12 Angry Men is a movie about 12 jurors reaching a verdict on a murder trial. Without much inspection, the juror’s conclusions seem to be straightforward proving the accused guilty but during the course of the discussion they discover ‘reasonable doubt’. In the end, the entire jury votes ‘not guilty’.
I enjoyed many aspects of this movie. I understood individual interactions between jurors dictated their likeliness to agree with the other. It was interesting how the composition of the jury was extremely varied. Although the jury was made up of 12 white men, they all had different personalities. There was one juror who demonstrated leadership, few were aggressive and scattered versus few who were calm and logical. The writer added heat as an element in the story. The characters are constantly complaining about the heat and wiping the sweat off their foreheads. This adds constant discomfort to the jurors which causes subconscious impatience and a desire to leave the room soon.
I observed a few things in the movie that truly impacted the way I view objectivity in human matters. I noticed how important emotions are in the process of coming to a conclusion. At the beginning of the film, the jurors decide to take a vote by raising their hands. A few hands shot up immediately after hearing ‘guilty’. Others began to raise their arms after inspecting everybody else’s vote first. Only one of the twelve jurors expressed his empathy toward the accused. Essentially empathy was the key factor for the jury to take the case seriously. If the jurors had not empathized with the accused and put themselves in his shoes they could not have seen how the evidence had been twisted to the advantage of the prosecution. For example, the accused’s alibi was that he was watching a movie at the theater but upon interrogation by the detectives, he was not able to recall the name and details of the movie. However, they relate to the accused and find how hard it is to remember such details during stressful situations.
Another factor I found interesting was the topic of the film itself. The jurors are made up of only white men. I wonder how the approach to the subject might have changed if the jurors were made up of different groups of people. Would it have changed if jurors were made up of only women or people of different ethnicities? I hope to write an alternative script for 12 Angry Men, one in which the jury is made up of only women or a mixed-gendered jury.
This movie is important to me for one particular reason. How we judge situations and people is a major theme in this film. The jurors are tasked with deciding somebody else’s path with experiences that are only theirs. Subconsciously, their prejudices and pasts have a role in their decision. I realized that the unbiased way to judge these situations is to empathize and relate to others and truly embrace subjectivity.
Hi! My name is Aarna and I am the founder of Articulate.
