Sidney Lumet’s staggering courtroom drama 12 Angry Men mostly takes place in the cramped jury room where a dozen “men with ties” decide the fate of Puerto Rican teenager accused of murdering his abusive father. The prologue to their civic imprisonment sets the stage for the filmmakers’ overarching concerns about the contradictions of the democratic process. After a few short establishing shots where men, women, and children traverse the plaza steps and interior hallways of the court building, the camera focuses on a particular door, where one of many cases currently in motion is just about to reach critical mass. The legal arguments have subsided, leaving the courtroom mostly silent and the fate of the accused in the hands of the titular men. Before their dismissal, the judge looks down at the group and bequeaths them to “separate the fact from the fancy.” Despite his harsh tone, we quickly realize only one of them takes this statement seriously.
That man is Juror 8 (Henry Fonda), the lone dissenting voice during the jury’s disturbingly jovial initial vote to convict the boy of first-degree murder, which would send him to the electric chair. Juror 8 has questions, a lot of them that he wants to discuss further, much to the chagrin of his fellow jurors. “There’s always one,” yells sarcastic Juror 10 (Ed Begley), who, like many of his fellow deliberators, desires a quick conviction so that he can get back to his regular routine.
In the minds of the other 11 men, the evidence is overwhelming in favor of the prosecution, so why even bother with debate? But Juror 8’s resistance to such mob mentality and manipulation helps erode the devastating moral righteousness of men like Juror 3 (Lee J. Cobb), whose certainty about the boy’s guilt is just one of the many red flags to surface during the proceedings. Slowly but surely, Juror 8 forces each man to look beyond their own prejudices—to question the evidence at hand and to become active participants in the judicial process.
What’s most interesting about the intense deliberations that ensue, specifically when a piece of seemingly indisputable evidence is brought back into question, is how a fresh angle and perspective, usually born from Juror 8’s critical thinking, alters the tone of the discussion. In the process, each character begins to show their true colors in relation to the case. Whether it’s a bit of blatant racism from Juror 10, extreme hatred from Juror 3, or a sobering plea of humanity from Juror 8, Lumet shoots the most important lines of dialogue in close-up, lingering on the characters’ faces for extended moments, establishing the importance of proximity and duration when it comes to dramatic shifts in the story. It’s almost as if Fonda’s character, and Lumet for that matter, believes that these men are smart enough to make the correct decision if given the context and time to carefully consider the ramifications of their actions. Despite some crippling character flaws, laziness and apathy are the only real villains in 12 Angry Men.
The film takes a confined and banal real-world location and makes it completely dynamic, using incredibly nimble camera movements to establish character motivation and theme. Director of photography Boris Kaufman’s fluid long takes track each character as they leave the table in anger or frustration, sometimes both, before returning to the heated discussion after, say, a moment of personal reflection. Seemingly simple conversations lead to damning assumptions about ideology and purpose, and each man brings their own set of moral baggage to the table.
As the characters become more fully developed before our eyes, it’s as if the location grows in depth as well. At times, even the film’s visuals seem to exert a strange effect on the narrative. As questions of cause and effect cast shadows over each man, rousing their unease, the film increasingly builds toward a release that comes to feel as volatile as the shifts in weather (from sweltering heat to torrential downpour) beyond the jury room’s windows.
Boasting as much compulsive energy as your average modern Hollywood action film, Lumet’s feature directorial debut makes every shot and line of dialogue count. This is a film that’s obsessed with the nature of perspective, how it’s formed as well as performed, as well as how each character tries to hide their weaknesses by lashing out at others. “Prejudice always obscures the truth,” one juror says at the end of 12 Angry Men. And as the men walk down the courthouse steps, it’s finally clear that some of them understand how that particularly true statement relates to their own conflicted, ambiguous, and flawed life experience.
Image/Sound
The Criterion Collection has produced another Blu-ray disc worthy of celebration. You really get a sense of the oppressive heat plaguing the jurors, the sweat formulating on their brows while the deliberations grow more instinctual. With the added clarity, one gets a better sense of the small details inherent to the location, how close the large center table is to the walls, and how expansive the side bathroom feels by comparison. Maybe even more impressive is the uncompressed monaural soundtrack, which balances the diagetic sound effects, like the crashing rain or the traffic on the streets below, with the complex overlapping dialogue that’s always clearly audible. This is truly the only way to experience 12 Angry Men on home video.
Extras
Watching Franklin Schaffner’s 1955 television version of 12 Angry Men, also included on Criterion’s Blu-ray disc with an introduction by curator Ron Simon, reveals the importance of small tweaks made by Lumet that ultimately make his version specifically cinematic. The most glaring example is Lumet’s use of the dissolve early in the film, specifically the instance where the image of the accused teenager slowly fades into a shot of the empty jury room. Schaffner’s film on the other hand is quite wooden, included here for curatorial purposes and to highlight writer Reginald Rose’s immaculate script. Film scholar Vance Kepley breaks down the evolution of 12 Angry Men, from its various television incarnations to theater and film. Kepley brings a wealth of knowledge about 1950s television to the table, illuminating why the confined location is a narrative challenge different generations of artists have chosen to tackle. In “Lumet on Lumet,” Criterion weaves together various Lumet interviews to tell the director’s story in his own words. There’s also a touching interview with screenwriter Walter Bernstein, who talks about being blacklisted and his friendship with Lumet in a very frank manner.
Criterion also dedicates some time to Reginald Rose, one of the most influential writers in television history. There’s a fantastic interview with Simon, curator of the Paley Center for Media, about Rose’s contributions throughout the 1950s and ’60s. Also included is the first Rose/Lumet collaboration, 1956’s Tragedy in a Temporary Town, starring a young Lloyd Bridges. Rounding out this excellent supplemental package is a 40-minute interview with cinematographer John Baily on the life and work of 12 Angry Men DP Boris Kaufman that properly positions his work as one of the most important in film history, citing his brilliant use of the close-up as an especially important trademark. Finally, there’s the obligatory theatrical trailer and a booklet featuring an essay by writer and law professor Thane Rosenbaum that further signifies Lumet’s film as a masterwork.
Overall
The explosive qualities and historical importance of Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men are only amplified by Criterion’s stellar Blu-ray release.
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