Analysis Of ' 12 Angry Men '

Recently in my AP English class, we watched The film “Twelve Angry Men”. The film was unique in the fact that it only had one setting, the Jury Room. The film showed no one else but the jurors and the warden, who all remained completely nameless throughout the entire movie and we're only identified by their juror numbers. The jurors were drastically different which I believe added more diversity and made the plot more complex and intriguing to the audience. I don't believe the film had a specific intended audience, I believe that this show can be appreciated by all audiences because it shows that reasonable doubt is a much easier state of mind then certainty.

The movie “12 Angry Men” by William Friedkin, was a movie that's purpose was to send the viewers a message and that message was to have the audience ask themselves “are facts really facts?”. At the beginning of the movie 11 out of the 12 jurors were confident and sure that “the kid” was guilty of stabbing his father to death, but as the movie continues they start to actually realize that the facts may not be facts after all. The director also plays with the background affects (lighting) to show a change in behavior and attitude in the characters throughout the film, by doing this it allows the audience to become captured but the setting and dialogue.

12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose is a twisting story where a son is accussed of stabbing his father to death. Twelve strangers are told to listen to this court case and are then stuck in a small, hot room where they are told to decide on a verdict, whether or not the kid lives or dies. The jury finally decides on the verdict of : Not Guilty. Three major facts that influence the juries agreement that the accussed is not guilty include doubts of the murder weapon, doubts of the old man’s testimony, and doubts of the lady across the street’s testimony.

The Constitution guarantees the right to trial by an impartial jury. Impartiality is the principle holding that all parties should be subject to equal treatment under the law. Being impartial requires jury members to reach a decision based on the evidence presented. The chosen jury must be unbiased, and capable of weighing out the evidence objectively. In order to counter bias, The Supreme Court established a rule that the selection of jurors must be from a pool representative of a cross-section of the community.

In the play, 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose, prejudice isn’t the only way to discovering the truth. You can discover the truth by the highlights of people’s feelings and emotions. Things that hid the truth were the physical environment and the unfairness of the society between how people see the different races of people.

The movie “12 Angry Men” was about twelve male jurors, brought together in a deliberation room to decide whether a boy is guilty of killing his father. The deliberation began with an 11-1 vote for guilty. As the movie progressed, the one man who had a reasonable doubt about the guilt of the young boy, convinced the other members of the jury to question the facts ultimately leading to a unanimous vote for innocence. There were two obvious leaders in this movie, Juror number 1, the foreman and Juror number 8, the man who stood alone with a not-guilty verdict. This paper will discuss these two jurors and how they led the group to reach its goal.

I believe the ideological message this film conveys is that our criminal justice system needs to do a better job instilling fairness and justice in the court system. Therefore, social status or social conditions will not be the determining factor for conviction based on inequality beliefs. I think this film being made in the early 50’s, is still in line with the issue of race relations as we encounter discrimination even today.

In the movie, the jury has to come to a unanimous decision on the boy’s innocence or guilt as stated by the judge in the beginning of the film and that any decision that is not unanimous will result in a hung jury where they will most likely schedule for a retrial. While most of the characters of the jury seem adamant about the eventual result of the kid and how his fate should pan out, juror number 8 decides that he is going to vote for not guilty in order to have a reasonable discussion about the trial instead of immediately sending the defendant to the chair to be executed. This is met by the initial outrage of the group at the thought of someone going against what was the norm of the group, which is very uncommon for someone to do especially in a murder trial where people tend to be very opinionated and set in stone about their ideas. This unflinching and unresolving attitude is shown throughout the movie as juror number 8 slowly and methodically uses both central and peripheral route persuasion to

Daily there are thousands of people being found guilty for a crime they did not commit because of a prejudiced judge.Sidney Lumet and Reginald Rose the writers and directors of 12 Angry Men wrote and produced a play about 12 jurors that briefly discuss a trial and come to a verdict , personal issues develop which causes conflict and only makes the process more grueling. The accused boy is being found guilty for murdering his father, 12 jurors are put in a hot room in New York and spend hours briefly viewing the scenario. Although one might think that the justice system should be left in the hands of citizens ,the director and writer of 12 Angry Men , Sidney Lumet and Reginald Rose demonstrate that the United States justice system is unfair and is simply corrupt , inefficient , and injustice due to the jurors biases minds, ignorant attitude ,and the lack of time and energy put in the trial while trying to decide a verdict.

Reginald Rose’s play, Twelve Angry Men, examines not only character but America’s judicial system as well. It is a jury’s responsibility to find the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt; if there is not proof beyond reasonable doubt, it is the jury’s duty to find the defendant not guilty. However, not all doubt can be eliminated. The motif of doubt is introduced by the Eighth Juror. The Eighth Juror establishes doubt in his peers through the symbolism in the switchblade knife he obtained.

An individual's past experiences can have an incredible impact on the way they think and behave for years to come. So, the past have a significant impact on an individual. In my own life, I have had past experiences that have affected me to be the person I am today. One example is, whenever I walked through the downtown part of Edmonton and I noticed a lot of homeless people lying around on the streets. I felt so bad for those poor people that didn’t have a place to live. They appreciate anything and everything they get. This really effects me and teaches me to be more grateful in life. And appreciate everything I have. In the play the 12 Angry Men, jurors 3, 5, and 11 prove that their experiences has affected who they are. I believe that juror 3’s family issues such as his problems with his son has affected him to become an aggressive man. Additionally, juror 5 has had a background of living in a slum all his life. Therefore, he tries to prove that not all people living in slums are criminals. Lastly, juror 11 struggles with others judging him because he is a European Refugee. This affected him by making him feel unconfident about himself and feels that the others jurors don't take his opinion too seriously.

For a moment i stood shocked because my mom wouldn't even listen to my side of the story. She was so convinced by my sister's words believing that i had done something wrong. In the play twelve angry men,by reginald rose, he focuses on proving if a boy is guilty or innocent. From the play we begin to understand we can not always trust words of others without breaking down evidence for ourselves.

The group type presented in the film 12 Angry men appears to be a task group. Task groups typically come together to accomplish a specific charge. In this case, their task was to decide a verdict of guilty or not guilty for the boy on trial. According to our text, some feature of this task group would include those listed under the “teams” category such as appointed leadership and focus on a specific task or charge. The members’ bond is simply there interest in the task, as they have no previous relationship. The composition of the group is based on their common interest, shared purpose, and investment in community through their task on the jury. The communication style began as being relative to the task and low member self-disclosure. I believe near the middle and end of the movie the communication moved into more informal member-to-member discussion, formulation and implementation of tactics and strategies for change. We began to see higher member self-disclosure in relation to social problems – both under the teams approach. (Toseland & Rivas, 2012, p. 30)

According the five Methods for Influencing Other Group Members - use of reason, assertiveness, coalition building, higher values, and bargaining - when Juror Eight said: “we are talking about somebody life here, we can’t just decide within five minutes, suppose we are wrong”, he used the youth human-being life’s important and the danger of a false decision as good reasons to force other jurors in analyzing the facts carefully. He then talks about the boy’s backgrounds for appealing to logic and rational thinking of other jurors. Juror Three was overt prejudice, hostility, and used “assertiveness” to influence the other ten jurors of jury provided an antagonist for juror Eight. Juror eight used “coalition building” method to seek alignment with other group members. He never says that he believes the defendant is innocent but his mantra throughout the movie was “it’s possible!” referring to the reasonable doubt, which he convinced others’ thought. Juror Eight continued to appeal other eleven juror’s higher values by repeatedly reinforcing their moral and judicial obligation to convict only if there was no reasonable doubt. He challenged each juror to look at the facts more thoughtfully. “Bargaining” is offering an instrument exchange. Juror 8 used this method when he said: “I want to call for another vote… If there are 11 votes for guilty, I won’t stand alone… But if anyone votes not guilty, we stay here and talk it out.”

“12 Angry Men”, the movie that is revolved around the trial of the murder case, has different characters from different backgrounds as the jurors. In this report, the communication styles of those people are going to be discussed. They are examined based on their behaviours, languages or gestures.