One angry woman vs. "12 Angry Men"?

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 2006)

12 Angry Men (1957)****
In 1957. following five films were in the competition for the Best Picture Academy Award: David Lean's "Bridge on the River Kwai", Joshua Lagan's "Sayonara", Mark Robson's "Peyton Place", Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men" and Billy Wilder's "Witness for the Prosecution". Pretty impressive list. Not surprisingly, Oscar went to Bridge
The last two (12 Angry Men and Witness for the Prosecution) were both exciting and intense courtroom dramas. 12 Angry Men, written by Reginald Rose, was about 12 jurors with not an easy task  to decide whether a young man is guilty or innocent on the charge of murder. Their decision must be unanimous. Witness for the Prosecution was a complex, unpredictable and full-of-surprises mystery from the novel written by famous Agatha Christie. Both excellent movies.
Somewhere I read that Agatha Christie once said something like:12 Angry Men is an awfully stupid movie because it is not operating with the facts but only with the jurors' presumptions. I don't know whether she really said that (she'll excuse me if not) but this is rather pseudo-argument.
Although it is true that the jurors are operating rather with "ideas" than "facts" in this film this is certainly not a flaw or weakness.
Almost everything seems clear after the trial and jurors vote 11:1 for "guilty". Only, juror #8 (Henry Fonda) votes "innocent" not because he think he is but because he think that the boy deserves some discussion. Slowly, toward the end, one by one, all judges change their votes as a result of a long, intense discussions and quarrels.
These discussions are the battle of nerves, personal observations, prejudices, moralities  in a word  characters. Because there is a little fact, jurors are forced to project their own perspectives. This is very significant, since it is happening in all courts and among all judges.
While all the judges, one by one, reveal their thoughts, there is absolutely brilliant, detailed and consistent character development in this film. Also, since the judges are from the various backgrounds there's a superb representation of American society. In addition with the great directorial effort from Lumet (in his debut!), who made great atmosphere using special lenses, long cadres and extracting the maximum from the actors, we have a truly unforgettable film.
Agatha Christie maybe created the great plot (also clever dialog) in Witness for the Prosecution, but "12 Angry Men" is digging much deeper.