Twelve Angry Men
Aug. 12th, 2017 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerIt's been a couple months since I've been to the ArtCraft theater, but yesterday marked our triumphant return! We went to see Twelve Angry Men, which it turned out that most of our party had seen before, but after all it's not a hardship to see Twelve Angry Men again.
The politics have not worn all that well, admittedly. There's a certain smugness about some scenes, like you can feel the screenwriters patting themselves on the back for their liberalism - which, from the perspective of 2017, just makes their blind spots more glaringly obvious and oddly less forgivable. It's a movie about a jury of twelve white guys! No one in the movie thinks that jury composition might be a problem in any way. You are not as enlightened as you think so wipe that smug smirk off your face, director.
And there's also something off-putting about Henry Fonda's character, who doesn't actually start laying out his arguments for the defendant's possible innocence until after he calls for a second vote - and promises that, if the jury is still 11-1 for conviction, he'll switch his own vote to match. Maybe at least begin to lay out your argument before you make that promise, Henry Fonda.
But despite the smugness of it, the story-telling is top-notch. You've got twelve guys stuck in one room and the whole movie just stays there, and yet the pacing never flags. And all the guys - even though they don't even have names, just juror numbers - quickly develop into individual and interesting characters. It feels genuine when they change their minds and begin to vote "not guilty."
And there's a certain - faith in humanity, or naivete, or something, that is touching and painful when watching the movie in 2017. One of the jurors goes off on a racist rant about "those people," and one by one almost all the other jurors get up and turn their backs on him. "Listen to me! Listen," the ranter implores, and one of the other jurors says firmly, "I have. Now sit down and don't open your mouth again."
And he does. He goes and sits in the corner - literally in the corner! - and doesn't speak for the rest of the movie.
I once read an essay (I've long since forgotten where) that described this as the progressive's dream - that someday the racists, indeed the prejudiced in general, will just sit themselves down in the corner and shut up. Will, in fact, vote "not guilty" with the rest of the jury, shamed into group conformity if not actual repentance - rather than popping back up like an evil jack in the box to vote "guilty," determined the hang the jury if he can't make them hang the defendant.
The politics have not worn all that well, admittedly. There's a certain smugness about some scenes, like you can feel the screenwriters patting themselves on the back for their liberalism - which, from the perspective of 2017, just makes their blind spots more glaringly obvious and oddly less forgivable. It's a movie about a jury of twelve white guys! No one in the movie thinks that jury composition might be a problem in any way. You are not as enlightened as you think so wipe that smug smirk off your face, director.
And there's also something off-putting about Henry Fonda's character, who doesn't actually start laying out his arguments for the defendant's possible innocence until after he calls for a second vote - and promises that, if the jury is still 11-1 for conviction, he'll switch his own vote to match. Maybe at least begin to lay out your argument before you make that promise, Henry Fonda.
But despite the smugness of it, the story-telling is top-notch. You've got twelve guys stuck in one room and the whole movie just stays there, and yet the pacing never flags. And all the guys - even though they don't even have names, just juror numbers - quickly develop into individual and interesting characters. It feels genuine when they change their minds and begin to vote "not guilty."
And there's a certain - faith in humanity, or naivete, or something, that is touching and painful when watching the movie in 2017. One of the jurors goes off on a racist rant about "those people," and one by one almost all the other jurors get up and turn their backs on him. "Listen to me! Listen," the ranter implores, and one of the other jurors says firmly, "I have. Now sit down and don't open your mouth again."
And he does. He goes and sits in the corner - literally in the corner! - and doesn't speak for the rest of the movie.
I once read an essay (I've long since forgotten where) that described this as the progressive's dream - that someday the racists, indeed the prejudiced in general, will just sit themselves down in the corner and shut up. Will, in fact, vote "not guilty" with the rest of the jury, shamed into group conformity if not actual repentance - rather than popping back up like an evil jack in the box to vote "guilty," determined the hang the jury if he can't make them hang the defendant.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-13 03:53 am (UTC)Jack Klugman's is the one I remember most vividly, though I couldn't tell you what number he was. I haven't seen the movie in years.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From: