Film Synopsis For this project I decided to watch 12 Angry Men, a story that focuses on a New York City jury's deliberations in an intense murder case. The movie is set in the 1950’s where a jury of twelve men is sent to deliberate in the first-degree murder trial of an eighteen-year-old from a bad area of town and it is hinted that his ethnicity is not white. If the jury were to decide a guilty verdict, it would mean an automatic death sentence for a child. When the jury begins discussing the trial, it appears to be an open-and-shut case: the defendant has an almost unbelievable alibi with no proof that he was not at the scene of the crime and not even being able to say what movie he had gone to see or what it had been about, a knife that …show more content…
Juror number 8 appears to be the most thoughtful and heroic of those around him, having lots of sympathy for the defendant in this case, he has to uphold his resolve and be willing to fight for the reasonable doubt in this case. Because of this, I believe that he has a strong open aspect to his personality, high level of agreeableness, as well as conscientiousness that provides him with the courage and empathy needed to fight for a young mans life. He doesn’t appear to have any abnormal psychology, because his role in the movie is to maintain a voice of reason while surrounded by people who need a little guidance. Juror number 3, in many ways, is the villain when compared Juror number 8. Juror number 3 is hot tempered and instantly voices his feelings about the simplicity of the case, and how discussion is unnecessary because the boy is obviously guilty. But, it is revealed that Juror number 3 has high prejudices towards this boy because of his problems with his own son. His neuroticism and being low on the scale of agreeableness and conscientiousness mixed with a possible anger or alcohol problem, provide the main conflict for the movie, a fight for what is right and what is wrong and is the last of the jurors to vote not guilty. Juror number 4 is a man of facts, a stock broker who is consistently urging the other jurors not to vote based on their emotions but on the evidence that was presented during the trial. His vote is only swayed when the last eye witness, who claims to have seen the murder, is discredited. His conscientiousness, in this case, is what kept him from seeing reason, even after all other “facts” were proven to be doubtful, he held his resolve until every single detail of the case were absolutely proven incorrect. Juror
Similarly ,In Twelve Angry Men Juror 8 is a smart and moral juror who is willing to stand against all the other jurors for what he thinks is right. He is the main protagonist who believes a boy accused with murdering his father deserves a discussion prior to a guilty verdict. Although all the other jurors initially voted guilty, juror 8 believed that the jurors should not “send a boy off to die without talking about it first”(Juror 8, 12). Throughout the play Juror 8 combats the pressure from the other Jurors to just vote guilty and manages to convince his fellow Jurors one by one that there in fact is “reasonable doubt”(Judge, 6) and convinces them to arrive at a “not guilty”(Juror 3, 72) verdict. Reginald Rose extols Juror 8’s pursuit of justice through his success. Not only did Juror 8 stand by his principles and have the courage to stand against all the other Jurors, he also had the wits to convince his fellow jurors to change their verdict. Through these actions Juror 8 brings justice to the courts of New York city saving the life of a young boy.
‘Twelve angry men’ shows that personal experience is the strongest factor influencing human decision-making processes.’ Discuss
The 8th Juror was realistic because as everyone else rushed to their decision on the case, he decided to stop and take time out for reasoning. He did not know whether the boy was truly innocent or guilty but voted innocent because he wanted an opportunity to assess the evidence. The expert in Twelve Angry Men was actually the 8th juror because of his courage and knowledge to examine things
Juror 3 was basing his failed relationship with his son on the accused boy. The reason that he had such a bad relationship with his son is because when the boy was young, he ran away from a fight and Juror 3 said: “I’m going to make a man out of you or I’m going to bust you up into little pieces trying”. Later on, when his son was older, they got into a fight and Juror 3 hasn’t seen him since. This experience probably left him the impression that all kids take their loved ones for granted, and that they deserve severe punishments. Juror 3 is not the type to provide the sharpest evidence or information, but he is very determined to prove that the accused really did murder the victim. Juror 8 practically gives nothing away about his real life, probably because he did not want to add his own prejudices to the case. Juror 3 gave both his ill-mannered personality and bigotry away in the play.
Finally, Juror 8 had a huge impact on this story. Juror 8 was very insightful with his opinions and evidence. He gave himself the ability to change the minds of eleven men and save the innocent life of one. Juror 8 was the only man out of 12 who decided to look deeply into the murder case and find little pieces of evidence that everyone else seemed to miss and used that to prove his points. For example, no one would have thought about how the woman who claimed she saw the murder from across the street may have not had perfect vision. Juror 8 found little details to prove that, like how she had marks from her glasses and may not have been wearing them when she looked outside. Not even the lawyers had thought about that and most little things like that were why the young boy was almost sent to his death. Juror 8 was a true hero and stood up to his own opinion and points even when others didn’t agree with him.
12 Angry Men is about 12 men who are the jury for an 18 year old accused of murder. The judge states in the opening scene that it is a premeditated murder in the 1st degree, if found guilty will automatically receive the death penalty. The 18 year old male is accused of killing his father with a “one of a kind” switch blade, in their home. The prosecutors have several eye witness testimonies, and all of the evidence that they could need to convict the 18 year old male. In the movie it takes place on the hottest day of the year in New York City. There are 12 jurors whom are to decide if the evidence is enough to convict the teen of murder in the first degree. In the first initial vote it is 11-1. The only way that the jurors could turn in
In Reginald Rose’s 12 Angry Men there is a clear juror whom swayed the others and directly expressed his ideas. He is a “gentle man...who wants justice to be done.” Juror no.8 is the hero as his initial choice to vote not guilty locks in the boy's fate of escaping a life of prison and punishment; not excluding his persuasiveness and ideology of the morality of the other jurors. Juror no.8 single handedly voted against the grain and convinced other jurors of his logical reasons ‘it’s not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy of to die before talking about it first’. It was heroic of him to stand out against the others and the dramatic conclusion greatly attributed to his significant factor as the vote sway from 11-1 guilty to 12-0 for not guilty. Juror no.8 helped conveyed to the other jurors the boy's innocence. Persuading jurors in a chill mannerism whist jurors 3 and 10 were angry and impatient. Over the case juror no.8 was calm and reviewed the evidence taken from the prosecution and it's flaws. Juror no.8 constantly reviewed the evidence with other jurors presenting logical
The classic movie 12 Angry Men opens with clips of a courthouse, ultimately panning to a specific court room where an 18-year-old boy is on trial for killing his father. Despite the case being the central point which the story revolves around, the movie isn’t about the boy or even his father. The movie is about the 12 jurors who are in charge of the boy’s fate. If they decide he is guilty, he is sentenced to the death penalty, which meant death by the electric chair.
Juror number three is an arrogant, self-minded and extremely ambiguous has had a personal experience in his life, that’s why he wants the boy dead. His son ran away from a fight when he was nine. “ I saw him. I was so ashamed I almost threw up.” Then when he was older the boy then hit him in the face and he has never seen him since. This puts a pre- judged view inside of his head. In the end he thinks to himself that it is not his son that is on trial therefore he can not treat him like that. He can’t hate all teenagers because of his son. Juror number ten is similar to number three in
Initially, Juror 8 stands alone during the first vote. For clarification, he doesn’t cower and change his initial vote when he notices that all the other people in the room are against him. Eight didn’t succumb to peer pressure and made it his duty to ensure everyone else sees what he does. Second, Juror 5 changed his vote from “guilty” to “not guilty” because he realised how much the accused has in common with his own upbringing. For instance, both of them grew up in the slums and were often negatively stereotyped. People tend to agree with others if they find something that they have in common. Lastly, Juror 11 called Juror 7 out for misusing his freedoms as an American citizen and his responsibilities as a Juror of the court. Being that Juror Seven only changed his vote because he had tickets to a play, Juror 11 was enraged, mainly because not everyone has the same opportunities as they do at the moment. When Juror 11 lived in Europe, he never had opportunities like this so he was taking it seriously, especially because the life of someone else was in jeopardy. Quite often literature mirrors real life, as is the case with the recent shooting in Las Vegas when complete strangers risked their own safety or put their own lives on hold to help when others were in
Juror #8 is a calm and reasonable man which makes it easier for him to judge the case fairly and justly without any prejudice. Juror #8 never said he believed the defendant to be innocent he only wanted to take the role of being a juror seriously and talk about the case before a young boy is sent off to die. “I’m not trying to change your mind it’s just that we’re talking about somebody’s life here… we can’t decide in five minutes.” Because he brings no prejudice in the jury room he is able to look at the facts and carefully decide on his judgement. Juror #8 recognizes other peoples prejudice and tries not to convince them that the boy is innocent but to have them let go of that prejudice and decide based on the facts whether they truly believe the defendant is guilty or not. Rose uses both juror
A story that takes place during summer in a blazing hot jury room, filled with twelve hot-tempered men, is the defendant really guilty? In 12 Angry Men, by Reginald Rose, a young boy is accused of killing his own father ruthlessly with a knife. It is now the duty of the twelve jurors to corroborate and come up with a fair verdict. Some jurors uses emotion to deal with the case, while others uses logic and provided strong evidence to support their claim. Juror Four and Juror Eight are similar in the way that they are both open-minded, take the trial seriously, and they also uses logic to analyze problems.
He plays the role of 'appointed leader', or the individual who is assigned the leader position from the onset. A simple man who clearly does not understand the complexity of the task that lies before him but is trying to do everything not to let anyone else find this out. He appears at ease only once during the film ' when he talks about football. He has the misfortune to be selected Foreman of the jury ' a task he clearly does not enjoy. Juror #2 is a small, quite man who is clearly unaccustomed to giving his own opinion much less to expecting his views to be of any importance. In his subdued 'observer' and meek 'information giver' role, No. 2 apparently finds comfort in his job ' he is an accountant. Juror # 3 is probably the most complex personality in the film. He starts off like a pleasant self-made successful businessman, analyzing the case impartially, explaining the arguments well and is reasonably self-assured. As time goes on he becomes more and more passionate exploding in disbelieving anger and seems somehow to be personally involved with the case. His motivation for behaving as he does is revealed when he discloses that he's not on good terms with his own son. Illusions to his animosity toward youth were made when he says that kids today have no respect and that he has not see his son in over a decade. No.3 namely plays the 'aggressive', 'dominator' and 'blocker' roles. His personal baggage with his own son 'blocked' or
The first juror was the foreman. He was the task leader of the group, taking initiative to sit the people down, numbering them, and telling the jurors when they could go on breaks. This juror goes over the process and rules the men will be using, and sets up the first voting. He also tries to keep the jurors on task and organized. Juror 2 is anxious man. This juror was easily persuaded to change his opinion about the case and tended to have the same opinion of the person who spoke before him. He played the role of a tension releaser which was seen when he offered the men cough drops in tense situations. Juror 3 is temperamental, opinionated, strong, loud, biased, stubborn and intolerable man. This man does not want to hear the opinions of the other jurors and is sure that the boy is guilty. He plays the part of the central negative in the group. When he doesn’t like what other people are saying he begins to yell and challenges that person speaking. He began to be dominating and blocking towards the end. Even though he did not have a statement to backup his vote, he stood alone just because he didn’t want to be proved wrong. His own problems with his son abandoning him also
Juror three is a stubborn and short-tempered person. Juror three made solid sentiments in the beginning, which actively kept him involved in the discussion but he started losing control as the discussion continued. Because he disliked Juror eight, the argument between them strengthened the discussion. His loud and demanding personality made jurors go against his claim because his rage was intolerable by others. Later in the discussion, it was also revealed that he had a poor relationship with his own son, which led to believe that this was one of the causes to his intolerance against the suspect. When Juror three understood that he is only presenting an insight of his feelings regarding his own son onto the suspect, he changed his decision.