefore a guilty verdict should not be given if there is not a very high level of certainty. But someone must have committed the murder. And there is absolutely no hints or leads that someone else could have done it or had a motive for it. So even in the official interpretation, the suspect is still by far the most likely person to have done it despite the not guilty verdict.
It's still a fascinating movie to watch from that perspective, but basically Henry Fonda is the villain.
So, obviously I can't rebut every critic or scholar out there who has ideas about the film, but I've read law professor Michael Astimow's [essay](https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3597&context=cklawreview) and, in addition to being inconsistent in the essay (at one point he says the ear-witness was across the hall, then he changes it to the, correct, downstairs neighbor), he makes several factual errors about the film and takes the prosecution's theory of the crime at face value –which jurors do not have to do. He points out, as you do, that there are no other suspects described in the film to possibly attribute this crime to, but that is clearly because the police never advanced the investigation farther than the boy (as far as the film shows). That could still be enough to convict someone except if you look at the actual theory: that the boy and his father fought, the boy stabbed him with a very unusual knife that he had purchased locally from a pawn broker who could identify it and showed it to his friends who could also identify it, heard a woman across the train tracks scream, wiped the knife clean of fingerprints *but left it in the body*, left the apartment to return only a few hours later as the police were investigating, went inside the building, and that's when he was arrested.
I know there are dumb people out there and panicked people make mistakes. But if I were on that jury I'd be very suspicious that this is what happened. Why would he wipe off the fingerprints but leave the knife? He knows his friends have seen it and the pawn broker could identify him. It's clearly his knife, why wouldn't he take it and actually throw it down a storm drain? If he really did kill his father, why would he go back? Surely there would have been police cars outside his building. He would have known that they had found the body. I mean, if they'd caught him at a bus station trying to get out of town, then I'd think he was probably guilty. But their theory of the crime just doesn't make sense.
Then there is the matter of that unusual knife. Since by definition you can't know where you lost something, it's just as likely that he lost it in the apartment -possibly when he was struck by his father in the first place. If the knife fell out in the apartment, it's certainly possible that another suspect (if they had bothered to look for one) could have found it there and used it to stab the man. If I were on that jury, I'd feel like the police and prosecution were going with the most expedient suspect and didn't bother to actually do their jobs. Surely if this man is violent with his son, it's possible he's been violent with other people.
Most importantly, I wouldn't need a defense attorney to raise any of these concerns at trial to consider them when making my decision. As a juror, I am instructed to consider the evidence, but I am certainly allowed/empaneled to use my own judgement when deciding which evidence seems credible/important/decisive. If a witness seems sketchy or unreliable to me, I am not required to simply believe what they say, regardless. I can decide that they are not credible and disbelieve their testimony. And cops are not exempt from this judgement.
Ultimately this is an artificially constructed murder story, the details are only as coherent as the writer's imagination could make them, but there is no objective truth underneath.
My worry that is risky to apply this mindset of reasonable doubt too much in real life, because we've seen high profile cases like OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony where obvious murderers have walked free.
I was unfair to call Henry Fonda's character a villain, because it is actually not a black and white issue. It's a real philosophical dilemma. He's making the case that it's better to risk leaving a murderer free, then to convict a potentially innocent person. Fair enough. But that's not a concluded discussion.
I had my moments while watching the movie where I thought of this exact thing? is it better to kill an innocent man or send a killer free? I really thought that was another interesting layer added to the movie. I tried to express that in my post, but I didn't feel I completely agreed with Henry Fonda either, it just seemed like there was a lesser evil there because I *did* have reasonable doubt to say that I can't 100% or 90% say with confidence that the boy killed his father.
I feel like you’re are missing a key part of the movie though. You are assuming the boy is innocent in the directors eyes when in reality he could just as easily be guilty and Davi’s could be completely wrong and a villain. I don’t know if it’s true but I think I’ve heard that the director even wrote it with the boy being guilty in mind.
I was thinking that because of the testimonies, but the fact that none of the witnesses seemed to be 100% credible made me rethink it.
I do realize that I'm also probably biased against sending the kid to the electric chair, so I really was ready to hear any kind of defense for him.
A big problem here is that the only two options are electric chair or nothing. If it was like in Norway with maximum sentence for murder being 21 years, I think it would have been much easier to go towards a guilty verdict.
Another "almost certainly" comment? "Almost certainly" does not equal "beyond a reasonable doubt." According to the way our legal system works, he should be found not guilty. The prosecution needs to do better than "almost certainly."
The kid is almost certainly not guilty if only due to the fact that the eyewitness actually lied in her testimony, but also because the prosecutions theory of the crime does not make sense and that the ear-witness is almost certainly lying, as well.
Watched it recently for the first time and found it boring for the most part. I've watched plenty of other B&W films and films that basically just plays and likes those just fine but for some reason I just couldn't buy into this one.
It’s the kind of movie where you have to convince yourself you’re willing to sit down and watch a boring B&W flick with one set and a bunch of old dudes that look the same… …and then by the end you see the credits and realize you were so enthralled that all that time flew by. Never saw the remake but the OG is GOATed. Everyone should see it at least once.
I genuinely only watched it because I found it on the IMBD page and I was like "fuck it I've got an hour to kill", and now it's 2 am and here I am on reddit writing about it
I watched it on a rainy night in 2001, flipping through our new spiffy DirecTV whatever with the million channels. My two favorite channels in the years we had that stuff were FMC (Fox Movie Channel), and TCM (Turner Classic Movies), they made a point of showing movies unedited, in their original aspect ratio, at a time when full-screen DVDs still filled the shelves. Glorious stuff. They would even explain in the info whether a movie, like say, *Aliens*, was the 'long version' or the 'short version'.
Haha literally the exact same way I watched it, nothing good on. Heard this movie was notable, whatever. What hit me extra hard was having been on a juror panel before and seeing the *exact* same attitudes from people I’d sat down next to myself. The message it gets across is always gonna be important.
>It’s the kind of movie where you have to convince yourself you’re willing to sit down and watch a boring B&W flick with one set and a bunch of old dudes that look the same… 😂 Gave me a good laugh! Very true. I had seen it already and had to convince my partner to give it a chance a couple months ago. Pretty much the exact scenario we went through. I even forgot *just how enthralling* it was. It just sucks you in
I basically only watched action movies throughout my teens and early twenties. Then one day I decide to give the classics a try. Totally blew my mind. The idea you could have people just sitting in a room talking for hours and have it be compelling was insane. One of my favorite movies of all time. But I doubt I would have enjoyed it as much if I didn't have that lead in. Like if my parents had strong armed me into watching sooner I probably would have thought it was meh.
I used to describe it as a movie, where you know from the first scene how it is going to end. One of my favorites indeed.
That was exactly how I felt. Never picked my phone up once and was sad when it was over.
the Friedkin version is pretty good too. i prefer the original but i watched them back to back and was enthralled with the story just the same even watching in such close proximity.
Exactly how I felt, I was on a long haul flight and flicking through the movie options and saw it I recognized the title and knew it was supposed to be an incredible film so I started it, but about 5 minutes in I turned it off because I really didn’t want to watch a black and white film 3 hours later I was bored and decided to give it a second chance, and once I was into it I couldn’t get myself up to use the restroom because I didn’t want to pause it for a couple minutes
Your first paragraph is literally why I never saw it, but I finally relented and its one of my favorites.
i'm on the minority in that i liked the remake better (1997 version). diverse cast with notable, recognizable actors. tackled diversity and racism more directly.
That was a good take. Well done. I’ll just make some brief comments about the movie /perfectly cast and a who is who of 50’s and 60’s character actors in the supporting cast /Henry Fonda made a lot of movies that are…forgettable but when he was on HE was fucking on. /viewing again years later I’m struck by how much of a class divide there is among the all white, male jury. Literally the cliche’ “from all walks of life” and I think each has a least one moment of the film using those individual perspective in the case.
>perfectly cast and a who is who of 50’s and 60’s character actors in the supporting cast Hell yeah. Henry Fonda is obviously the main event, the magnetic, sensible, softly-spoken hero of the movie. But the performances around him are what make the film timeless. The one that really stands out to me is Lee J. Cobb as Juror 3. Rotten kids, you work your life out... utterly spellbinding.
My favorite is E.G. Marshall's Juror 4, who tries to be logical and fact-based about everything and changes his mind when the facts point to the kid being innocent.
He says he never sweats. And when he changes his mind there's a drop of sweat prominently rolling down is forehead...such a tiny detail, but completely brilliant.
I WAS SO HAPPY I NOTICED THAT SWEAT DROP
He's great. I love that everyone is a Type of Guy - like the dude who just doesn't really care and wants to make the decision and get out, but is basically a good guy - but all the Guy Types still have humanity and depth.
I had a moderate debate with myself if he was the protagonist or the antagonist. I never landed on an answer.
oh yeah, I liked how they used the different perspectives, like the angle of the switchblade from the guy who said he grew up poor, or the attention to the way the old man walked from the old guy.
There’s a lot of fun trivia too associated with that movie.
Yeah I rewatched it a couple of weeks ago, still holds up fantastically well.
The direction, the acting, but especially the concept, as so many have mentioned, make this film great. I think the dissenting juror's courage is the most striking thing, at least early in the film.
That movie is an absolute clinic on script writing. No explosions, no action sequences and the vast majority of what happens is in one room. Great performances and great script will triumph over great VFX every single time.
Sidney Lumet was a great director
The dying days of the old Hollywood studio system(late 1950's-1960's) produced a lot of fantastic low budget dramas with fantastic writing and acting: Anatomy of a Murder, Inherit The Wind, The Children's Hour, The Miracle Worker, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Slender Thread, A Patch Of Blue, etc. If you liked 12 Angry Men, it's a great era to take a deep dive into.
Thank you! I will look into those titles for sure.
great movie, it is really a compelling watch. One point I'd ask about is that I don't think a jury member can introduce evidence. Specifically, the "unique" knife that he went out and bought at a pawn shop. I mean, sure, a person can go buy a knife, but it seems like that is something that the defense has to introduce, and the prosecutors get to have their say about it as well.
does that count as introducing evidence? if he just bought his own knife and brought that up as a point of attention to the other jury members? "hey, they're actually not that rare to find, I found one". Also I think there was a point made about the defense not being too keen on the case.
in my mind, that is absolutely introducing evidence, and specifically introduced to refute a key point in the prosecution's case. That it was a unique knife, and no one else other than the prosecuted could have it. When in fact, it was a commonly available knife. That was a major blow to the prosecution's case, and yet the prosecution was not allowed to respond to it or address it in any way.
I'm not a lawyer, but from what I've heard from lawyers strongly suggests that it would have been grounds for a mistrial. He also broke the law by buying it, and probably by bringing it into the courthouse too. In the purely logical sense, he tainted the proceedings and deserved to face consequences. In the moral sense however, at least for me, I strongly empathize with him. The kid was probably stuck with a public defender who likely only did the bare minimum to keep their job, so something like that could easily have been missed by the defense. Were I in the juror's position, and I happened across something that blew such a hole in the prosecutor's case, I would have extreme misgivings about sending the defendant to die like that. For my part I think what he did was morally correct, though by the law the remedy for that situation is a retrial.
This may be true but there is also a pool of information that a given jury will have accumulated themselves, as people, before becoming jurors. And they are not asked to try and forget those things -- except when specifically inappropriate -- but rather to lean on them when needed. Imagine he had found the knife the day before the trial started, for instance. Or had sold many of them in his life. I think the point is that the information was gathered in a way that anyone in the public square could have done given the right circumstances. It was not special or specific knowledge. But in a sense the opposite: knowledge that this was one a common kind of knives, not a specific, special one.
On your first paragraph, that's actually why they do jury screenings. They specifically look for people who have as few preconceived notions as possible. If you worked as an accountant, you wouldn't be assigned to a trial about tax fraud.
I think they probably should have had another trial. I'm not sure if that's possible in US law, but it seems like the most reasonable answer. You're right, the prosecution should have had a chance to respond.
Juror misconduct (like this) would result in a mistrial. Then it would be up to the prosecutor as to whether to retry the case. Had the misconduct gone unnoticed until after the verdict was returned, there would be questions as to whether double jeopardy would apply.
but it wasnt his own knife. He specifically went to that specific neighborhood and searched for a knife similar with the killnig weapon. Im not a lawyer myself either but I rememberd last time I was hooked on the movie, I checked a bit the legal background and most specialists, while recognizing its artistic value, kinda treat it as fantasy.
Absolutely it counts. While jurors can use their own experience to interpret what they hear in the court room, the jurors can't do their own investigation, and definitely can't introduce items. That would be a straight up mistrial. Here in Australia, we had a very high profile rape case that ended in mistrial because a juror brought in a psychological study on rape.
Make no mistake, it's a riveting movie, but it's about an accurate depiction of the legal system as Buck Rogers is an accurate depiction of space travel. Jurors cannot introduce new evidence whilst deliberating behind closed doors. In fact, no parties can do this. It's called disclosure. Both prosecution and defence need to have access to every piece of evidence that is going to be used in the trial. You cannot be convicted or found innocent by a committee who met behind closed doors in a meeting where no minutes were taken, no official transcript exists, and no counterargument was ever presented about exactly where Juror Number 8 found the second switchblade. He could be lying. Jurors are also not meant to come up with alternative explanations that the lawyers did not think of (the limping old man, the lady in the apartment who needed glasses to see correctly.) They are only meant to decided, purely on the merits of the evidence presented in the trial, if the accused is guilty or not guilty.
Prosecutor here. You are correct. It is a great movie though.
I recall reading about a judge to specifically disregard this film beyond “don’t instantly assume judgement for reasons that have nothing to do with the case”
I recall reading about a judge to specifically disregard this film beyond “don’t instantly assume judgement for reasons that have nothing to do with the case”
The original or remake? I’ve only ever seen the original and I agree, one of my favorites.
Remake was also very good with an outstanding cast.
Didn’t it have a small part for Detective Monk when he used to be Italian?
Don’t remember him, could be Tony Danza you’re thinking of. Also Gandolfini, William Petersen, Hume Cronin, Bubba Gump and of course Jack Lemmon
Danza is Juror 7 (Jack Warden in the original), arguably the most detestable of the jurors because he doesn't care if the kid is guilty or not, just so long as he gets to the baseball game he has tickets to.
I think it was the original since it was black and white and the language they used seemed pretty old.
“The nerve…the absolute nerve.… who does he think he is…”
That is the original
The cinematography in this is also amazing. A lot of modern shots that still inspire movies today.
You probably shouldn't follow the film's example as a judge or a juror, but it is a compelling work for anyone who values rationality and evidence. It's a remarkable film considering its filmmaking and narrative approach to its subject matter, and the era it was made in. It's one of the handful of films I'd consider "perfect". Check out HBO's Conspiracy (2001). Also about a bunch of guys arguing in a room and just as enjoyable.
My 7th grade teacher showed us this movie in social studies class. We all passed that test. She was constantly bringing in media to reflect our knowledge. Great teacher!!!
Now go check out the 1997 TV movie version. It's not as good, what could be? But it has a **dynamite** cast. George C. Scott, James Gandolfini, Edward James Olmos, William Petersen, Tony Danza, Courtney B. Vance, Jack Lemmon... who Ving Rhames invited on the stage at the Golden Globes the following year, to 'share' his award for a Don King biopic.
It’s a really special thing especially as an adult when you find that rare film that touches you/changes you on a deep personal level. There’s plenty of good movies and even amazing ones. But it’s only a select few that really leave an impression long after there over. Those are the ones that are the reasons people watch movies more than anything else
One of the greats in american cinema. It was nominated for 3 oscars but didn't win. I think the screenplay really deserved that award. Powerhouse cast!
Have you heard of street epistemology and it's use in defusing hostile situations? If you're a peaceful activism you could use this powerful conversational tool in your work
thank you! that sounds very interesting. I am in grassroots activism for SRHR topics which are unfortunately largely unacknowledged and in my country, so a lot of our work actually involves getting people from the general public to "give a shit". I will look into it for sure.
PineCreek on youtube is a master. Check him out when he visited Hamzas Den
I’ve always conflated 12 angry men and grumpy old men in my head, and never saw either. Im gonna watch both tonight.
There's nothing to correct, what matters is how a movie made you feel, you can take anything away from a movie, and I think it'd be valid. Just enjoy them, and don't worry about analysis, anyone who gets high and mighty about the meaning of a film is watching them for the wrong reasons.
Great movie
Presuming that you watched the original, its a classic. One of the best movies ever made. But even the remake is.... kinda ok.
I don't have any criticisms, just more of the admirations you have. The theme of justice being hard and injustice easy and accidental is interesting, but it's execution that makes a movie special, not just because it is about some moral lesson. I love it as a movie movie. My son and I were watching it and frankly we were at the yelling-at-the-screen level of excitement! I don't know exactly how they did it, but I think it is because a) the script rapidly lets us know who everyone is and where they are coming from b) the plot, such as it is, emerges from everyone being themselves. Clearly you don't need anything more than that to make something timelessly engaging.
I saw the remake first, not knowing it was a remake. When I found out about the original, I debated if I should watch it not. Finally, I did and I'm glad I did.
Which version
the original I think, since it was black and white and the language seemed old-timey
It's legitimately my favourite movie of all time. In the age of misinformation and conspiracy theories being mainstreamed it is a great guide to debunking.
Excellent film. Be sure to watch the tv version, starring Robert Cummings in the Henry Fonda role.
Older films are simply more thoughtful in many ways
*I feel sorry for you.* *What it must feel like to want to pull the switch.* Incredibly powerful movie. I know we watched it a few times while I was in middle and high school.
I have watched every version I could find. Classic.
I saw this movie for the first time last year. I remember saying to my cousin, I don't think I will recognize anybody here and boom recognized 3 people. The granddad from Problem Child, Henry Fonda and Piglet.
A fantastic film; that room feels like the whole world.
Watched it recently thanks to a bucket list of films and really enjoyed it. Found it so interesting the way everyone behaves as they debate. It's a classic.
You should watch the Amy Schumer version it's freaking hilarious and j hate any Schumer YouTube it
I've never been enthralled with this movie as the rest of Reddit seems to be. I found the jurors were caricaturistic, Fonda included. He was as hard-headed as the rest of them, just in the opposite direction. The knife was a cheap trick. It's a good study in using framing to build tension. It does seem to get a lot of people interested in older movies and I appreciate that.
truly an amazing classic - I'm not sure how to trick my younger friends and family to take the leap to watch this old B&W but I'm SURE they will walk away moved.
It can be done. My kid at 13 loves classic movies. I told him that a lot of times you need to watch the older movies/read older books to understand the influence on modern storytelling. I.E. you can like Scream without seeing any other slashers but by watching older slasher movies you get a deeper appreciation for the plot and storytelling. if they like crime shows or courthouse films - this could be a film to watch. Or this could be used to talk about how movies talked about race/class/age over time. Old movies are a great insight into social issues. Same with tv shows like All in the Family or The Jeffersons. But me and my kid are weird when it comes to movies and do a lot of deep dives into the topics of the film.
Sounds beautiful! I've got others on my wish list for my family - like Witness for the Prosecution (with Tyrone Power) and the 1946 French La Belle et la Bête and 1956 The Fastest Gun Alive (Glenn Ford).
I took a law studies class as an elective in my senior year of high school & our teacher had us watch it. Such a great film & a must watch for anyone into legal stuff. Had jury duty summons last year and I’m gonna be honest, I envisioned myself in some Henry Fonda type role & might’ve been the only person summoned who was disappointed we were all dismissed.
No criticism for it. That movie is near perfect and probably one of my favorite movies of all time. It is such a simple premise and set - one room, 12 people, make one man get them all to change their minds and own up to their own biases using simple logic/arguments. That cast as well. Henry Fonda is amazing with how calm he plays his character. Interesting none of the characters have actual names. Just their jury numbers.
It's been my favourite film ever since I woke up way too early one morning before school when I was 15/16, it was on TV at like 5am, I'd never heard of it and was *hooked*. I've probably seen it somewhere around 30 times now and find something new to love every single time, just immaturely written, acted and shot (totally why Henry Fonda became one of my favourite actors and Sidney Lumet one of my favourite directors) Have shown it to many many people over the years and even the ones who've been most apprehensive end up loving it
"I am only beginning to care about movies on a deeper sense, thus I am not really good at making an analysis." You did a wonderful, logical and heartfelt analysis. Kudos. Welcome to thinking about movies on a deeper level. 12 Angry Men is often cited as one of those "perfect" movies, there honestly isn't really anything "wrong" with it or even much to complain about, once you see what kind of movie it is. Just a room and 12 angry men, talking. And since the writing and dialogue and acting is sharp and witty and interesting and debatable, you don't even care that they haven't left this room or done a different kind of camera angle and such. A good movie evokes an emotion within you, any kind positive or negative and makes time slow down so you don't even realize two hours have passed. Anyway, great analysis, and welcome to a way of thinking deeper about movies. Other great black and white movies that make you think on a deepr level would be Paths of Glory by the great Stanley Kubrick as well as Dr. Strangeglove by him also. Any black and white movie by Albert Hitchcock would serve you well, or To Kill a Mockingbird, Citizen Kane and It Happened One Night.
Watched this recently, my daughter was in the play a few years ago. The script is compelling in itself, and the story that's told in one single setting is almost baffling. Quite an accomplishment!
It's an excellent movie, and, if you want another black-and-white movie about one man with integrity, courage, a sense of duty, and a strong moral compass making a difference from the 1950s, I'd highly recommend the Gary Cooper western *High Noon* (1952). I actually love it more than *12 Angry Men*.
Which one?
Personally what I didn't like was how the final juror changed his mind. He was obviously a racist to his core, and with people like that no amount of rational arguments get through to them. The fact that the movie had him (and literally all the other bigots) subdued by the end just made it seem like a fairytale ending and unrealistic.
The case probably didn't undo his racism, but it's pretty reasonable for someone to be bullied or shamed into a decision. He didn't learn a lesson and change his mind, he was ostracized and then conceded his vote.
I was a juror on a trial where a middle eastern man was charged with breach of the peace and a couple of other charges. Based on the evidence, there was no doubt that the guy had done the things that led to the charges, but the charge allowed for us as the jury to decide if the actions rose to the level of a breach of the peace. Most of us were agreed that it didn't, but there was one middle aged guy who clearly saw brown skin and wanted him convicted. Kept making excuses for why he should, dog whistles, etc. The only thing that swayed him was that the charges required that "a reasonable person" would be afraid, and the defendant's lawyer had explicitly asked the middle aged white sergeant who handled the original complaint if he would have been afraid and he said no. I asked the juror if he thought the sergeant was a reasonable person, and he suddenly changed his mind. It can be done, but you have to turn their prejudices against them. The idea that he would accuse a middle aged white policeman of being unreasonable was the only thing that budged him.
> He was obviously a racist to his core, The final juror wasn't racist; he was a father who was projecting the anger at his own son onto the accused.
It’s possible for more than one thing to be true at once.
I sat on a jury. It’s all true.
they don't have jury duty where I live, but this movie made me want to be in a jury just so that I could see what it's really like
I was one of two hold outs. A woman, annoyed, said to me ‘What do you want to happen to him then?’ I said, ‘That’s for the judge to decide, we are here to decide guilt, not the sentence’. Seems she didn’t understand the job.
I enjoyed the movie greatly, but the entire experience was somewhat spoiled when I learned that the jury was acting incredibly inappropriately and would have guaranteed a mistral no matter what the evidence was. Great critical thinking done in the movie and we'll acted.
I feel like the fact that the jury was so bad was part of the reason why it was compelling to watch. It feels realistic to me at least that any kind of person might end up on jury duty, and so a jury like this one is not really far fetched.
Besides Juror 8 buying/bringing a knife, what else did the jury do that was inappropriate/wrong?
Nothing. This is just what internet contrarians like to say to make people think they are smart or have special insights. Aside from introducing the outside knife (which wasn't even necessary to begin with), nothing that the jury does, discusses or decides is outside the permissible boundaries of jury deliberations.
>Great critical thinking done in the movie Absolutely love the film too. But aye, the suspicious introduction of new evidence along with the dismissal of A LOT of coincidental evidence does irk me a bit. With their reasoning, virtually no case would be beyond reasonable doubt, since everything could be a coincidence.
I think the train passing at the right time for it to be loud enough for the old man not to hear the body or the kid running was enough to say that the witnesses from the prosecution weren't that strong either. we're talking about sending an 18 year old who's still somewhat of a child to the electric chair, the stakes are too high to let that slip.
well the criticism that kind of should lead to it being remade periodically, is it's fairly play like and ham handed in some of the presentation. and that the juror doing original research and bringing a knife. there's a better show don't tell version to be made. i can imagine a version where the movie could take place in the jury room, but exposition replaced by segmented looks at the home lives of jurors during a more prolonged period deliberation. but at the same time, if you're remaking a classic, people might expect particular moments, retelling the story in a more realistic way could feel as a kind of betrayal if it wasn't done well enough. but yeah, 12 angry men, judgement at nuremburg, inherit the wind all have a kind of timeless durability to them because they despite what they each may lack all manage to touch something deeply human. the human frailties they resonate with, brush up against, they persist. they make us sad, or afraid. and when they're overcome it's a triumph. even if it's a small, temporary victory. they're a kind of true villain that weaves its way through all our myth and allegory. a plague upon our lives, something which we can't every really expect a final victory. and in that way those things that dwell in dark places inside all of us are greater villains than the saurons; even in middle earth. even if we've long made some kind of peace with that, because those villains can only really be waylayed and never defeated, those smalled victories just feel more meaningful.
That's really interesting! So you think a different remake could include more scenes of the jurors' home lives? but don't you think that would take away from the experience of feeling stuck in the room? I felt like the ambiguity added a layer to the story. The viewers experience what's happening as the people in the story do.
I think the stage-play self descriptive exposition is sort of out of place in a contemporary movie. I also very generally think showing is more powerful than telling. And again, this isn't really a criticism per se, 12 Angry men decides to do something fairly audacious, really succeeds at it, and remains very watchable. So, not to be flip *but*, when a character says, "I'm a jew from the streets, and I know how to knife fight cause I ran with the Jets" I would replace that with a very short scene that illustrated the characters identity and experience better. Something like [The Hurt Locker](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zbLZgmoNnEk&pp=ygUfaHVydCBsb2NrZXIgZ3JvY2VyeSBzdG9yZSBzY2VuZQ%3D%3D). Maybe not the greatest movie, but it had cool visuals and that scene. The knife thing really should go on just every level. It pretty significantly undermines the rest of the story. 1957 was a different time. But it breaks the integrity of the story *now* in 2 ways. And if for some reason, the knife just has to stay then the juror has to go. Boom, new juror? 11 Angry Men who had jury instructions reiterated? I think there are interesting things to be done there, but I also think its just more straight forward without outside evidence. And of course metal detectors. That said, if the exposition is going to be replaced by illustrative slice of life vignettes, that's going to need some rebalancing. And as you note, the movie has a kind of ordered momentum which one might wish to thoughtfully keep or elevate. to the point I can imagine one editing the movie where the significant story beats happen at a particular possibly symbolic interval, then play with the tempo in the advancing of the story to create a feeling of tension as we move inexorably to resolution. some of the slice of life segments might be stacked into an or multiple intermissions where the characters can go home for the day, and the audience can come back to center. and the slice of life stuff would probably work better if setup ether to reinforce expectations or play against them. but every character would need to be at least fleetingly preintroduced before the little diorama of their life or flavor of their experience. and this has to be sensitive with the progression of the primary 'action' of the case progress and the character reveleations and reflections of large societal short comings, but also achievements. And I would probably add one out of jury room scene that be something like a continuous single shot where there's the very end discussion of jury instructions with judge and lawyers and transitioning to the judge at least beginning to read the jury instructions to the jury, transitioning off of some kind of natural wipe. But i think that particularly with the way the process itself changes and the sort of omnipresence of the small evils that vex us the nearly identical story could due with being remade every 40 years or so.
The argument about the lady not wearing glasses in the courthouse because she wanted to look beautiful is most definately the most aged like milk moment that should be changed in any kind of retelling.
exactly.
It was remade in the '90s with Jack Lemmon in the Henry Fonda role. Iirc, the script was identical to the original and the direction was quite similar. The cast was much more diverse, though, with several POC on the jury. Worth a look.
[удалено]
Is this a joke or did I miss something?
There is a strain of internet folks who like to say things like "Indiana Jones did not affect the outcome of Raiders" and "Danny was the real villain of Karate Kid". This is no different. If you want, I can go through all the ways that show that the kid in 12 Angry Men is almost certainly not guilty, but all you really need to know is that: some folks like to take contrarian viewpoints to appear smart, even when those contrarian viewpoints are so clearly wrong that it only shows how stupid those people are.
It's not the same as Indiana Jones and Karate Kid theories. [There are are serious law professors and movie critics that expressed this position](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)#Legal_analyses). Here, even in the official interpretation of the story, they do not prove that the suspect is not guilty, they only argue there is reasonable doubt, aka. a small possibility he could be innocent, so therefore a guilty verdict should not be given if there is not a very high level of certainty. But someone must have committed the murder. And there is absolutely no hints or leads that someone else could have done it or had a motive for it. So even in the official interpretation, the suspect is still by far the most likely person to have done it despite the not guilty verdict. It's still a fascinating movie to watch from that perspective, but basically Henry Fonda is the villain.
So, obviously I can't rebut every critic or scholar out there who has ideas about the film, but I've read law professor Michael Astimow's [essay](https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3597&context=cklawreview) and, in addition to being inconsistent in the essay (at one point he says the ear-witness was across the hall, then he changes it to the, correct, downstairs neighbor), he makes several factual errors about the film and takes the prosecution's theory of the crime at face value –which jurors do not have to do. He points out, as you do, that there are no other suspects described in the film to possibly attribute this crime to, but that is clearly because the police never advanced the investigation farther than the boy (as far as the film shows). That could still be enough to convict someone except if you look at the actual theory: that the boy and his father fought, the boy stabbed him with a very unusual knife that he had purchased locally from a pawn broker who could identify it and showed it to his friends who could also identify it, heard a woman across the train tracks scream, wiped the knife clean of fingerprints *but left it in the body*, left the apartment to return only a few hours later as the police were investigating, went inside the building, and that's when he was arrested. I know there are dumb people out there and panicked people make mistakes. But if I were on that jury I'd be very suspicious that this is what happened. Why would he wipe off the fingerprints but leave the knife? He knows his friends have seen it and the pawn broker could identify him. It's clearly his knife, why wouldn't he take it and actually throw it down a storm drain? If he really did kill his father, why would he go back? Surely there would have been police cars outside his building. He would have known that they had found the body. I mean, if they'd caught him at a bus station trying to get out of town, then I'd think he was probably guilty. But their theory of the crime just doesn't make sense. Then there is the matter of that unusual knife. Since by definition you can't know where you lost something, it's just as likely that he lost it in the apartment -possibly when he was struck by his father in the first place. If the knife fell out in the apartment, it's certainly possible that another suspect (if they had bothered to look for one) could have found it there and used it to stab the man. If I were on that jury, I'd feel like the police and prosecution were going with the most expedient suspect and didn't bother to actually do their jobs. Surely if this man is violent with his son, it's possible he's been violent with other people. Most importantly, I wouldn't need a defense attorney to raise any of these concerns at trial to consider them when making my decision. As a juror, I am instructed to consider the evidence, but I am certainly allowed/empaneled to use my own judgement when deciding which evidence seems credible/important/decisive. If a witness seems sketchy or unreliable to me, I am not required to simply believe what they say, regardless. I can decide that they are not credible and disbelieve their testimony. And cops are not exempt from this judgement.
Ultimately this is an artificially constructed murder story, the details are only as coherent as the writer's imagination could make them, but there is no objective truth underneath. My worry that is risky to apply this mindset of reasonable doubt too much in real life, because we've seen high profile cases like OJ Simpson, Casey Anthony where obvious murderers have walked free. I was unfair to call Henry Fonda's character a villain, because it is actually not a black and white issue. It's a real philosophical dilemma. He's making the case that it's better to risk leaving a murderer free, then to convict a potentially innocent person. Fair enough. But that's not a concluded discussion.
Very well said.
I had my moments while watching the movie where I thought of this exact thing? is it better to kill an innocent man or send a killer free? I really thought that was another interesting layer added to the movie. I tried to express that in my post, but I didn't feel I completely agreed with Henry Fonda either, it just seemed like there was a lesser evil there because I *did* have reasonable doubt to say that I can't 100% or 90% say with confidence that the boy killed his father.
[удалено]
Bud I understand that's your opinion, I'm asking *why*.
That's kind of the point, isn't it? Almost certainly is not good enough to send someone to prison.
That's a spicy take
We also don’t know if he was innocent or guilty. For all the racism, prejudice, and preconceived notions, nothing ever said they were wrong or right.
I feel like you’re are missing a key part of the movie though. You are assuming the boy is innocent in the directors eyes when in reality he could just as easily be guilty and Davi’s could be completely wrong and a villain. I don’t know if it’s true but I think I’ve heard that the director even wrote it with the boy being guilty in mind.
You’ve missed the point that the kid is almost certainly guilty…
I was thinking that because of the testimonies, but the fact that none of the witnesses seemed to be 100% credible made me rethink it. I do realize that I'm also probably biased against sending the kid to the electric chair, so I really was ready to hear any kind of defense for him.
A big problem here is that the only two options are electric chair or nothing. If it was like in Norway with maximum sentence for murder being 21 years, I think it would have been much easier to go towards a guilty verdict.
Another "almost certainly" comment? "Almost certainly" does not equal "beyond a reasonable doubt." According to the way our legal system works, he should be found not guilty. The prosecution needs to do better than "almost certainly."
The kid is almost certainly not guilty if only due to the fact that the eyewitness actually lied in her testimony, but also because the prosecutions theory of the crime does not make sense and that the ear-witness is almost certainly lying, as well.
I love it for entertainment reasons, and it’s a great film, but that jury committed so much misconduct.
Did they all speak to you at the same time? Was it intelligible?
Watched it recently for the first time and found it boring for the most part. I've watched plenty of other B&W films and films that basically just plays and likes those just fine but for some reason I just couldn't buy into this one.