Twelve Angry Men

The film is based on a play by Reginald Rose (1920-2002), who was an American film and television writer. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica, he "was known for exploring complex social and political issues in teleplays for many of early television’s best dramatic series, including Studio One, for which he wrote Twelve Angry Men (1954)." He was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for the cinema adaptation of Twelve Angry Men, directed by Sidney Lumet in 1957 (it was Lumet's first feature film). 

The cast includes Henry Fonda (1905-1982), an Academy-award winning actor, who co-produced the film with Reginald Rose. Henry Fonda also starred in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Fort Apache (1948) and later in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). He was nominated for an Academy Award for his part as Juror 8 in Twelve Angry Men. Juror 1 was played by Martin Balsam, number 5 by Jack Klugman, and number 3 by Lee J. Cobb.

When it first came out, a New York Times critic called it : "a taut, absorbing and compelling drama that reaches far beyond the close confines of its jury room setting". 
He added : "Director Sidney Lumet, who is making his debut in the movie medium with 12 Angry Men, and Boris Kaufman, an Academy Award-winning camera man, made expert use of a superb cast, which is ingeniously photographed in what normally would have been static situations." 

Indeed, according to a review of the film on the British Film Institute website : "it’s a textbook example of how to exploit supposedly limited resources and use camera, lighting, framing and editing to make a classic film". The writer gives the examples of the "simple tracking shot" in which the jury is introduced or "the one facial shot of the scared, vulnerable – and never heard – accused boy…"

VOCABULARY

screenplay : scénario
directed : réalisé
feature film : long métrage
taut : tendu
compelling : fascinant
to reach far beyond : aller bien au-delà
confines : limites
indeed : en effet
a textbook example : un modèle
lighting : éclairage
framing : cadrage
editing : montage
tracking shot : travelling
scared : effrayé

Twelve Angry Men is a courtroom drama but unlike other films of the same genre, here the audience does not see the trial. We do not hear the defence or the prosecution. We hear about the evidence only through what the different jurors explain while they are deliberating. We briefly hear the judge who explains to the jurors, and therefore to the audience, what is at stake : "Murder in the first degree—premeditated homicide—is the most serious charge tried in our criminal courts […] One man is dead. The life of another is at stake. If there is a reasonable doubt in your minds as to the guilt of the accused …"

The plot revolves around this last remark about "a reasonable doubt". The jurors must unanimously decide whether they are absolutely sure that the defendant is guilty, in which case he will be executed. As juror number 3 says : " We're trying to put a guilty man into the chair where he belongs". By "chair", he means of course the electric chair.

At first only juror number 8 hesitates.  All the other ones agree that the young man who has been accused of murdering his father is guilty : "They proved it a dozen different ways". Number 8 does not say outright that he is convinced the young man is innocent, he just says : " We're talking about somebody's life here. We just can't decide in five minutes." When he is pressed by the other jurors to make up his mind about the defendant's story, he says :"I don't know whether I believe it or not, maybe I don't." Yet, in the end, he manages to convince the other jurors that they need to look at the evidence and think about it before coming to a decision. Juror number 3 is the foil to number 8 and nearly until the end of the film, he says he is sure the boy is guilty : "Everything, every single thing, but I mean everything that took place in that courtroom tells me he is guilty." However, he ends up breaking down and changing his mind.

As they deliberate, the jurors slowly reveal who they are and what motivates their decision. For example, one of the reasons why Juror number 3 is convinced the defendant is guilty is because of his own difficult relationship with his son.  

Quotations about Twelve Angry Men :
"This is how Sidney Lumet takes a talky, enclosed drama and makes a masterful exercise in screen tension." (British Film Institute)

"In form, 12 Angry Men is a courtroom drama. In purpose, it's a crash course in those passages of the Constitution that promise defendants a fair trial and the presumption of innocence […] This is a film where tension comes from personality conflict, dialogue and body language, not action" (Roger Ebert)

"As the hero talks through the crime and lays out the evidence, the conversations with his fellow jurors work both as a mystery and as a social drama, exposing the ways people’s prejudices influence their opinions." (The New York Times)

"It's a remarkable achievement that the bigotry and stupidity so well established at the outset are so convincingly overcome by a combination of compassion and clear thinking […]  When No 3 is finally crushed by a realisation of his own inadequacy as a father, we are surprised by a feeling of sympathy for him. And the moment when No 10's racist rant prompts the others, slowly, one by one, to leave the table and stand with their backs to him is simply breath-taking." (The Telegraph)
 

VOCABULARY

courtroom: tribunal
unlike : contrairement à
prosecution : accusation
evidence : preuves
at stake : en jeu
charge : accusation
guilt : culpabilité
plot : intrigue
to revolve around : tourner autour, porter sur
outright : catégoriquement
to manage to : parvenir à
foil : faire-valoir
nearly : presque
until : jusqu'à
to break down : s'effondrer
to change one's mind : changer d'avis
talky : verbeux, bavard
enclosed drama : huis clos
masterful : magistral
purpose : but
crash course : cours accéléré
fair trial : procès équitable
to lay out : présenter
achievement : réussite
bigotry : sectarisme, préjugés
at the outset : au début
to overcome : surmonter
to crush : écraser, accabler
rant : diatribe 
to prompt : pousser
breathtaking : à couper le souffle