I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
-Socrates (a pretentious but relevant person to quote)
Lumet opens with a slow pan up the domineering face of the New York Supreme Court, following massive, impersonal columns to the chiseled words above them: "Administration of Justice is the Firmest Pillar of Good." An entire essay could be written on the excision of the rest of the phrase, which is "The true administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government," but we'll refrain in the interest of space. There are no people in this shot; justice, then, looking at this classical architecture, this lack of the human element, becomes an entity of cold rationality, ancient and infallible, held up by corinthian columns. And why shouldn't it be? Justice is the arbiter of truth.
We cut to a wonderful long take of the motion inside the courthouse. Nothing extraordinary seems to be going on. The camera follows a few men walking through the halls, we see a group celebrating something, presumably a legal victory, and the guard who quiets them down. Court is in session. In the courtroom the judge looks bored by his own words. He sums up the jury's duty mechanically, in a speech he must give dozens of times a day. The defendant, a young looking 18-year-old, has been accused of murder. The sentence, should a guilty verdict be reached, is death. And so the jury files off into deliberation and the film I love begins.
The ensuing story does not concern itself with blind justice. Rather, 12 Angry Men is concerned with what constitutes reasonable doubt, with motivation, with the dismantling of preconceived notions, with the power of dialogical discovery, and, most importantly, with people—intelligent and stupid, wise and rash, empathetic and uncaring: imperfect. The jury needs a unanimous vote, and all are ready to convict the boy, all but Juror #8, wonderfully played by Henry Fonda, who believes that, yes, the evidence against the defendant is strong, but there should at least be more discussion before putting someone to death. And no shit Henry Fonda is great in this movie, anyone could guess that. He's Henry Fonda, praising him is pretty redundant. More notable is Lee Cobb's performance as an embittered father alienated from his son. That shit kicks ass. Consistency of tone? More like consistency of shut up this is a blog.
As the narrative unfolds, we begin to see the individuals behind the initially impersonal idea of justice. What would bring them to accept the evidence so readily? It becomes evident that, perhaps, defendants in this so-called fair system are not necessarily innocent until proven guilty in the minds of those who control their fates. We examine in moving depth the preconceptions each juror brings with him, and begin to understand that justice may not be simply about Truth in some metaphysical sense. All have heard the evidence, some have accepted it with more rational reasons than others, but none, excluding Juror #8, have examined the evidence critically—none have bothered to question what they were told.
I love 12 Angry Men because it's not a film about truth. Whether the defendant is guilty bears no relevance on the action. What matters is doubt—the ability to look inside and outside ourselves and realize that we don't know everything. We can't know everything. In that ignorance is the beauty of being human. Our joys, our fears, our loves, our pains, all of them are bound in the beautiful ignorance that comprises us. We grow with every passing second, absorbing the information around us and becoming ourselves anew as we experience the world. Being is becoming, constantly changing and unstable. 12 Angry Men allows us to experience this process from an external perspective, watching as the jurors reexamine the truth as it is presented and, in the process, become. Beyond being a film about doubt, about the prejudice and anger and self-service and judgement we harbor inside ourselves, 12 Angry Men is a film about being. What is it to live in the world as political, social, communicative beings? How does that world attempt to shape us? How can we resist it, if at all? The value of doubting the world around us and the person inside us is immeasurable, and 12 Angry Men's presentation thereof is a priceless gift.
