12 Angry Men Analysis

The film 12 Angry Men (1957) presents 12 white jurors, each from diverse backgrounds, faced with delivering a unanimous verdict and potential death penalty in the murder trial of an 18-year-old minority boy.  From the initial verdict vote, some hesitation exists from a few Jurors seen following the votes of their peers.  Multiple conflicts develop after that first vote and Juror 8 spends most of the film negotiating through multiple conflicts, aided by the growing support of other jurors.  His attempts at influence is initially met with confrontation, but crumbles with each juror realizing they can no longer prove the defendants guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Of the 8 methods of influence defined in Blackboard; reason, pressure, coalition building, consultation, claiming legitimacy, and exchange appear often throughout the film.  Later, we’ll discuss the negation processes used to navigate through the multiple conflicts between the jurors.  

        Reason and Pressure are the most prevalent methods of influence perceived throughout the film, and in many cases accompany each other.  In terms of influence, reason is an appeal to logic and rational thinking.  Pressure involves threatening or intimidating behavior in order to influence one’s opinion.  (Blackboard, pg. 23)  Following the first public vote on the verdict, we’re introduced to Juror 8 whose lone dissention is countered with pressure from several jurors to defend his position.  He resorts to reason with the group with statements like, “I just want to talk about it first” and, “Well there were 11 votes for guilty, it’s not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.”  His sincerity was met with more direct pressure from juror 7 who has tickets to a ballgame.  He then reasons with, “I’m not trying to change your mind, we’re talking about somebody’s life here” and “let’s take an hour, the ballgame doesn’t start until 8 o’clock.”  Juror 8 counters each juror’s pressure with reason.  And, with juror 4’s use of reason by listing the key facts as he viewed them in numerical order.  After the foreman asks for other jurors’ opinions, juror 9 expresses his willingness to sit for an hour and others silently agree to discuss.  When juror 10 tries to change the subject, juror 8 pressures the group by raising his voice with “that’s not why we’re sitting here,” but immediately returns to reason why they should discuss further.  Juror’s 3 and 11, who coincidentally were the last to change their opinions, deliver the most aggressive pressure throughout the film.  They also appear to use pressure and reason together to methodically list their reasons, or the facts as they viewed them.  Juror 3 initially responds harshly with “They proved it a dozen different ways. Do you want me to list them?” and is greeted with more reasoning by juror 8.  Later in the film the pressure climaxes with juror 8 uses pressure to exclaim “You want to see this boy die because you personally want it—not because of the facts!” Immediately after juror 3 threatens him, juror 8 calmly returns to rational thought by softly stating, “You don't really mean you'll kill me, do you?”  

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