12 Angry Men (1957) - film review

In a New York court room, a lengthy murder trial is nearing its conclusion.   Once the judge has delivered his closing statements, the twelve members of the jury are led away to the jury room.  Here, they must decide whether the defendant, a young Puerto Rican man, is guilty or innocent of the charge of stabbing his father to death.  The eyewitness testimony against the defendant is damning, so most of the jurors are confident of his guilt.  When an initial vote is taken, eleven of the twelve men call for a guilty verdict.  Only one refuses to go with the flow.  The one dissenter admits he is uncertain as to whether the defendant is guilty or innocent, but he insists that, as the man will be executed if found guilty, the jurors have a moral duty to examine the facts more closely before casting judgement.  Whilst some members of the jury are amenable to this, others are adamant this is a waste of time, so convinced are they of the defendant’s guilt.  But when the dissenter points out certain inconsistencies in the evidence, the prosecution’s case slowly begins to crumble...

Director Sidney Lumet made his stunning big screen debut with this superbly crafted adaptation of Reginald Rose’s 1954 television play.  By the time he made 12 Angry Men, Lumet had almost a decade of work in television under his belt, before which he had cut his teeth directing plays in off-Broadway theatres.   Lumet was by no means a novice but a seasoned hand when he entered a film studio for the first time and started work on what would be a landmark piece of cinema.  The film may not have been a commercial success but it was well-received by the critics and it won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1957.

The main innovation of 12 Angry Men is that it takes place in real time, in one location.  Virtually all of the action is situated in one small set (the jury room), with only a few cut away scenes (one in the courtroom, two in the men’s washroom).  Shooting an entire feature film in such a confined space presented great technical and artistic challenges, but Lumet’s biggest concern was how to keep it visually interesting so that the audience would not get bored.   This he achieved by taking shots from virtually every conceivable position and angle in the jury room, and by adjusting the length of the shots to match the natural rhythm of the narrative.

Lumet combined filmmaking techniques with those which were widely employed in television at the time.  He rehearsed the cast outside the studio for two weeks, rather than follow the more usual practice of rehearsing a scene or part of a scene directly before it is shot.  This allowed Lumet to complete his shoot within twenty days and achieve a greater sense of realism.  Lumet also employs a mixture of photographic and editing techniques to achieve a desired aim.  For example, he uses unbroken long takes, of the kind that would have been commonplace in TV dramas, to establish the confined nature of the setting, and rapid cutting of close-up shots to build tension.

Lumet is well-served by his director of photography, Boris Kaufmann, who famously began his career in France, working for the legendary filmmaker Jean Vigo on such films as Zéro de conduite (1933) and L’Atalante (1934).  Most of the cast were experienced television actors who were used to working in the extremely pressurised world of TV drama, and could therefore be replied upon to give the kind of intense, focused performance that Lumet was depending on.

12 Angry Men was the first and only film to be produced by Henry Fonda (who also played the leading role in the film).  Although Fonda was particularly proud of his work on this film, it failed to make a profit (mainly because the film’s distributors were overly optimistic about its appeal to a mainstream audience).  Certainly, this is one of the high points of Fonda’s career as an actor, even he is part of an ensemble, one of twelve fine actors who each turns in a highly creditable performance.  The humanity and moral authority that gushes from Fonda’s portrayal of an upstanding American citizen makes an effective contrast with Lee J. Cobb’s loud-mouthed string-’em-up bigot.  The screenplay also deserves praise for its taut narrative and psychological depth.  Notice how clearly it delineates the twelve jury men, each of whom is revealed to be a highly complex and believable individual once the surface impressions are shattered.  

Although this film is somewhat dated by the attitudes it presents, it remains a compelling and highly effective piece of cinema.  It is also an extremely disturbing film since it shows up the fundamental weakness of the jury system, which is that it only works if the jurors are prepared to leave their prejudices outside the courthouse.  Whilst the film’s conclusion appears to be a vindication of trial by jury, you can’t help feeling that it is, all the same, a pretty ropey system.   If Fonda’s character had had a bad attack of migraine or if Cobb’s had been slightly more pugnacious an innocent man could well have been roasted.  If anything, the film offers up a pretty effective argument for the abolition of the death penalty.  An imperfect judicial system that can put the wrong people in jail is one thing, but an imperfect judicial system that can allow the state to murder innocent people surely cannot be tolerated by any civilised society.

© James Travers 2010

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